Chapter 7 Janie
SEVEN
Janie
I stand at the threshold while Janet Reeves, the realtor, turns the key in the lock. The scent of fresh paint and sunlight greets us as the door swings open, revealing hardwood floors that gleam in the late morning sunshine.
Beckett doesn't wait for permission. He charges past us both, socks sliding across the polished surface like it's his personal skating rink. His backpack bounces against his slim shoulders as he races down the hallway.
"This one's mine!" His voice echoes through the empty house, bouncing off bare walls and high ceilings.
Janet laughs beside me, the sound warm and genuine. "Children always know exactly where they belong, don't they? It's like they have a sixth sense."
My fingers trail along the cool wall as I follow the sound of my son's footsteps, each one lighter than my own. The emptiness of the rooms doesn't seem hollow. I see it as possibility.
"He's been talking about his own room since I told him we were moving.
When my mom found this house, I knew he would be thrilled.
" Pride swells in my chest, making it hard to speak above a whisper.
"In Chicago, we had a tiny apartment. He had his own room, but it was really more like a broom closet. "
"Well, this is certainly an upgrade." Janet's heels click against the floor as she follows me. "Wednesday's closing will be simple—just signatures, and then the keys are officially yours. This is going to be a good place for you both."
I swallow hard against the tightness in my throat. Five years of sixteen-hour shifts. Five years of daycare pickup at six sharp to avoid late fees. Five years of stretching every dollar while climbing the hospital ladder.
"I hope so," I manage. "We've worked hard to get here. Both of us."
Beckett's laughter bounces down the hallway, filling the space with life. It's as if the house is already breathing, already ours, even before a single box arrives.
"Mommy! Come see my new bedroom! It has a window seat!"
Janet touches my shoulder. "Go ahead. I'll wait in the kitchen. I've got to scroll through my emails, anyway."
My hand cups onto the thick wood door frame as I head down the hallway. Each step is momentous, like I'm walking not just through a house but through a doorway into our future.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I fish it out to see Mom's text.
Dinner at 6. Blake's bringing the wine. So excited to have you and my sweet Beckett home for good.
I slide the phone back into my pocket without replying. Tonight will come with its own weight—family dinner in the very yard where everything changed five years ago. But this moment belongs to Beckett and me.
"Mom! Hurry up!"
"I'm coming, baby." I pick up my pace, following the sound of my son's joy through our empty, sun-drenched future.
Hours later, the sun is gone, the laughter spent. Dinner came and went in a blur of voices and clattering dishes, the kind of chaos that fills a house before it empties again. Now the night is still.
I slip through the back door, kindling tucked under one arm, lighter clutched in my hand.
The screen door whispers shut behind me, careful not to wake Mom and Dad—or worse, Beckett. My son sleeps like a rock most nights, but today's excitement about our new house left him wired until he finally crashed, sprawled across my childhood bed upstairs.
The yard stretches before me, as familiar as my own reflection. Moonlight catches on the edges of Mom's hydrangea bushes, turning them silver.
The old stone firepit waits in the center, a dark circle ringed by teak chairs worn smooth from years of Florida humidity and countless bodies.
I arrange the wood carefully, methodically, the way Dad taught me. The newspaper is twisted at the bottom, with smaller sticks crossed over it, and larger pieces balanced on top. The lighter flicks to life on the third try, flame dancing against my thumb before catching the paper.
I watch the fire climb, patient and hungry.
The chair creaks as I sink into it. My fingers curl into the armrests, finding the same grooves they've known since high school. How many nights had I spent out here? Homework sessions with friends. Post-game celebrations. College acceptance tears.
And then that night.
The flames grow stronger, and I see Warren's face in them. His hesitation melted into desire. The way his eyes caught the firelight before he leaned in. How his hand brushed ash from my cheek. It was the first touch that changed everything.
Or had things changed before that? Maybe it started earlier—when he laughed at one of my dumb jokes that summer, or when his hand brushed mine passing a drink across the porch, and I felt it everywhere.
Being back here in Palm Beach, seeing him yesterday at the board meeting, brings all of it back to the surface. I thought five years was enough to put it and him to rest.
