Chapter 32
thirty-two
Stevie
Four Months Later
The sun blazes unseasonably warm for June as we settle on the chipped wooden bench outside Molly Moon’s.
Jude’s already sticky, chocolate smeared along one cheek. Lila licks the edges of her cherry chunk cone like she intends to win a race. Isla sits beside me stoically staring at her mint brownie without taking a single bite.
We’ve just come from the cemetery.
I didn’t know what to expect this morning. Whether they’d ask questions. Cry. Shut down completely. Jude is too young to remember much, thank God. Lila laid her hand on the marble plaque and whispered something I couldn’t hear. Isla stood frozen beside me until I reached for her limp hand.
Now she stares straight ahead, melted ice cream dripping down her wrist. Of all my children, she’s having the hardest time recovering. She was a daddy’s girl through and through and can’t comprehend the rest of her life without Coop.
“Want me to throw it away for you, love?” I offer, brushing a curl out of her face. She shakes her head, mute. Dumps it into the trash next to us and sits back down.
Lila, who’s been adjusting surprisingly well, notices. “Isla’s being weird again.”
“Lila.” My voice holds a warning.
She shrugs. “Well, she is.”
“I’m not weird,” Isla snaps. “I don’t want to celebrate something sad.”
“This isn’t a celebration,” I say tenderly. “It’s remembrance. We’re honoring your dad. It hasn’t been easy and we all miss him terribly, but we have each other.”
Jude tugs my sleeve. “I drew Daddy a picture and left it on the grass by his grave.”
“It was beautiful.” I lean down and kiss his sticky forehead. “He loves it. I know he’s smiling down at you from heaven.”
“I want to go home,” Isla whispers.
She continues to unravel in her own quiet way.
I don’t push her. I can’t. Because my eldest won’t confide in me, I’ve got her in more intensive therapy now, with someone who specializes in pre-teen grief. One thing has been working incredibly well—art therapy. She’s constantly drawing in her notebook. It’s her way of coping.
As for me, I’m taking it day by day. I’ve built a schedule, pay bills on time, cook meals and shuttle the kids around. Even when I don’t want to I show up because I refuse to let the grief define us.
Some days, survival might be the only metric. On others, when the kids are settled and the house is quiet, I let myself dream again. Embers & Bloom Custom Events isn’t real yet. Not in the way it will be one day. I’m making progress, though.
I picked a name. Registered the business. Bought the domain. Locked down the social handles even though I haven’t posted a thing. I made a rough logo on Canva and saved it to a folder I haven’t opened since.
All of this preparation is kinda like laying out clothes for a life I’m not quite ready to live.
Every day, though, I move forward. Slow and steady. One step, then another. A list on the fridge. A spreadsheet on my laptop. Notes in my phone with color palettes and tagline ideas.
I’m not ready to launch, but I will be. When my heart stops feeling like a battlefield, I’ll have something to step into. A business I own. I’ll be able to show my kids how to survive the worst tragedy and move through it. Hopefully, I’ll be an example they can look up to.
Until then, I do my best. I parent. I grieve. I breathe. I build.
Quietly. Carefully. For all of us.
Glancing, at Jude, I can’t help but laugh. He’s halfway through his cone, babbling to himself, “Yummy. Yummy. Yummy.”
“You’re a nutter,” Lila tells him with a grin while Isla sits stoic with her arms crossed.
Something in the air transforms. Not suddenly. More like a tide rolling in, peaceful but unstoppable.
I feel it before I see it. A pull in my chest. A pause in the air.
My gaze lifts toward the door.
There he is.
Padraig. With baby Rafferty curled against his chest, snug in a sling-like carrier.
He doesn’t see us. Not yet. He places an order with the girl behind the counter, rocking his son absently, a familiar rhythm in the sway of his hips.
His hair’s long again, pulled back into a knot at the nape.
Chin dusted in scruff. He’s thinner than I remember from the last time I saw him at my parents’ house.
Today, every part of me always remembers every part of him.
Then I notice, Mara’s beside him, clutching a small diaper bag.
I freeze.
Mom told me they moved up here a few months ago and Mara’s living in Liam’s townhouse—one of the matching units Rory built a few years ago for each of his sons as way to make amends for everything he put the family through.
Apparently, Padraig’s staying at his own place next door and they’re coparenting. Nothing more.
By the way they interact, I’m not sure I believe it. She stands this close and gazes at him like he belongs to her. Old feelings bubble up unexpectedly. New ones too.
I don’t understand how she can live with herself for trapping him and pushing him into a life he wasn’t ready for. He deserved a real choice in the matter.
God, I’m judgmental. Like I’m one to talk. Cooper and I hadn’t been together more than a couple of months when I realized I was pregnant and we had a happy life.
