“I don’t believe you, but...” I heard the cry of a baby in the background, and my stomach clenched. My son would have been six years old this year.
“Go take care of that baby. I’ll talk to you later.” I hesitated a moment before adding, “I love you, Dev.”
“Love you too, Morgan.” Her voice was sad. I knew she’d heard me sniffling. The tears fell unbidden now.
I disconnected the call and looked out the window of my office. School had started back a week ago. He would have been in the same class as Sugar’s little boy, Sean.
Losing Jude was hard. It was a pain I wasn’t prepared for. One I never thought I’d experience. But losing my son... that ripped out my heart. A heart I no longer had.
I lived a life of fiction. Always the fun one, the one ready for a night of drinking and dancing. It was all a ruse. A mask I wore so no one would ever know what was really going on inside me.
Despair so deep I thought I’d never crawl my way out. Devlyn tried; she threw me a lifeline to hold on to, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing short of a time machine would ever be enough to heal the pain and sadness.
So I played the part of the carefree businesswoman. My mother was the bridge, the only one who truly knew what I had been through.
Except my brother knew.
A brother who held me while I cried at the loss of my husband, his best friend. A brother who saved my life when he found me unconscious and bleeding on the floor. A brother who once again held me as I cried at the loss of my son.
The last thread that held Jude to this world.
Gone.
I couldn’t protect him. I couldn’t save him. He followed his father into the afterlife. Leaving me here to pick up the pieces of my shattered heart. Some of those pieces were still in Arkansas.
Maybe that was the reason I’d never been able to move on. My heart wasn’t whole; it never would be again. I’d tried, well, sort of. I’d slept with Gunner a few times, the well-named whore of Rosewood. He was older, safer because he wasn’t looking to settle down.
Not until Sarah came along.
They were well matched, despite the ginormous age gap. Jude and I had an age gap. It was only eleven years. Sure, I was twenty-two when we married, and some people might think that was too young, but I was in love.
I was still in love.
So, I’d had a fling with Gunner, knowing there was no risk of catching feelings. No risk of giving up the love that was held so tightly by a man I would never see again.
Grabbing a tissue, I blew my nose. Then I gathered up the papers and walked to my mother’s office, leaving them on her desk. I needed to get out of here. Go somewhere quiet; somewhere I could cry and grieve.
I drove out to Rosewood Lake and parked my car. I sat there for a few minutes and stared out the windshield. There were so many things I’d wanted to do with my little family. The excitement at showing Jude my hometown had faded quickly when King stood in our small apartment and told me he was gone.
The apartment the club didn’t know about.
Because the club didn’t know about me.
I watched the breeze ripple across the water, and I cried for the days that would never come. Walking along the water’s edge, Jude and I holding the hand of a little boy who squealed when we lifted him in the air. Hearing his tiny voice yell out, “Again!”
Spreading a blanket out on the ground, a basket filled with sandwiches and drinks. Jude and I snuggled on the blanket as we watched my mother play with her grandson.
I could see it all so clearly. Our life would have been in Arkansas, but vacations would have been in Rosewood. Summers swimming in the lake, winters skiing the slopes. Sitting by the fire in the Rosewood Lodge, talking with friends. Sharing memories of my childhood with him. Then retiring to our room, spending the evening in each other’s arms.
Maybe by now our son would have had a little brother or a sister. It was a fantasy. One I’d clung to for so long. One I’d held in my hands for a few short months. A fantasy that had vanished in the blink of an eye with an explosion, and a life-threatening complication no one could have predicted.
Seven years.
Two thousand five hundred and fifty-five days of grief that never faded. Pain that never receded, and wounds that never healed.
Healing that would never come.
How did you heal from losing the love of your life? How did you heal from losing a child you never got to hold? How did you go on living after your life ended?
