Page 179 of Vow to Claim You

“I’m here,” Ayanna murmurs into her sister’s hair, her hands cradling the back of Naomi’s head. “We’ll go through this together.”

Eero walks toward the door but stops. He waits until Naomi lifts her head, until her wet eyes find his across the distance, until she runs in his direction.

Then I reach for my wife’s hand, and we step inside.

Ingrid stands in the hall with her hands clasped in front of her. Her face is composed, but her eyes—behind the glasses—are watery. She looks at me, then at Eero, who has appeared at my shoulder.

“What is it?” I ask, though the shape of the answer is already forming in the air between us.

Ingrid takes a breath. “Mr. Vold passed this morning.” She takes a trembling breath. “Peacefully. In his sleep. Kirill’s man was with him.”

I nod, expecting something to come and hit me. Anything. Grief, shock, the sharp intake of breath that marks the moment a son learns his father is gone.

Nothing comes.

I stand in the hall of the house he built, the house he raised me in, the house where he did all sort of terrible things to teach me lessons and make me strong, and I feel the absolute, cavernous nothing. As though I’ve buried my father years ago and I’m only now being told the body has caught up.

“Thank you, Ingrid,” I say.

She nods, wiping up the tears from under her glasses. She loved him, in her way. Or loved the version of him that existed in the cracks, the version that let her stay, that let her matter, that called her family. She’s earned her grief. I don’t begrudge her that.

Eero lets out a controlled exhale through his nose, burying his face at the top of Naomi’s head before they head to the living area.

I stand in the hall a moment longer, with Ayanna’s arms wrapped around me.

“Are you all right?” she asks softly.

“I’m fine.” I look her in the eyes that search mine with worry.

“I’m here, Aric. If you need… anything.”

“I know,” I whisper as I press a kiss to her forehead, pulling her closer. “That’s all I need.”

We bury Vidar a few days later. The service is brief. I insisted on that. No eulogies. No speeches. No parade of men who feared him pretending they loved him. A priest who says the necessary words, a coffin that goes into the ground, and the sound of earth hitting wood.

I stand at the graveside and still feel nothing.

Ayanna is beside me, her hand in mine, her thumb moving in slow circles against my knuckle. She’s been watching me since Ingrid delivered the news, searching my face for the crack, the break, the sign that losing him has affected me in any way, but it didn’t.

The mourners are few. Members of the organization, mostly. Tassilo stands at the edge of the group, hands clasped, face carved from the same stone as the headstones surrounding us.

Nikos sent word, a single line: The Gods mourn with you.

Eero stood on my other side throughout the service, and when the coffin went down, I felt his shoulder press against mine. The same way he’s always been there. The younger brother who never left, who chose this house and this family and this frozen, fractured life over the mother who would’ve taken him somewhere warmer. He chose me. He’s the only person who ever did, until Ayanna.

Now the mourners filter away. The cemetery empties in degrees until it’s just the two of us standing over a hole in the ground that holds the man who made me.

I look down at the coffin, and in my mind, I say my goodbye.

You wanted an heir. You got one. You wanted a legacy. You got one of those too, though not the kind you imagined. You wanted me hard and cold and unbreakable, and you succeeded, and the cost of that success is that your son is standing at your grave feeling nothing at all.

Not sadness. Not grief. Not forgiveness.

Goodbye, Father.

You did your worst. I survived it.

Ayanna squeezes my hand, pulling me back to presence. We turn together, walking away from the grave. We’re halfway to the car when someone calls out my name.