It was just a Tuesday in December. A woman on a porch swing. A future that was uncertain and terrifying and somehow, against all odds, worth showing up for.
Lila closed her eyes and let herself rest.
Chapter Eighteen
The box was heavier than it looked.
Ronan carried it up the porch steps and set it down next to the three others already stacked by the door. Lila's handwriting on the side read KITCHEN - MISC in black marker. He had no idea what kitchen miscellaneous meant, but he'd learned over the past week not to ask questions about the organizational system.
"That's the last one from the car," he called through the screen door.
"There's more in the bedroom closet." Her voice floated from somewhere inside the cottage. "And the hall closet. And the garage."
"How much stuff do you have?"
"I've lived in that house for eight years. You've lived out of a duffel bag. Our definitions of 'stuff' are not the same."
He leaned against the porch railing and looked out at the yard. December had turned the grass brown and stripped most of the leaves from the trees, but the live oak still spread its branches wide, draped with Spanish moss that swayed in the breeze off the inlet. The dock was finished now, the new boards weathered enough to match the old ones. Sid had declared it structurally sound two weeks ago and immediately started talking about building a boat lift.
A boat lift. For a boat Ronan didn't own. For a life he was still learning how to live.
The screen door creaked open behind him. Lila emerged with two mugs of coffee, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, a smudge of dust on her cheek.
"Break time."
He took the mug she offered. The coffee was the good kind, the kind she'd been buying since she started keeping things here. He still couldn't tell the difference, but he'd stopped admitting that out loud.
"You have dust on your face."
"I have dust everywhere. Your closets are a disaster."
"I don't have closets. I have spaces where closets should be."
"Same thing." She settled onto the porch swing beside him, tucking her feet under her. "I found a box of books in the back of your bedroom closet. Military history, mostly. Some philosophy. A few paperback thrillers that look like they've been read about fifty times each."
"Those were my dad's."
Lila went still beside him. "I didn't know you kept anything of his."
"I didn't. Not for a long time." He stared out at the water. "When he died, I was nineteen. Angry. Stupid. I threw most of it away. Donated the rest." He took a sip of coffee. "A few years ago, my aunt sent me a box she'd been keeping. Said she figured I'd want it eventually. Those books were in it."
"Have you read them?"
"Some of them. The ones with his notes in the margins." He could feel her watching him, that careful attention she gave to the things he didn't say out loud. "He used to underline passages he liked. Write questions in the margins. Argue with the authors."
"That sounds like something you'd do."
"Probably where I learned it."
She leaned her head against his shoulder. The swing creaked softly as it moved.
"We should put them on a shelf. Somewhere you can see them."
"They've been in a box for years."
"That's my point." She tilted her head up to look at him. "You're not living out of boxes anymore. Neither are your dad's books."
The fight started over curtains.
