“Man, youaregood at this advice thing,” Cadence said. “Ugh, is leaning on my friends the thing to do?”
“You know,” Eleanor said, “I kind of think it is.”
“So annoying when the answer is right in front of you,” Cadence joked.
“So annoying,” Eleanor agreed. Then she clapped her hands together. “Okay. Pep talk time. Cadence Meadows, you are a tough, competent woman, and you are getting knocked on your butt right now, but you’re going to get back up again. And it’s okay to feel your bruises from getting knocked down.”
“Yes,” Cadence agreed. “Good advice. Okay, now you. You are starting a new business, and that is hard! I took over the gallery when it was already established, and that was hard! But you’ve got me, and you’ve got Diana, and… well, saying you have Miriam is more of a threat than anything else, but you’ve got her too.” They both chuckled. “And yeah, you’ll get through the paperwork. One step at a time.”
“We can do it,” Eleanor said, her tone almost cautious.
“We can do it,” Cadence agreed, a little more boldly.
“We can do it!” Eleanor said with more vigor.
“Even when it feels like nothing is going right,” Cadence said. She sighed the words, but she was smiling too. Confiding in Eleanor hadn’t fixed everything, but it had certainly helped.
“One thing at a time,” Eleanor reminded her gently. “You’re doing that field trip with Isabelle’s class, right? That’s something that’s going to go great. It’s going to be a memory that Izzy is going to hold on to forever. You’re doing great. You’re a great mom.”
Her words brought more tears to Cadence’s eyes. She didn’t try to hide them. After all, she was going to keep her new resolution to lean on her friends… and to carry their kindness with her.
CHAPTER TEN
For a long time, Tyler had considered one of the best parts of being an electrician that he set his own hours. He’d been able to be home for dinner every night. Until things had gone upside down with him and Cadence, he’d never missed a single bedtime with Izzy. Not one. It had been something of a point of pride that the latest he’d ever knocked off work had been 5:23 in the evening, and that incident had been because of a disaster that risked an actual fire if he hadn’t tended to it immediately.
Now, it was well past six o’clock, and he had no real plans to stop. What was the point? He wouldn’t be heading home to giggle over dinner with his daughter, wouldn’t get to tuck her into bed at night. He wasn’t going to kiss his wife and tell her about his day.
He would just be headed back to an empty apartment. He regretted every time he’d felt overwhelmed by the noise that inevitably came with kids. Now, he disliked nothing more than the echoing silence that came from the absence of childish noise.
He supposed his bank account would thank him for all the extra work he was doing to distract himself, but nothing else about his life was slated to improve from these changes. Hedidn’t have to consider for even a second to know it wasn’t worth it.
He was distracted from checking the soldering on some wires when his phone rang. His dad’s picture, a goofy shot of the two of them on a fishing trip when Tyler was about the age Izzy was now, popped up on the screen.
“Hey, Dad,” he said, putting the phone up to his ear as he made sure that all his tools were powered down. You only had to hear a few horror stories as an electrician to know that double-checking was well worth the effort.
“Hey, kiddo,” his dad said. Tyler might be in his thirties and a father himself, but Rich Meadows would not be shaken from calling his son ‘kiddo.’ “How are you doing?”
“Eh, you know,” Tyler said vaguely, starting to re-pack his toolbox. His dad’s call was as good a sign as any that he should pack it up for the night. He’d be on this project, wiring a new construction that would be a hair salon, for a few more days, so there was no reason to rush. “Just working.”
“Working?” his dad echoed. “Isn’t it kind of late?”
Tyler chuckled at his father’s oh so innocent tone. “Real smooth, there, Dad,” he said.
Rich chuckled too. “Okay, you got me. I’m a little worried about you, son. It seems like you’ve been working a lot lately.”
“I am,” Tyler admitted. “And I know what you’re going to say next too. I know you’re going to tell me that using work to cover up feelings is not a good direction to take. I hear you. I just…”
“Yeah,” his dad said sympathetically. “Yeah, you’re going through it, aren’t you, kid?”
For a moment, Tyler considered putting on a brave face, but then he realized that this was his dad he was talking to. Rich Meadows wasn’t about to let any child of his get away with such a blatant falsehood, and no doubt it would feel better to tell the truth, the full truth.
“I miss them so much, Dad,” he said, not bothering to hide the pain in his tone. “I just… I know, logically, how things went wrong between me and Cadence, but every time I think about her, I just think…” He sighed, trying to put this aching feeling into words. “I guess it just seems worse apart than together. It can’t be better to hurt alone, can it?”
His dad gave a thoughtful hum before answering. “Well, have you said any of that to Cadence?”
Tyler grimaced. “I… no. Not in so many words. And maybe I should. Probably I should. But what if doing that makes things worse for her?”
He thought back to the years of fertility struggles he and Cadence had experienced. For him, the pain had been emotional, ongoing, and very real. For Cadence, it had been all those thingsandit had been physical. She’d tried to eat the perfect diet to promote fertility, had worried that she was doing something wrong that had led to their ongoing struggles. And then she’d worried that worryingwasthe thing she’d been doing wrong, like her body sensed it was too stressed to add the complication of a pregnancy to her plate.
