Ilooked up from the letter to find Alex’s blue eyes swimming in unshed tears. How he managed to hold them back, I didn’t know, because my tears fell freely down my cheeks. He swiped one away with the pad of his thumb.
“I would have liked to meet your mom in person,” I managed to rasp out past the emotion clogging my throat. She sounded lovely, like the fairy-tale mother who kissed your skinned knees and made you brownies for the first day of school.
“She’d love you.” Alex leaned over, and I wrapped my arms around him and just held him.
When the tears subsided, we dried our eyes and looked at the items placed on the sofa table.They were so colorful compared to Alex’s apartment—a testament to the way his mother had colored her life and how the joy had seeped out of him at her death. “I don’t think these should be in a box.” I leaned forward and straightened one of the canvases so it lined up with the edge of the table better. “What if we hung them up?”
“Here?” Alex looked around, taking in the blank walls and sparsity he came home to every night. I seriously felt bad for sending him home after each of our previous dates. If I’d known what he was walking into, I would have insisted he stay with me and Becca—on the couch. At least we had life in our place, even if it wasn’t as big and fancy as Alex’s building.
Alex bobbed his head. “I think I’d like that.”
I bumped him with my shoulder. “You think?”
He nodded. “A part of me can’t stand the idea of shoving everything we talked about today away. It’s here now.” He motioned between the two of us. I melted, knowing that I carried a piece of him with me. “And I don’t want it collecting dust. Besides, now that I’ve seen all this stuff, it feels like she’s here with me.”
“Let’s do it.” I put my hands on my knees and shoved to my feet. “Where’s your tools?”
Alex laughed as he got to his feet.
I planted my fists on my hips. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s funny that you think I have tools.”
I squeezed his muscular arm. “You can’t blame me. All this—” I swirled my finger in front of him. “—screams ‘capable with tools.’”
He tugged my belt loop, bringing me closer. “I’d love to see through your eyes. The world must be a beautiful place.”
I cupped his cheek and lifted a saucy eyebrow. “Try this for beautiful.” Lifting up on my toes, I kissed him with passion. He spread his hands over my back and pulled me closer, moaning when I buried my hands in his hair.
When we finally broke apart, gasping for air, there was fire in his eyes. “Okay, hear me out. We can buy tools, or—” His voice went deeper, and a happy thrill raced over my skin. “—stay here and do this for the next two hours.” He trailed kisses across my neck.
I laughed, though the sound was breathy and more of a gasp. “Let’s do tools first and this as a reward for a job well done.”
“Deal.”
I reached for his hand. “Come on.”
He dragged his feet, teasing me. “You’re in a hurry.”
“The sooner we go, the sooner we get back.”
“We could always take a leisurely stroll, maybe stop for dinner somewhere …”
“Alex,” I warned.
He laughed as he scooped me up and raced to the door. I giggled uncontrollably, happiness bubbling out of me. We’d faced his shadow together and come out on top—closer. I prayed that when my shadows reared up, we’d be just as successful. There was a big difference between our pasts, though. Alex’s was finalized through his mother’s passing. Mine lived on.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alex
In the weeks that passed after I opened my mother’s box, life felt different. It was as if the switch to my emotions was suddenly turned back on. Emma was right: I’d been living in a black-and-white world, and like Mom’s paintings on the walls, color flooded my soul.
Which made it all the more amazing that Emma had shone through as light even in my monochromatic world.
I could see why people thought of me as more of a machine than a person—I lacked the emotion that connected me to the rest of humanity. Now it was different. I not only sympathized with my patients when their outlook was bleak; I empathized with them. I discussed treatment options and conveyed realistic expectations, but at the same time I offered options. Performing surgery wasn’t the sum of medical history plus survival rate anymore. There were shades of gray that allowed me to accommodate for individual situations.
My ethics committee review came up, and I made my way to Dr. Anderson’s office, noting the difference in my stance and stress levels from the last time I’d been here. So much change in what seemed like a short amount of time—even though it had been a lifetime in coming.
