“I hope you like it,” I say quietly, and tuck a napkin over Mary’s dress. I smile down at her. “You like my mac and cheese, don’t you?”
Mary nods, mouth already full. “It’s different from what Grandma makes, but I like it.”
“I put broccoli in it,” I mouth at Matt.
He chokes. He starts to cough, a flush rising to his cheekbones.
Cole laughs, stabbing at his macaroni with his fork, making a mess.
Mary giggles.
Matt wipes at his eyes, one-handedly, looks down at his son, and his gaze softens again. His mouth pulls into a reluctant, faint smile when Cole lets out another peal of laughter and bangs his fork in his plate.
Mary reaches across the table and pulls on the plate. Cole grabs it, hauls it back. Mary laughs, her eyes flicking to her dad, as if afraid he’d get angry.
Matt puts his large hand over Cole’s small one and guides the fork into the plate. Cole quietens again, looks up at his dad.
Then down at the plate.
He grins, showing all his little teeth.
Matt’s brow furrows as he helps Cole snag some macaroni, then lets go, letting his son bring the fork up to eat. There’s a gleam of something new in his gaze now.
Something like awe.
And joy.
Aww God. Imagining Matt reconnecting with his kids and seeing it are two different things. My heart is melting as I watch it happen before my eyes. It’s so cute, so touching. Nobody could remain unmoved, no matter what else has gone down between us.
If I felt nothing, I’d have a heart of stone.
“How was your day?” I ask later, with the kids settled in the living room watching cartoons on TV.
I should be heading home, but I’m strangely reluctant to go. After all, if he’s to talk to me about anything, including his late wife, I’d have to be around, right?
This is how I complicate my life.
He’s quiet, looking at his children, and I think he won’t answer me. Maybe it has already been too much effort, being sociable for one evening.
Man, he looks haggard. His face looks thin, even with the beard. He barely touched his food at the table, and how is it that I’m more worried about him not eating than his kids?
Maybe I should just go.
“Tay,” he says.
Just that, and I know I’m not going anywhere. “What is it?”
“Do you think I can win them back?”
He doesn’t say who, but he’s looking at his kids, so it’s easy to guess.
“You never lost them. They need you.”
He seems to be chewing on something. “I know what you’re thinking. That they’d be better off with their grandma. That it was cruel to take them away.”
“No, I don’t think that.” And I mean it. “I think you should call their grandma, have her visit you, or go visit her—but you are their dad, and they’ve known you all their short lives. You’ve always been there.”
“They are afraid of me.”
“Maybe so, but they also look up to you and depend on you. Show them that they can also have fun with you, be open with you, be vulnerable with you. Let them love you.”
He rubs at his eyes, and my heart twists again.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
And I can’t help it. I smile.
Chapter Nineteen
Matt
Dark dreams draw me under, again and again, suffocating clutches of nightmares that won’t let me rest. I wake up drenched in cold sweat, my teeth gritting, my legs tangled up in the covers, until I give up on sleep and roll out of bed.
That’s routine. Stumbling into the bathroom to take a piss and splash my face with cold water, trying to chase the clinging cobwebs of the dreams from my mind. Stumbling back out to grab a T-shirt and down the stairs to the kitchen. Deciding if it’s late enough for booze or early enough for coffee.
The sky outside is a deep blue. Over the houses and trees, the sky is lightening, silver and gold shooting through the east.
Damn. Coffee it is.
I start the coffee machine and scratch at my beard. I should trim it.
Or braid it like Viking warriors did.
Or just fucking leave it. Who the hell cares? I’m just so damn tired all the time. I thought moving out here would cure me of it, of this weariness, this constant exhaustion.
But that hasn’t happened. My work is not harder than it was in St. Louis. I’d worked in a garage there, too, once I managed to get out of my funk enough to drag myself out of the house every day. And yet I feel like a truck ran me over.
I open the cupboard, grab a random mug, fill it up with black, bitter coffee and stagger out to the porch.
It’s probably chilly, so early in the morning. I never feel it. I never feel anything after waking up, my brain still struggling to decide what is real and what isn’t.
Emma’s hand in mine. Her cheek cold as she was laid into the ground. Her voice still whispering in my ear.
Hell. I brace one hand on the porch pillar, dizzy. Wait until the ground steadies. Until the urge to howl subsides.
The sea of grass around the house sways, the tips of the weeds silver in the gray light.
I should do something about it. Borrow a lawn mower. Cut it before I get into trouble.
And then a snort escapes me. Get into trouble, really? Who the fuck cares?
The houses down the street are still dark. It’s quiet. My pulse is way too loud in my ears.
I think I feel ghostly hands slip around my hips, faint laughter in the air.
My eyes sting.
Dammit… how can I ever let you go?
I open the door for Octavia and manage a greeting before retreating upstairs to shower and dress for another long-ass day. I pull on pants and a shirt, shove my feet into my boots and sit on the bed for a few minutes, spaced out.
It’s one of those days, where time seems to have slowed down and I’m sinking down into the mud faster than I can swim. My air is running out.
There’s a tremor in my hand when I lift it to shove my hair out of my face.
I remember Cole’s laughter as he perched on my knee last night. Mary’s giggles.
Octavia’s smile.
Clenching my jaw, I get up and head back downstairs. Thank fuck she hasn’t made good on her promise to make me talk about anything much yet, or do more than eat dinner with the kids last night.
I’m supposed to have breakfast with them, but somehow, despite being up from the ass-crack of dawn, I’m running late.
“Matt!” Octavia calls from the kitchen.
Right on cue.
“Have to run,” I tell her, and get the hell out of the house before she has a chance to reply.
Feeling like a douche, I drive to work.
As mornings go, this one was pretty tough but nothing I can’t deal with. Not the first time I have nightmares so bad they won’t fade away, that I feel so shaken I can only forge ahead hoping I’ll make it through the day in one piece.
So of course things go downhill from there.
First Jasper sends me out to check a broken-down car out of town, and nobody’s there when I arrive, so that I have to return with the bad news.