“Then maybe he wasn’t the one meant to be with you.” She tilted her head to meet my eyes. “But something tells me this one’s fighting battles you don’t even know about yet. Give it time, Chrissy-girl. But not too much.”
I swallowed hard.
“It doesn’t feel that simple.”
“Love never is,” she said simply. “But worry won’t bring them home any faster. Sit with me and let me tell you about the birds outside.”
I followed her gaze to the feeder. A pair of cardinals flitted back and forth, the male’s red feathers bright against the dull winter branches.
“That one’s James,” Granny said, pointing with a crooked finger. “He’s been coming every morning since summer. Thinks he owns the place.”
I smiled despite myself.
“And the female?”
“That’s Evelyn. She lets him think he’s in charge, but we both know better.”
She winked, the expression so familiar it punched the air from my lungs.
For a while, we just watched them in silence. I fed her small bites of the soft lunch the nurses brought: mashed potatoes and gravy, her favorite when she could still cook it herself. She chewed slowly, eyes distant, then bright again.
“My Joe disappeared on me once,” she said suddenly, voice soft. “Went off to Korea thinking he was protecting me by not saying goodbye to me properly. Came back missing half his left arm and all of his laugh for a long time.” She squeezed my hand. “Don’t let your man make the same mistake, Chrissy-girl. If he’s fighting something big, he needs to know you’re still in his corner.”
I hadn’t thought about Grandpa Joe’s war injury in a long time, but Granny mentioning it made my throat tight.
I swallowed hard, tears pricking.
“He lied to me, Granny, in the worst possible ways.”
She hummed, brushing a strand of hair from my forehead like I was eight again.
“People lie when they’re scared they’ll lose what matters most. Doesn’t make it right. Just makes it human.”
I helped her with her afternoon meds, adjusted the faded quilt I’d brought her last Christmas, and brushed her hair until it gleamed silver in the weak light. When she dozed off mid-hum of some old hymn she couldn’t remember the words to anymore, I tucked the blanket higher under her chin and pressed a kissto her forehead, lingering because these lucid days were slipping away faster than I could count.
All the while, my worry gnawed deeper. Lucia was in danger. Ben and Henry were off the grid, and I had no idea when they were coming back. The ransacked lodge loomed in my mind like a violent question mark, and Vivian’s deadline ticked ever closer. Christmas Eve was just two days away, now.
When I finally kissed Granny goodbye and drove home as dusk fell, I whispered it into the empty car like a plea:
“Where the hell are you, Ben? We’re running out of time.”
The words echoed in the empty car, swallowed by the hum of the engine and the slap of wipers against light drizzle.
I was scared — bone-deep scared — that Lucia was hurt somewhere, hiding from a man who’d finally snapped. Scared that Ben and Henry had handled it in a way that couldn’t be undone. Scared that Ben had read my note at the lodge, seen how worried I was, and still chosen silence because he’d decided I was better off without him.
Most of all, I was scared that by Christmas Eve, Vivian would win, and the man who’d written eight pages of raw truth would lose the only home he had left.
Ben
December 22, 7:30 PM
When I woke the next day to the realization that I’d slept on Henry’s couch for more than twenty hours straight, I pushed to my feet, biting back a groan as my side flared. The room tilted for a second. Henry’s hand shot out, steadying me with a grip like iron.
“Take it slow, son,” he said. “You took a knife to the ribs, and then some asshole donkey-kicked you in said wound and busted it open, forcing me to stitch you up for the second time in the space of a week.”
“I noticed,” I grunted. “Helps me remember I’m still alive. Why the fuck did you let me sleep for so long when you know we’re running out of time on the marriage clause?”
Henry shot me a stern look.
