“Thanks for manipulating me into marrying Hartley,” I say, grinning. “Thanks for knowing me better than I knew myself, even if your methods are probably illegal.”
“Not in this state. I checked.”
I laugh from the bottom of my belly. “I want to thank you, too, for not letting me sell this house. I don’t know what I’ll do with it someday, but there’s so much love in these walls.”
She nods, grinning.
“I used to look at this and see only a painful container of memories,” I admit. “But now, for some reason, I understand that isn’t the case.”
She takes my hand. “You’re allowed to grieve however you please, and I know you’ve struggled with that.” She smirks. “But time was up, and you needed to get on with it so I could have great-grandbabies.”
“Lolly!” I say, giggling.
“What did you want me to do? Just sit here and watch you and Hartley pass each other like ships in the night?” She makes a face. “I’m a doer, Mira. And now he’s doing you, and we’re all happy.”
My cheeks flush as she stands proudly.
“Now go home,” she says, tapping me on the butt. “I think you probably have some things to talk to your husband about.”
How does she know? She always knows.
I head for the door. “Oh! I didn’t find your photographs. I’ll come back tomorrow and look again.”
Her smile stops me with my hand on the door. “I think you found just what you needed to find.” She winks. “Good night, sweetheart.”
“Night, Lolly.”
I push open the door and jog to my car. The night air is warm with frogs croaking everywhere. It reminds me of being a kid, running these hills with Hartley, Brooks, and Gray.
Maybe soon our children will be doing the same.
“If you want to love someone the way they deserve, you have to hand them every part of you.”
I back down the driveway, but stop just before I get to the road. Sitting in my car, I stare back at the house, allowing emotions I usually block to touch me.
I miss you so much.
I hate that I lost you when I was so little.
The intensity of losing my parents is crushing, like my body is too small to hold all the pain. But something is freeing about it, too—a lightness in my heart, a feeling of gratitude that I had them in the first place. That I had two parents who loved me endlessly. I had two grandparents who selflessly gave us a safe place to land and live.
And now a husband who does the same.Loves me endlessly, selflessly, always giving me a safe place to land and live.
It’s time to tell him just how much he means to me, too.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Mira
I pull into our driveway and park next to Hartley’s truck just as the sun starts to set. The sky is beautiful, showing off in purples and pinks. It reminds me of my wedding flowers.
The porch light glows warmly against the darkening sky as I take the steps to the house.
I don’t rush inside like I want to. I’m dying to tell Hartley how I feel, but it’s important, too, to sit with my feelings a little bit. If I’d have learned that lesson sooner, Hart and I could’ve been together much sooner and much longer.
Hartley turns as I walk in, pulling a pizza from the oven. “Hey, darlin’.”
