He curses under his breath, checking it and then his cell phone. “I’m sorry, Em. I have to go.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Ellie offered to pick me up.”
“I can drop you off,” he says, but I’m already hauling myself out of the car. The hospital is in the opposite direction of our house.
“It’s fine,” I say, pointing to the sad little salad bar next to Dr. Belo’s office. “I’ll grab something while I wait.” I would kill for a meatloaf right now.
He grimaces at the large green banner advertising half-off Caesar salads. He knows hungry me is not exactly a delight.
“I can order you something,” he says softly. “It’ll be there when you get home.”
He’ll mean to—I know he will—but he won’t get the chance. Work will swallow him before he gets the chance, and I’ll find myself hoping it didn’t, hoping for something to show up, but knowing deep down it won’t. I remind myself that it’s not that he doesn’t care. He does. More than anyone I know. But everything else will distract him away from me, even if it’s unintentional, and I’ll be left sad, pregnant, and unfed. A terrible combination.
“Really, it’s fine. I’ll see you tonight,” I say.
I waddle myself across the parking lot and Steven’s gone before I even step inside the salad bar. I don’t realize I’m crying until the cashier asks, “Are you okay, miss?”
I press a hand to my belly, wiping at my nose, and feel a tiny kick in response. Baby’s silent agreement, a quiet little heartbeat telling me what I already know.
No.
No, I am not okay.
Chapter thirty-five
Steven
Whenbadthingshappento a man, like losing his memory, you’d think life would get easier. People would go gentle, let you rest, let you veg out on the couch while your brain tries to reboot. But apparently, I don’t surround myself with those kinds of people.
“Put that over here,” Dad calls from the flatbed.
His version of helping me get my memory back seems to be manual labor. The things I did as a teenager, riding in the back of the truck, freezing my tail off, unloading bags of feed.
“You could help, you know,” I grumble, hoisting the last bag on my shoulder and dropping it where he points.
“I’m too old.”
“What do you do when I’m not here, then?”
He smirks, his white mustache crinkling as fog swirls around his face while he sips from his mug. I shut the barn door, stomp the dirt from my boots, and climb into the truck bed. Dad heads toward the house but stops halfway, right in the middle of the pasture. From here, we can see where the sky kisses the tree line. The setting sun stretches endlessly, casting streaks of orange and gold across the blue. It’s peaceful. Like the land itself has been painted just for us.
“I love it out here,” I say.
“I know you do.” Dad smiles, the kind that says he knows what my head needs better than I do. “Come back up when you’re ready. I need to stretch.”
He leaves the truck running as he climbs out of the cab, his black coffee steaming in the cold air, and heads toward the house. I want to linger, let the sun warm my face, but the cold bites harder than expected, stinging my nose. I soak in the view, praying it’s one I remember forever, and follow him up a few minutes later.
As I pull up, I see Easton and Sawyer chasing their cousins in the front yard with light sabers. Their movements are slow underneath the bulk of jackets and gloves. Someone who doesn’t know them might not be able to tell them apart. But I can, and I can’t help the swell of hope that blooms in my chest that maybe it’s because they’re mine. Memory or not, I know them down to my core. Sawyer is taller; Easton is faster. Sawyer is built like Emma, but Easton thinks like her. I see it in how they move, even with their backs turned.
Emma sits in the rocking chair on the porch, hair in rollers, wearing a white turtleneck that makes my heart skitter. She rocks gently, talking to Josie bundled up in her lap, brushing tiny tufts of hair from her face. I seethe small creases near her eyes when she laughs at something the boys do, the way her head tilts when she notices me in the truck, and she smiles. Above them, the sign my mom hung when I was fourteen hangs lopsided, worn by years of sun and wind and rain.
Our happy home.
I want to inhale the scene like it’s oxygen. The laughter, the soft crunch of boots on frost-hardened grass, the afternoon light pooling across the yard. It’s all mine, this moment. Even if my memory has failed me, this is mine. I watch Emma laugh, and my chest aches with how much I’ve missed her, how much I want her.
Then something hot coils in my chest, spreading through me faster than the truck’s heater ever could. It’s not her. Not the sign. It’s that I still don’t remember any of this. How could I forget someone like her? How could I lose all those years with her in the blink of an eye?
My grip skitters over the steering wheel the harder I squeeze. I rip the work gloves off my hands and rub them together. The cold from the cracked window bites through the cab’s heat, flushing my cheeks. Emma meets my gaze, and her expression shifts as curiosity and concern deepen the faint line between her brows.
