Jude stands and moves toward the island, leaning against it. “So you let her go instead.”
“It felt like the right thing to do.”
He brings his bottle up to his lips. “For who?”
“For my kids.”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t use them as an excuse. You’re better than that.”
“I’m not using my kids as an excuse.” I take another long swig of scotch.
“Yes, you are!” His voice thunders in the kitchen, seeming to echo around us before falling silent, the only sound that of the ticking clock.
He draws in a deep breath, then says, “Do you remember the nursery?”
“Of course.”
I may not have lived here at the time, but I remember how distraught Jude was after losing his newborn daughter when she was only hours old. I didn’t think he’d ever smile again.
“I kept it the same for years,” he explains. “Didn’t step foot in it. Wouldn’t let Krista touch it. Wouldn’t let her pack up anything. I told myself it was about honoring her. Keeping her memory alive.”
He meets my eyes.
“But in reality I was afraid if we took it down, she’d be gone for good. So I froze. Lived in a house with a ghost. And I lost Krista because of it, too. Because she couldn’t stand being in that house with a ghost.”
I swallow hard, his words hitting me harder than I expected.
“You may have moved here, but you brought Cora’s ghost with you.”
I part my lips, struggling to come up with an argument in my defense.
“You don’t need to forget her.” He pushes off the island and steps toward me, touching a hand to my shoulder. “And you don’t need to stop loving her. But I think it’s time you finally let her go.”
“I have,” I protest weakly.
“Have you?” His voice sharpens, and he releases his hold on me. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re still making decisions based on how to avoid losing her all over again. It wasn’t Rowan that scared you. It waswhat loving her would cost. When you learned she might only have another twenty years, you didn’t see all those hours and minutes you’d be able to make memories.” He holds my gaze steady, not allowing me to avoid the truth in his words. “You saw the end.”
I exhale a long breath and close my eyes.
I can’t even argue. Because the second I learned the truth, all I saw was another hospital bed.
Another funeral.
Another set of small hands gripping mine while I explain why another person we love isn’t coming home.
“Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed for any of us,” Jude says quietly. “Abbey could get hit by a car. I could drop dead of an aneurysm. That hasn’t stopped us from living our lives to the fullest. From loving each other to the fullest.”
“I was just trying to protect my kids.”
“Or were you protecting yourself?”
That lands.
Because beneath all the rationalizations, beneath the statistics and worst-case projections, there’s a simpler truth.
I was scared.
Not of her illness.