But we share something he knows nothing about. We will always be connected, and I'm wracked with a guilt I never knew I'd experience before seeing him again. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.
I see Beckett in his eyes.
I press my palm hard against my thigh, anchoring myself to the present. Upstairs, Beckett sleeps with his stuffed dinosaur tucked against his chest. He has Warren's intensity when he focuses on building blocks or kicks a soccer ball. He furrows his brow exactly like his father when he's frustrated.
Heat from the fire mirrors the burning in my chest. Five years of carrying this alone. Almost five years of watching Beckett grow, cataloging each new similarity with a mixture of joy and dread.
I thought coming home would complete the closing of a circle. Instead, it's like I've torn open the stitches I've spent years carefully sewing.
The flames blur as tears threaten. I blink them back, refusing to let them fall. I've made it this far without breaking. One more day, one more week, just until Beckett and I are settled.
My phone threatens to fall out of my pocket. I pull it out, my thumb finding Gemma's contact photo. Her face appears, dark eyebrows raised in her perpetual state of amused skepticism.
I need her voice, her blunt perspective to pull me out of this spiral.
I exhale shakily and press call, holding the phone in front of my face. The fire crackles, giving my face an orangish hue, the pops as persistent as my guilt.
Gemma's face appears on screen, all messy ponytail and crooked grin. Behind her, I glimpse blankets tangled on her couch and what looks like a half-empty bottle of wine sitting on the side table behind her.
"Well, well, well. You look like you're about to summon spirits. Your face is reflecting what I can only assume is the famous Palm Beach fire pit I've heard so much about." Her voice carries a soothing balm in my hurricane of a life.
My shoulders drop an inch. "Trust me, I've considered it. Maybe one could tell me what the hell I'm doing. Why didn't you tell me to never take a job in Palm Beach?"
"Please. You survived five years of Chicago winters as a single mom in hospital admin. Palm Beach is a vacation compared to that nightmare."
The flames pop and crackle as I shift in my seat. "Remember that blizzard when the daycare closed and I had a board presentation?"
"When I showed up with a beach float and took Beckett sledding?" Gemma laughs. "That kid was a natural, by the way. Even at two."
"You basically raised him those first years."
Gemma rolls her eyes dramatically. "I handed him Cheerios and made faces while you wrote reports. Hardly maternal glory. But we were a good team, I do agree with that."
"You rocked him to sleep when I was too exhausted to stand." My voice catches. "You sang him Spanish lullabies when he had ear infections."
"Stop it." She wipes quickly at her cheek. "Don't get me crying, it's wine night."
Her apartment looks the same as when I visited her in Savannah just before I got the CHG offer. Her plants crowd the windowsill, and she still has medical journals stacked beside the sofa. The sight makes my chest ache with fondness.
"I wouldn't have survived without you, Gem. You know that."
"Yeah, well." She sniffs, lifting her wine glass. "Someone had to make sure you remembered to eat and have some semblance of self-care."
The laugh that escapes me is the first real one in days. Chicago was brutal, endless hours juggling fellowship and new motherhood, but we found rhythm in the chaos. Weekend brunches with Beckett coloring between us. Late nights dissecting hospital politics over cheap wine.
"What's that face?" Gemma narrows her eyes. "That's your overthinking face."
"Just... grateful. For you. For everything."
"Sentimental already?" She finishes her wine and sets the glass aside with a decisive clink. Then she leans forward, elbows on knees, eyes suddenly sharp.
"So... how was your first day at CHG?"
The question is a gut punch, dissolving the momentary peace. My fingers tighten around the phone.
"You remember that worst-case scenario I kept joking about? The one you said was ridiculous and would never happen?"
Her eyes widen. "No. Fucking. Way. He's your neighbor?"
The fire spits embers into the night.
"Worse. He's my colleague. Sort of. He's on the board for the CHG Foundation and is the committee chair for the very initiative I was hired to run." My voice drops to a whisper, though no one's here to hear me.
"Speak English. I thought you said he was an attorney."
