Alex
Forty-six
The second I see the confusion on Josie’s face, I regret asking why she’s here. Eloise looks equally offended by the suggestion that her guest might need a reason to be standing in our kitchen.
“I invited her,” my daughter says, planting her hands on her hips. “For dinner.”
Josie’s gaze stays on mine for another second before she nods toward the little tyrant glaring at me. “Yes, that.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I don’t bother trying to explain, though, because I’m not entirely sure what I did mean. Three weeks of not returning calls and texts has left me with more questions than answers.
Before I can figure out anything else, Eloise tugs Josie’s hand. “Come see the nuggets.”
The command leaves no room for negotiation.
Josie allows herself to be pulled toward the kitchen island where a baking sheet sits covered with chicken nuggets in varying degrees of geometric accuracy.
Zara stands nearby trying unsuccessfully to hide her amusement while Eloise launches into a detailed explanation of the manufacturing process.
“I helped bread every single one,” Eloise says proudly.
“Every single one?” Josie asks.
“Well, mostly.”
“Mostly,” Zara repeats.
I move into the kitchen and get a glass of water, watching the exchange unfold.
It strikes me how comfortable Josie still seems here.
She leans against the counter while Eloise talks, laughing in all the right places and asking questions she already knows the answers to because she understands that half the fun is letting a kid tell the story.
That makes me smile.
Dinner comes together quickly after that. Zara gets the food on the table while Eloise insists on arranging the napkins and silverware. By the time we sit down, she’s vibrating with excitement, and the seat arrangement somehow leaves Josie on one side of her and me on the other.
I suspect manipulation.
The conversation belongs entirely to her.
She explains the nugget-to-ketchup ratio she prefers. She tells us about dance camp. She revisits the tragic grape incident from earlier in the afternoon, still deeply offended that wine grapes taste terrible.
“You let her eat one?” I ask Josie.
Josie laughs. “She insisted.”
“I thought they would be sweet.” She shrugs.
“They’re meant for wine.”
Eloise shakes her head. “That’s a waste of a perfectly good grape.”
I have to laugh, and for the first time in weeks, the house feels like itself again.
While Eloise talks, I steal glances across the table.
Josie has spent the last month buried in the vines, and it shows.
Her skin is darker from long days in the vineyard.
There are faint freckles across her nose that weren’t there earlier in the summer.
She looks thinner too, and the shadows beneath her eyes suggest she hasn’t been getting much sleep.
When she catches me looking, I reach for my water. A moment later, I realize she’s studying me right back.
“You look tired,” she says.
The observation lands a little too close to the truth. “So do you.”
A faint smile touches her lips before she looks down at her plate. The exchange lasts only seconds, but Eloise notices absolutely everything. Her grin widens. I pretend not to see it.
Eloise fills every lull in conversation before it can become uncomfortable, dragging Josie into discussions about horses, ice cream flavors, and whether chicken nuggets should be considered a breakfast food.
Josie answers every question as though it’s worthy of serious consideration, and before long they’re arguing about the merits of strawberry ice cream versus turtle chocolate.
“I brought both,” Josie says.
“Because you’re smart,” Eloise says with so much confidence I can’t help but chuckle.
“I’ve been told that before.”
“Probably by Daddy.”
I choke slightly on my drink while Josie laughs.
By the time dessert is served, however, Eloise’s energy has started to fade. She keeps talking, but her words come slower now. Halfway through a story about a horse she’s going to own someday, she loses track of what she’s saying and starts over from the beginning.
“You okay, bug?” I ask.
“I’m fine.”
The yawn that interrupts her answer tells a different story.
Josie smiles over her spoon. “Looks like somebody’s getting sleepy.”
“I’m not sleepy.”
Eloise leans against my shoulder as she says it.
Another yawn follows.
Then another.
Bedtime usually requires negotiation, but tonight Eloise treats it like the next scheduled event in an evening she has arranged with military precision.
She slides off her chair, still holding the stuffed horse Josie apparently earned the privilege of meeting during dessert, and looks between us with sleepy determination. “Josie can help.”
Josie pauses with her spoon halfway to her empty bowl. “With what?”
