So you tell yourself…
“I thought Jack was here until the weekend.” Rohan’s feet dangled from the sofa. He still had his Paw Patrol sneakers on his feet as he clunked them against the upholstery. April hadn’t said a word about it, what with the whole impromptu Jack goodbye going on.
Trying to reconcile her body’s odd reaction to Jack’s abrupt departure to what she knew she had to do was brewing a headache. The full-body kind of headache.
“Things change, baby.” April fussed with Harmony’s lucky ring, bending and twisting it on her finger. “Sometimes they change quickly.”
Boy, oh boy, did she know that.
Rohan frowned, but he nodded. “I know.”
Good. This was good. He understood. Yay. One kid down, one to go. That’d be Harmony who wouldn’t stop stewing, since Lola would roll with anything.
Jack trotted down the stairs with his carry-on in one hand and a box in the other. A good-size corrugated cardboard box, but small enough to still fit under one arm.
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and took in all the kids staring at him. The smile on his face had to be one of the fakest she’d ever seen.
“I have something for you.” He left the bag and strode to April, holding out the box.
She took it. Not heavy, just a bit of weight to it. She shook it, but he caught her hand against the cardboard.
“Probably don’t do that.” His eyes seemed to trace the lines of her face, warming away the cold from before. “Fragile.”
“What is it?” Rohan asked, crawling up on his knees for a better look.
April didn’t get impromptu gifts often, so she wasn’t entirely sure of the protocol. Kent wasn’t a just-because-gift kind of guy. She set the box on the coffee table and pulled the tape sealing the side. Dipping her hand around the long tube, she pulled it free from the bubble wrap and gasped.
The vase.
She’d thought Jack had tossed it when it broke, since that’s what she would’ve done. What good would pieces of a vase be to anyone?
But Jack had had it fixed. He’d had her fuck-you-Kent vase fixed.
No…not that. Her chest heaved with the realization… He’d had her I’m-April-Davis vase fixed.
“Kintsugi.” He touched the gold filling the cracks, holding the pottery back together. “There’s an artist near here who takes the broken pieces and puts them back together with a gold filling. I called in a favor.”
Takes the broken pieces and puts them back together—
Like you do, Jack Gibson.
April’s throat thickened, and her eyelids were not dry. She opened her mouth to say thank you, but no words came out, so she closed her lips. She’d assumed the vase smashed beyond repair, given the size of the gash in Travis’s hand, but the pieces had fit back together, making it clear that it’d never been a total goner. Broken beyond normal repair, yes. But the artist had knitted it back together with a brilliant gold filling.
The purple vase was beautiful before. Really, it was. But now? Now it was stunning.
“So pretty.” Harmony was enthralled, letting go of her anger for a moment. April did not hold out hope that even the prettiest of things would get Harmony past the few days she felt she’d been promised with Jack.
“Jack…” April lifted her gaze from the vase. “Thank you.”
“It’s you.” Jack nodded to the gift, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “When things break, they’re not ruined. Fix them and they’re stronger for it.”
He held her gaze for the longest of moments. Yes, her eyelids were not dry. Not at all.
Jack knelt so he and Rohan were at eye level. “I bet your mom won’t mind if we FaceTime sometimes. I’ll need to check in with the frogs.”
“I don’t mind,” April said way too quickly. She paused, then said slower, “I really don’t mind.”
“Promise?” Rohan asked, holding up his pinky.