"He is. And he sits on the board at CHG. Pope, my boss, assigned us to co-lead the community initiative. Together. Weekly, sometimes daily, meetings, heads together, joint presentations to the board. The whole nine."
Gemma sits bolt upright, wine sloshing dangerously close to the rim of her glass. "Oh shit," slips out before she can catch herself.
I groan and drop my head into my free hand, fingers digging into my scalp. "Exactly."
Gemma straightens, her expression sharpening through the screen. Her eyes narrow slightly, the way they always do when she’s about to deliver some hard truth.
“Listen to me, Janie Harrelson. You are not that heartbroken girl sobbing in my apartment anymore. You’re the woman who finished her three-year fellowship with a newborn and got offered a two-year extension at the hospital.
Warren Carter may sit at your board table, but you are the one leading that initiative. That’s your chair, not his.”
Tears sting my eyes again. “He’s not just on the board, Gem. He’s—” I stop, choking on it. “He’s Beckett’s father, and he doesn’t even know. And every time I look at him will keep all of this stress and guilt, and lies stirring at the forefront of my brain. It's going to kill me.”
Gemma’s voice softens, but her gaze stays steady.
“Then let me remind you of something. You’ve carried this secret for five years.
You’ve built a whole life for Beckett without him.
And you’re not alone. You’ve got me, your parents, your brother, your entire support system.
You can keep carrying it if that’s what you choose.
Or you can change course. But whatever you do, you don’t have to drown in the guilt, okay? ”
The lump in my throat nearly breaks me. “What if I can’t do this?”
“You can.” Her voice is quiet but unshakable. “You already are.”
I stare into the dwindling flames as Gemma's expression softens, transforming from sharp-edged truth-teller to the friend who held my hair back during morning sickness.
“You’ve already proven you’re a badass,” Gemma continues, her voice steady through the phone. “You’re a director now, leading a major CHG initiative. Just focus on that and Beckett.”
“I wish I felt like what you see. Because right now it’s like I’m twenty-two again, hoping he would write me back, that we could maybe figure out how to do this together.” My fingers twist the hem of my sweater.
“Then maybe you should tell him, Janie. If it's eating you up this badly. You have a four-year-old son. I don't think your brother or your parents will be mad, or whatever it is that is keeping you so scared. It will work out. Do what's best for you and for Beckett. That's all that matters.”
The fire cracks, and I swipe at a tear before it falls. “God, Gem, I never anticipated feeling like this. You're right, though. Beckett didn't ask for any of this, so I need to get my shit together. But I can't talk about this anymore. Can we change the subject before I throw myself into the fire?”
Her smile tilts, soft but knowing. “Sure. Tell me about my boy. What’s he getting into there? Is he starting preschool soon?”
Relief loosens my chest, just a little. “Next week. Mom took care of all of that for me. She's already begging for him to spend weekends with them. They’re desperate to make up for lost time.”
"That's fabulous. I'm so happy for all of you! You could use a break. I know your parents will love having him around so often, and Beckett will get that quality time with his grandparents."
Just not his father… Or, if he does, he won't know it's his father.
"Yeah," I say forlornly.
"You should be ecstatic. You'll finally have more free time than you know what to do with. Maybe even a social life." She winks dramatically.
A laugh bubbles up, unexpected and light. "I don't even remember what a social life is."
"Well, I'm pretty sure it involves showering before noon on Saturdays and wearing something other than stained t-shirts and house shoes."
"Hey, those are designer stains."
After we hang up, silence rushes in to fill the space her voice occupied. Only the firepit answers me, popping softly, embers glowing red against charred wood.
I lean back, eyes locked on the coals. This place is haunted now. It's not haunted by ghosts, but by choices. By the secret upstairs, breathing softly in my old bedroom. Beckett’s tiny hands, the tilt of his eyes, the way his brow furrows just like Warren’s. All proof of what I’ve hidden.
I clutch the navy blanket tighter, the same one from that night, and stare into the embers. I tell myself they’re dying, harmless. But I know the truth.
One breath, one wrong move, and they’ll roar back to life.