“Also that.”
“And you’re thinking about whether he’s going to wake up again in an hour.”
“I’m always thinking about that.”
She traced a circle on my chest. The room was dark, quiet. Alex’s breathing was soft from the bassinet. The bond hummed between us.
“Goodnight, Fin,” she said.
I smiled. Not the jaw twitch, not the professional smile, not the King face. The real one. The one she pulled out of me over three years, one stubborn, snarky, devastating day at a time.
I pulled her closer.
“Goodnight, Andrea.”
— • —
Epilogue
Andrea
Buddy stole his third sandwich off the buffet table and I’d stopped pretending I was going to do anything about it.
Peter was chasing him across the lawn with a paper plate, which was pointless because Buddy was faster than Peter on Peter’s best day and today Peter had already chased him twice and was visibly losing the will to live. Mary was filming the whole thing on her phone and laughing too hard to help.
“Mary, control your husband,” I called.
“He’s not my husband right now. He’s entertainment.”
The lawn was covered in balloons Alex had zero interest in, wrapping paper he liked more than the actual presents, and dogs from the rescue wing wandering between guests stealing food offunattended plates. The orange cat was on top of the drinks table. Nobody had the energy to move her.
Alex was one today. One year old, walking now, barely, more of a controlled forward fall than actual walking, dark curls bouncing, green eyes that Grandma had been right about. He had cake frosting in his hair, on his cheeks, on his shirt, and he was grinning with the four teeth he’d managed to grow so far.
Luca was on babysitting duty. Alex had grabbed his finger twenty minutes ago and hadn’t let go. Luca was following my son around the lawn at a crouch because the baby was mobile now and had no concept of direction or danger. Luca’s face was a mix of terror and devotion that I’d photographed six times.
“He’s not letting go,” Luca called across the lawn, bent in half, trailing after my son like a very large, very reluctant shadow.
“Welcome to fatherhood,” I called back.
“I’m not his father.”
“He doesn’t care. You belong to him now.”
Grandma was on the porch in the rocking chair she’d shipped from Whitebrook, watching everything with the calm satisfaction of a woman who had flown in three days ago and intended to hold her great-grandson for the entire visit. She called him “my baby” and I’d given up correcting her because arguing with my grandmother was a losing game I’d stopped playing around age twelve.
The therapy group sent gifts. A card from Adela that saidProud of you. Now go be the mom that kid deserves.Noisemakersfrom Hallie, which Alex loved and everyone within earshot suffered for. A first aid kit from Tara, because Tara would send a first aid kit to her own funeral.
Finneas was somewhere in the chaos with frosting on his sleeve because Alex had grabbed him ten minutes ago and smeared cake across his arm. He wore it like a medal. I watched him crouch beside Alex, catching him when he wobbled, letting go when he wanted to walk, scooping him up when he tipped face-first into the grass. A year of watching him do that and it still hit me somewhere soft.
I took a break from the noise and walked to the front porch. Not because I was unhappy. Because the volume was a lot, the baby hadn’t napped, and I needed a minute to breathe before Buddy discovered the chicken platter.
I sat on the porch swing. The garden was blooming, peonies along the fence that I planted myself last spring because this was my home now and my mother’s flowers belonged here. They grew in long uneven rows the way she used to grow them in Whitebrook, pink and white, spilling over each other. I touched one of the petals every time I passed.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a letter.
It arrived last week. Margaret’s handwriting on the envelope, forwarded through three addresses because she didn’t know where we lived and had to send it through the pack’s general mail. I’d read it once.
She wrote about regret. About understanding. About hoping that someday Finneas might forgive her. She wrote about Paul, about legacy, about wanting to be a grandmother.