“Bedtime.”
Josie glances at me, and for a second I can see her trying to decide whether she should refuse, whether accepting would cross some line neither of us has been brave enough to name.
I should give her an easy out, but Eloise is already reaching for her hand, and the selfish part of me wants to see what happens if Josie follows.
“If your dad says it’s okay,” Josie hedges.
Eloise turns the full force of her expectation on me.
I push back from the table and pick up the dessert bowls because it gives me something to do with my hands. “It’s okay with me.”
That is apparently all the permission Eloise needs. She pulls Josie toward the stairs while I set the dishes in the sink and follow a few steps behind them, listening as my daughter explains that the bedtime routine has rules. Pajamas first. Teeth second. Story third. Tucking-in last.
In Eloise’s room, the lamplight turns everything soft.
The pink quilt is rumpled from this morning, books are stacked unevenly on the nightstand, and the stuffed animals have somehow migrated from the basket to the floor.
Josie steps over a plush unicorn and picks up the pajama set from the chair before Eloise can decide bedtime requires a wardrobe change.
“These?” Josie asks.
“The purple ones.”
“These are pink.”
“They have purple flowers.”
Josie examines the tiny flowers on the sleeve and nods. “Fair point.”
I lean against the doorframe while Eloise lets Josie help her into pajamas. Eloise lifts her arms, chatters about chicken nuggets, and trusts Josie to know where the sleeves go.
When it’s time to brush her teeth, she insists we both come to the bathroom.
“This is unnecessary,” I tell her, handing over the toothbrush.
“You have to check.”
“I can check from here.”
“No. Both of you.”
Josie presses her lips together, but the smile escapes anyway. “You heard the boss.”
Eloise beams around a mouthful of toothpaste, and I catch Josie’s eye in the mirror.
For a few seconds we’re standing shoulder to shoulder in the bathroom while my daughter brushes her teeth between us, and the coziness of it nearly knocks me over.
Josie looks away first, reaching for the cup to help Eloise rinse, but the color in her cheeks tells me she felt it too.
Back in the bedroom, Eloise chooses a story and climbs beneath the covers.
She pats one side of the bed for Josie and points at the chair for me, arranging us again with no concern for adult discomfort.
Josie sits carefully on the edge of the mattress and opens the book while I lower myself into the chair beside them.
Her voice is softer when she reads.
Eloise watches Josie’s face more than the pages, eyelids growing heavier with every sentence, one hand tucked beneath her cheek and the other wrapped around Hello Kitty.
Halfway through the second page, her eyes drift shut.
Josie keeps reading anyway, her voice quiet enough that the story becomes part of the room instead of something that needs to be followed. I watch my daughter fall asleep between the two people she wanted here, and I sit absolutely still because moving feels like it might disturb something fragile.
When Josie finally closes the book, Eloise is breathing deeply.
Josie reaches down and adjusts the quilt around her shoulders, and then brushes a strand of hair away from her cheek with such careful tenderness that I have to look toward the window for a moment.
There’s no future in the gesture. No promise.
No conversation. Just Josie, knowing exactly how to leave my daughter warm and settled.
We step into the hall together and pull the door mostly closed behind us.
Josie stands beside me, and we descend the stairs together. At the bottom, I finally get the nerve to ask, “Why did you disappear?”
Josie turns toward me, and the hurt that crosses her face makes my hand tighten around the banister.
“I wasn’t moving to Toronto,” I tell her. “I know that’s what my mother told you, but we were never going to leave.”
Josie goes very still. I can practically see her trying to fit that statement into whatever story she’s been telling herself for the last few weeks. The hurt in her expression doesn’t disappear, but confusion joins it.
“My mother had no business telling you that,” I add. “And she had even less business involving Eloise.”
Josie’s brow furrows. “What happened?”
I glance up toward Eloise’s room before answering.
“Anastasia told Eloise she was moving to Toronto with her. She didn’t ask.
She didn’t present it as a possibility. She just told her.
” Even now, the memory makes my jaw tighten.
“Eloise has spent weeks being terrified she’d be taken away from her home and separated from me.
