My mother flicked her wrist toward me. “At all hours of the night, Hollis. Out traipsing the neighborhood like a lost soul—with that yappy mutt and that disgrace of a belly. What if someone saw her?”
Hollis Aden, the first gentleman himself and steadfastly used to being agreeable to his wife, Mayor Vivianne Aden, shook his head as he passed her on the stairwell. “Whatever you say, Vivi.”
I groaned, staring up at both of them. “Shouldn’t you two be off at some New Year’s party? Isn’t it bad for your image that you haven’t left the house since I got home?”
“Now let’s make one thing perfectly clear, Tallulah,” my mother’s voice boomed through the massive house. “Your father and I are embarrassed enough as it is that you would show your face here, in this town, withthatchild who belongs to God knows who in your stomach. To go to a party? To be asked questions about why you are here in this town in the condition you are in? I’d never get reelected again. You fool.”
She turned on her heel, following my father up the stairs. “And don’t forget—you’re a guest in this house. This is no longer yourhome.”
***
I sulked back into the bedroom, which was a virtual time machine to my past. Not a hair out of place since I left at 18.
Same white, wrought iron bedframe. Same floral wallpaper curling at the corners from too many steamy summers. It was the same stiff white carpet that looked clean but felt like walking on needles. Same crippling defeat after a showdown with my mother in the foyer.
I crawled into bed and curled onto my side, facing the muted television where Times Square glittered in grainy, hyperreal joy. Nancy Reagan was snuggled against my stomach, her tiny snores keeping rhythm with the soft thump of baby Aden’s kicks. I held them both like lifelines.
My thumb hovered over my phone, the weight of it suddenly enormous.
Was he watching this, too? Or was he back at the studio—shirt half-unbuttoned, charcoal on his hands from his latest sketch, Sutton’s voice bouncing off the walls while he pretended not to listen? Maybe he was at the bar, stealing a laugh with Magnolia or teasing Lee about their relentless on again off again tryst. Or were they having a party? Was my brother there?
Maybe it didn’t matter where he was. Maybe what mattered was that he was still exactly who he’d always been—steady, dependable, good. And maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t thinking about me at all.
But my God, I was thinking of him.
I missed the way he held me—not like I was breakable, or already broken and needed to be fixed—but like he was anchoring me to a place I didn’t even realize I’d been searching for. A place that felt steady. A place that felt like mine.
I missed his hands, always warm, always steady, never hesitant. The way they found the parts of me I wasn’t sure how to love yet, and touched them like they were already worthy. Like he’d known all along that I deserved to be held gently.
I missed his scent—cedarwood soap and paint thinner, threaded with something warm that clung to my skin long after he was gone. It lingered on my clothes, in the sheets, in the air itself. The kind of thing that made a room feel occupied even when it wasn’t.
And Lord above, I missed his laugh. Not the big, easy one he tossed to his friends like spare change. The other one. The onethat barely made a sound. The one that slipped out when he thought no one was listening—the one he only ever gave to me.
I blinked back the sting of tears and typed it out before I could change my mind.
TALLY:Happy New Year.
Sent.
Delivered.
No response.
The crowd on screen erupted, a thousand voices counting down all at once as the volume on the TV climbed—ten, nine, eight…
I turned it up a little more and let it fill the space.
Seven, six, five…
I kissed my hand and laid it gently over my stomach.
Four, three, two…
“Happy New Year, baby Aden,” I whispered. “I can’t wait to meet you this year.”
One.
The screen exploded with confetti. Music blared, people kissed, and fireworks lit up the world. And I stayed where I was, in a house that had never really been home, holding tight to the only things I hadn’t already lost.
