Chapter Ten - Kate
CHAPTER TEN
Kate
The guest room wasn’t meant for living.
It was a storage space, really. There was an old twin bed pressed against the wall, the mismatched nightstand with a flickering lamp, and the too-thin curtains that let in harsh slivers of daylight too early in the morning.
Boxes lined the far wall, half-filled with things she hadn’t looked at in years. Forgotten holiday decorations, old photo albums, the remnants of a life that felt distant.
Her life.
Kate sat on the edge of the bed, clutching a throw pillow to her chest, as though holding something close could keep her from unraveling completely.
This wasn’t her home.
The master bedroom was down the hall. Their bedroom. The space she had shared with James since they were nineteen. But she couldn’t sleep there anymore. Not after…
She squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the images from flashing through her mind.
The hotel room. The woman. James.
Her stomach twisted, that same ache pressing in, but she swallowed it down. She was so tired of crying.
The kids were home. She couldn’t fall apart.
Noah was still barely speaking to her. Lily kept tiptoeing around the house like she was afraid to ask when things would go back to normal.
And they wouldn’t.
Not really.
Kate exhaled shakily, her gaze drifting across the cluttered shelves against the far wall. Boxes. Books she hadn’t touched in years. Old linens.
And then—
The canvas.
It was half-buried behind a stack of picture frames, but she saw the edge of it—the worn, white fabric peeking out beneath a tangled string of Christmas lights.
Kate’s heart stilled.
The old painting supplies.
Slowly, she stood, the floor creaking beneath her bare feet as she crossed the room. She pulled the frames aside carefully, lifting the canvas into the light.
It was larger than she remembered, blank except for faint pencil sketches—outlines of flowers, vines curling along the edges. Unfinished.
Just like everything else.
The box beneath it held more—brushes, stiff with dried paint. Tubes of color, some still sealed, others long since dried out.
The ache in her chest shifted as she ran her fingers over the worn wood of the paintbrush handles, tracing them like they were relics from another life.
They were .
She’d stopped painting sometime after Lily was born. Not intentionally. It had just…faded.
Life got busy.
Kids. The house. James’s career.
And she hadn’t missed it. Not really.
Or maybe she just hadn’t let herself.
Kate set the canvas gently on the nightstand, staring at it for a long, silent moment.
What would it feel like—to paint again?
To pour something out instead of holding everything in so tightly she could barely breathe?
But what would she even paint?
You could start here, a quiet voice whispered inside her. You don’t have to finish anything. Just begin.
She hesitated, staring at the unfinished vines. The delicate floral sketches she’d drawn years ago.
And then she tucked the canvas away, back behind the picture frames, pressing it deeper into the shadows.
It wasn’t the time.
There was laundry to fold. Dinners to make.
She wasn’t an artist anymore.
She was just…Kate.
Whatever that meant now.
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Kate froze, gripping the edge of the kitchen counter as a wave of nausea crashed over her so fast it stole her breath. Her stomach clenched painfully, the back of her throat tightening.
Breathe. Just breathe.
She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on the coolness of the marble beneath her fingertips.
It wasn’t that bad. She’d just moved too fast. Or maybe it was the lack of sleep.
The tension had been unbearable lately—the stress with James, the constant ache of trying to shield the kids from the fallout. She’d barely eaten more than a few bites at dinner last night, too knotted up with worry to finish the soup she’d made.
And now she was paying for it.
That’s all it is. Stress.
Kate forced herself to straighten, inhaling carefully through her nose, trying to push past the nausea. The smell still clung to the air, heavy and wrong, but it was fading enough that she could focus.
Lily’s voice broke the moment.
“Mom? Can I have more orange juice?”
Kate blinked, swallowing hard as she turned to see her daughter perched at the breakfast table, oblivious to the chaos swirling inside her. Her hair was still slightly damp from her shower, socks mismatched as she kicked her feet under the chair.
Normal. Familiar.
It grounded her.
“Sure, sweetheart.”
She reached for the carton in the fridge, the cold blast of air soothing as she poured.
The nausea hadn’t fully passed. It was still there, a low, churning discomfort under her ribs.
But she pushed it down.
Just like she’d been doing with everything else lately.
The symptoms had been stacking up, even if she refused to name them.
The fatigue that felt like it was sinking into her bones. The restless, uncomfortable tension in her body at night. The nausea that lingered most mornings, getting harder to ignore.
And yet—
No.
It couldn’t be.
She couldn’t be pregnant.
Not now.
“Mom?”
Kate blinked, snapping back as Lily squinted up at her, head tilted.
“You look kinda funny. Are you okay?”
A tight smile. She forced it.
“I’m fine, baby. Just a little tired.”
But deep down, a quiet voice was whispering something else.
You know what this is.