I should’ve continued to let them hover. Instead, I blurted, “Della got pregnant. Ectopic. She got sick. It showed me just how much I’ve been avoiding the future, and that I can’t anymore.”
“I’m sorry.” His gruff voice calmed me somehow. “You know, I never liked seeing Patricia pregnant. I know some men say it’s the best thing they’ll ever experience—seeing their wives fat with their unborn child, but not me.” Shaking his head, his tone thickened. “I never relaxed until she’d given birth and was back at home happy, and bossy, and just as full of life as normal. Only then did I let myself focus on my new child.”
I’d forgotten how easy it was to talk to John.
Forgotten how nice it was to have someone to confide in when I wrapped myself up in knots. Even on a day like today.
“Thank you.” I nodded, coughing again. “That helps. Especially when I keep thinking I’m the worst man alive for hating the thought of Della getting pregnant, only to crave a family with her one day.”
John smiled sadly. “You’re not the worst. If you’re anything like you were before, you’re the opposite of worst.” Slipping back into a reclined position, he asked, “So, I’m guessing your last name…you’ve kept it? Do you introduce her as your wife instead of your sister?”
My heart skipped. “Look, we can talk about this another time. I-I don’t feel right. Today should be about—”
“Pat would want to know how you two are doing. Same as me. My grief isn’t going anywhere, Ren. Believe me. It’s nice to have a reprieve.” He cocked his chin. “Go on. Fill me in.”
I sighed again, amazed that in a few minutes of conversation, John had successfully brought up all my greatest fears and somehow given me freedom to discuss them. “Well, I put her through high-school. I watched her date assholes who didn’t deserve her. I hurt her by sleeping with women, all while doing my best to fight what I felt for her—”
“And when did you know what that was?” His bushy eyebrow rose.
I cleared my throat, unable to look him in the eye. “The night she ran away.”
“Yeah, I thought as much.”
“That was why you said not to come back, isn’t it?” I rubbed the back of my neck, unable to delete my tension. “You knew people wouldn’t be able to accept that we’d lied after we went so far to make it the truth.”
“I sent you away because you both needed to figure out who you were away from people who thought they knew for you.” He looked at the rain-threatening sky. “I fell for Pat when I was young. Fifteen, to be exact. I knew I wanted to marry her the second she smiled at me, but it took almost a decade to convince her father I wasn’t just trying to get her into bed.”
I laughed under my breath, smothering yet another cough. “Seems you won.”
“I did.” He smiled smugly. “I was married to my soulmate for forty-eight years. And I didn’t take a single year for granted.”
I kicked at a pebble, wanting so fucking much to have what he had. “I want to marry Della. And I’m going to somehow. But no one knows who we are. We don’t exist. We have no birth certificates or passports. How can we get married without that stuff?”
John flicked me a glance. “That will make it tricky.”
“But…not impossible?” I hated that my heart beat quicker, tasting hope.
“Nothing is impossible.” Giving me a watery smile, John patted my knee with his heavy paw. “I’m happy for you, Ren. I always knew you kids loved each other, and I’m not above admitting I was worried once or twice when I believed you were true relations. I’m glad you chose to fight for her and not go your separate ways.” Tears glistened again. “True love is a blessing and so damn hard to find.”
Placing my hand on his, I shared his grief. “Patricia loved you, too. You guys were a perfect example of a happy marriage when I didn’t have any role models. She helped me and Della so much.”
“That’s nice of you to say.” Letting me go, he stood with a weary sigh. “I suppose we better get to the wake, and then…you should probably tell my daughter that you and Della are no longer just siblings before she figures it out like I did.”
Standing, I coughed harder than I had in a while. My eyes watered as I cupped my mouth, waiting for it to pass.
“You okay?” John asked, worried.
I smiled, shoving the episode away. “Yeah, sorry. Damn cough just keeps lingering.”
“You were sick?”
“A while ago. Need some good ole’ home cooked meals to get my immune system back in working order.”
John’s face fell. “Well the cook of the family has gone, so you’ll be stuck with chargrilled things on the barbeque from me, I’m afraid.”
I winced. “God, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t. I know. Let’s just keep talking about other things.” He waved his hand as we slipped back into a walk. “So, when are you going to tell Cassie?”
“Della thinks we should wait.”
“Wait?” He shook his head. “No, waiting doesn’t work in this world, Ren. She’ll be shocked, I’ll admit, and maybe a little hurt, but she’s in a good place now. Her and Chip are giving their relationship another chance, and little Nina will be coming in a few days. You can meet her. She’s adorable. Patty loved that little tyke.”
Following him through the graveyard, I asked, “Nina?”
“Cassie’s daughter.” He raised another eyebrow. “Her and Chip share custody right now while they figure things out. She’s six, almost seven.”
I froze, my inability to do fast math once again my downfall.
How long had Della and I been gone?
When was the last time I’d been with Cassie?
John must’ve understood the sudden whiteness on my face as he held up his hands. “She’s not yours, Ren.”
To go from shock to relief so quickly made my knees liquid. “Oh.”
“I will confess, I did ask her. She got pregnant not long after you guys left. But she said you two hadn’t been together in a while. That you’d pulled away from that part of the friendship, and had always used, eh, protection.”
“Protection doesn’t always seem to stop such things,” I muttered, thinking of Della’s complications.
“That’s true but rest assured, Nina isn’t yours. Even if Cassie didn’t do a paternity test, you can see for yourself she’s Chip’s, purely thanks to the flaming red hair of her father.”
Clasping an arm around my shoulders, he guided me into the church as if he were the one consoling me and not the other way around.
I let him be the patriarch—the role he played so well, for a little longer, but once we got to the wake, I stayed close by, monitoring his drinking, doing my best to change the subjects when his face grew blotchy and tears streamed silently down his face as he hung in the shadows.
He might have his own children, but if he let me, I would be there for him as much as they were.
We hadn’t discussed if we should stay or go or what the Wilsons expected, but by the time nightfall smothered the farm and the wake was over with a fridge full of casseroles and leftovers, Della and I cut across the driveway, pushed our single beds together, undressed without speaking, and reached for each other.
We were too emotionally exhausted to talk.
Too physically drained to do anything more than hug.
We returned to an age of innocence, where skin on skin contact was purely for comfort and nothing else.
We fell asleep in our old room, entangled and entwined.
Just as before.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
DELLA
2032
DEATH IS NEVER easy.
And it wasn’t any easier just because we hadn’t seen Patricia in a while or that we weren’t truly her children. Patricia had been a large part of our lives, and Cherry River didn’t feel the same without her.
Being back in that place…I wish I could warn myself.
Wish I could whisper what was about to happen.
It’s so obvious from where I sit in the future, but of course, with the complications between me and Ren, the residual childhood jealousy toward Cassie, and the overwhelming aura of grief on the farm, all of us were preoccupied with other things.