Most of my attention has been focused on making sure she understood that wasn’t happening. ”
The color drains from Josie’s face. “She thought that?”
“She absolutely thought that.”
For a second, neither of us says anything.
Then I shake my head. “I know I’ve been absorbed with that, but I did reach out to you. I don’t understand why you disappeared.”
Her eyes lift to mine.
“I called. I left messages. I drove by the vineyard more than once looking for you.” I study her face carefully. “Every time I tried to reach you, I got nothing back.”
Surprise flashes across her features. “You did?”
I frown.
“Of course I did.”
Something shifts in her expression. The defensiveness drains away, replaced by something that looks suspiciously like embarrassment.
“Josie?”
She lowers her gaze. When she finally speaks, her voice is quieter. “The day your mother told me what was happening, I went home and turned off my phone.”
I stare at her.
“You did what?”
A small laugh escapes her, but there’s no humor in it. “It wasn’t just the Toronto thing.”
I wait.
“That was a rough time. Evie gave her entire estate to my brother. Malcolm Westcott, the billionaire, offered me the opportunity to run his vineyard in Napa. The vineyard was exploding. Everybody wanted answers from me about something.” She shakes her head.
“Then Anastasia informed me that you were leaving, taking your life in a totally different direction than I’d thought possible. ”
The pieces begin falling into place. For weeks I’ve assumed she made a choice. That she heard what my mother and Anastasia said and decided I wasn’t worth the complication.
“I think I hit my limit,” she says. “I couldn’t process one more thing.
So I shut off my phone and stopped answering people.
I just focused on what I was good at. Eventually I turned it back on and started looking through the messages I’d racked up, but they were mostly just my family freaking out, and I couldn’t bring myself to review all of them.
So I hit delete and started with a clean slate.
I know that wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry. I’ve honestly been a mess.”
I lean back against the wall and release a slow breath. The frustration I’ve been carrying for weeks doesn’t disappear, but some of its sharp edges begin to dull. “When I couldn’t reach you,” I explain, “I thought you were avoiding me.”
Her gaze drops briefly before returning to mine. A faint smile touches her mouth, small and self-conscious. “I couldn’t bear to have you tell me you were leaving. But it wasn’t just you, I was avoiding everyone.”
“Ahhh…” For the first time since she stepped through my front door, it feels less like we’re standing on opposite sides of a misunderstanding and more like we’re finally finding our way through it.
“I didn’t disappear to punish you,” she says.
“I didn’t know what else to think.” I keep my hand on the bannister and force myself not to push too hard. “You didn’t answer your phone. You weren’t at the cottage. I drove by more times than I’m proud of, and every time I told myself you’d call when you were ready.”
“I’m sorry. Everything seemed to be breaking at one time. I couldn’t take it.”
Neither of us speaks after that.
“Tell me about this offer from Malcolm Westcott.”
She tells me everything, and I’m floored.
“What’s keeping you from accepting?”
“It’s not right for me,” she says simply. “Maybe I’ll consult for him, help him find the right people, but moving there would still be building something for someone else. It’s not mine.”
“What’s going to happen to the vineyard?”
She sighs. “I know some people think Ric won the lottery, but inheriting Evie’s estate has been anything but simple.
He’s being sued from every direction. At this point, I think he’s spending more time with lawyers than anyone else.
” A small smile tugs at her mouth before fading.
“He’s asked us to be patient, though. His plan is still to give Sera and me the vineyard.
And if that happens, I’ll finally have the chance to make it mine. ”
“Surely he can do that,” I tell her. “And don’t you worry, I’m not going anywhere. I want to be here with you all the way through.”
Josie reaches for my hand. Her fingers slide through mine, warm and rough from work. She doesn’t rush the moment or make it easy, but she doesn’t pull away either. “I don’t know all the answers yet,” she says.
“I’m not asking for them.”
Her grip tightens. “But I know I don’t want to find them without you.”
The knot that has lived in my chest for weeks loosens as I draw her closer. She comes willingly, one hand settling against my shirt. I lower my forehead to hers, breathing her in.
Nobody else gets to decide what our futures look like.
We do.