ANYWAYYYY
how are things with dad going?
have y’all talked about what happens after Xmas??
Addie
Maybe you could extend your stay.
If the roads are still bad, I mean.
Sky
yeah!! and you could do new years together
I heard summit ridge does this huge thing with fireworks and food trucks
The messages kept coming, each one landing like a tiny knife between my ribs. They were so excited, so certain that their plan was working. That forcing their parents into close quarters had somehow fixed everything that had broken between us.
Me
We’ll see.
My default was always to say yes. Even if the answer was ninety percent no, I’d perform some kind of emotional sleight of hand—placating them temporarily while hiding the bigger picture. I stared at the screen a moment longer before starting a new message—a longer one, one that would burst their bubble but felt necessary. They needed to understand the reality of the situation.
I know you girls meant well with this whole plan, but I need you to understand?—
I stopped. Deleted it. Started again.
Your dad and I can be friendly, but that doesn’t mean?—
Deleted again. The blinking cursor mocked me with its incompleteness, its inability to capture the impossible situation we’d found ourselves in.
What was I trying to say? That I’d spent two years unsuccessfully trying to figure out who I was without Teddy, only to realize I’d never truly stopped loving him the second I saw his Bronco in the driveway? That I was standing in his kitchen wearing his shirt and drinking his coffee and already grieving the loss of something I’d never actually had? That I just learned that while I’d been treading water in Texas, their father had been building a kingdom in Colorado? That we’d finally, finally talked about Levi, but somehow it had only highlighted everything else we’d never addressed.
The truth was, I didn’t know what to tell the girls. Didn’t knowhow to explain that their parent trap had worked too well, in that it had forced us to finally face each other, finally be honest, finally remember what we’d been before grief and exhaustion and all our failures had turned us into strangers.
And none of it mattered.
Because in four days, I was going home.
16
kelsey
Me
Your dad’s built a life here. He’s the president of the Colorado chapter. We can’t just pretend that doesn’t change everything. We’re not the same people anymore, and I’m just not sure there’s room for?—
“Everything okay?”
I jumped, my thumb hitting send before I could stop it, before I could delete the rambling thought that would definitely cause my daughters to panic. Teddy stood behind me, still shirtless because apparently he was trying to kill me, his expression guarded in that way that meant he’d been standing behind me for longer than I’d realized.
My phone vibrated against my palm. Definitely Addie, reading my half-finished text and drawing conclusions that would require damage control I didn’t have energy for. But I didn’t dare flip it over to check. Not with Teddy standing so close, watching me with a look I couldn’t decipher. Maybe he was waiting for me to discuss the text oracknowledge what I’d seen on the kutte. Or maybe he was just hungry and wondering why I hadn’t started breakfast yet.
“Hey,” he said cautiously. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing.” The word came out clipped, a little too high-pitched to be believable. “Just the girls seeing how we are.”
