Walking over, I opened the back door for Lily, who launched herself at me. I swung my girl around in a circle, peppering her freckled cheeks with kisses.
“Daddyyyyyyy,” she protested though she was giggling.
“I haven’t seen you all day,” I said, putting her back on her feet. “I missed you.”
“I missed you.”
“How was dance?” I asked, taking her hand and pulling her around the front to greet Sutton, who took my other hand. Then I walked my girls up to the house.
“Amazing,” she gushed. “Ialmostnailed my aerial.”
“Lils!” I exclaimed. “That’s amazing, baby girl.”
“She’ll get it next class for sure,” Sutton said, grinning down at our daughter.
“Get what next class?” Mama asked when we stepped inside, approaching us, though she bypassed me and Sutton for Lily.
“My aerial!” Lily told her grandma excitedly.
“Oh, I can’t wait to see!” Mama replied with equal enthusiasm as she pulled Lily deeper into the house.
As the family had grown, Mama decided to expand the informal dining room, creating room for not one but two tables—one for the adults and one for the kids—with plenty of space to move around and a large fridge she kept stocked with drinks and leftovers.
The room was already chaotic when we walked in. Noah sat at the kids’ table, head bent over a LEGO set he and a few of his cousins had been working on the last few times we’d come over. Mama let Lily go, and she bounded over to sit between a few of my nieces, immediately launching into conversation about this book series they were reading together.
Kids content, I turned my attention to the adult table, where Crew and Aspen, and Finn and Reagan sat.
“Where are the other two?” I asked, referencing my missing siblings.
Well, the ones that lived here anyway. Owen, of course, was still in Michigan with Delia and their four kids, and Aria and her husband had their home base in Tennessee—though they traveled a lot and were rarely there.
Mama shrugged. “On their way, I’m assuming. Help me start bringing stuff in.”
The six of us obliged, carrying in platters of food—doubles of everything, half to one table, half to the other—and setting them down the centers.
Trey and West soon arrived with their wives and kids, and we dug in. After we finished, the kids headed outside to play what was sure to be an elaborate and competitive game of flashlight tag, and us adults settled in the den with a nightcap.
As the conversation flowed around me, I tugged Sutton deeper into my side, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
She shifted to look up at me. “You’re quiet tonight.”
“Just taking it all in.”
Her eyes glinted as she smiled. “You happy, Chief?”
“Very. I’m the luckiest man in the world, sunny.”
three
. . .
LANE
A distant beepingpermeated my consciousness, getting sharper by the second.
As I rose from asleep to awake, I knew one thing for certain: this world was not the same one I’d left.
All sense of peace I’d had moments before was replaced by excruciating pain. I tried to breathe through it, but that seemed to only make it worse. Each inhalation set my chest ablaze, like someone pressing a hot poker to my lungs.