Mara gestures toward a painting on the wall. She leans in to say something to Padraig. They laugh, with her hand resting lightly on his arm. He doesn’t seem to mind her touch. If anything, he looks comfortable with her.
My gaze drifts, almost without permission, to whatever she’s pointing at.
The moment feels preordained. As if my eyes were always meant to see the painting, which pulls me in before I can think.
Jagged textures clash and merge, layered scraps stitched together in deliberate chaos.
The colors don’t sit stagnant, they breathe, expand, and fold in on themselves like they’re alive.
He’s the artist. I’m sure of it. Every stroke feels like something I’ve known in my bones.
Padraig, pressed into canvas.
I can’t look away. My pulse thrums loudly in my ears. The painting feels like a message I was supposed to find in this exact, perfect moment.
Then he turns.
Not toward the counter. Not toward Mara. Toward me.
The moment lands like a punch. His eyes lock on mine, and everything else dissolves. The whirr of the coffee maker. The chatter at the tables around us. The weight of this past year my kids and I have survived.
Time folds in on itself until it’s only the two of us, suspended in a space we’ve always carried no matter how many years we’ve been apart and how much distance has been between us.
For a second, neither of us moves. The sounds of the shop fade. The kids, the chatter and the clatter of scoops in the metal bins all blur. We…stare.
He takes a single step. Then another. Like there’s a string tied between us, pulling him across the room and suddenly he’s in front of me, arms wrapping around me without a word. My body folds into his side like no time has passed.
The air between us is suspended with every word we’ve never said, every memory we’ve never let go of, and every loss we’ve carried alone. Grief lives here too. Threaded through the years, binding us as much as it’s carved a canyon.
I inhale his scent. Clean cotton. Leather. Baby powder.
We don’t speak. We just hold.
Until Isla tugs at my sleeve. “Mom? Who is this man?”
I pull back slowly, not ready, but knowing I have to for the sake of my kids.
“This is Padraig, Isla,” I remind her. “He was my next door neighbor and best friend.”
Padraig swallows hard. He looks down at her. “Hi, Isla. You’re so grown up.”
She blinks up at him, uncertain.
“You met him at Grandma Lucinda’s birthday a few years ago, remember?” I prompt.
She scrunches her nose. “Um…sort of.”
“This is Lila.” I gesture to my youngest daughter, nodding to where she’s now staring at Rafferty like he’s a toy she wants to steal. “And Jude.”
Padraig gives a small, awkward wave.
“Why is your baby in a backpack?” Jude points at Padraig’s chest.
“It’s a baby carrier.” Padraig chuckles. “His name’s Rafferty.”
Lila peers up at him. “Raf-fer-tee. Weird.”
“I know,” Padraig says. “It’s Irish. It means abundance and prosperity.”
Behind him, I realize Mara is hanging back, watching the scene. She doesn’t interrupt. Or insert herself. She politely stands to the side with a fixed, practiced smile pasted to her lips like she knows exactly where she fits in this moment.
Outside of it.
“Hi, Mara.” I take a small step toward her, bridging the space.
Her smile brightens before she frowns. “Hi Stevie. I’m so sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what this year’s been like for you.”
I’m used to hearing this sentiment. A polite, measured thing people say when they don’t know how to address such a devastating tragedy.
“Thank you, we’re getting through,” I reply on autopilot before switching subjects to her. “How are you doing?”
“Oh, better now. A change of scenery has helped a lot.” She lets out a breath.
“Still getting my bearings, but I like it up here.” She glances toward Padraig, then back to me.
“I recently started at KOMO. Field reporting for now. I hope to work toward an anchor spot once I rebuild my reel. I’ve had a few years off. ”
“Wow, how exciting.” I try to exude positivity, though the words carry a strange weight.
A fleeting thought slips in before I can stop it. I chose not to follow Padraig and, as I understand it, Mara gave up her career to follow him. The irony isn’t lost on me.
Now, here we are, all of us starting over.
Did I make the wrong call all those years ago? I glance over at Isla, her braid slipping over her shoulder. Then, Lila watching all of us with wide eyes and Jude’s ice cream-sticky smile. Little Rafferty is strapped to Padraig’s chest.
None of them would exist if we’d stayed the course.
Something akin to peace washes over me. Some things happen because they’re meant to. Even if they break you first.
Padraig shifts Rafferty in the carrier, steadying him with one hand while the other brushes against Mara’s back. The touch isn’t romantic, it’s stabilizing. Like he’s bracing her the same way he’s always steadied everyone else.
There’s no spark in his eyes when he looks at her. No heat. No hunger. Mainly, duty. The same quiet loyalty he gives so freely, putting everyone’s needs before his own without asking for anything in return.
Something twists deep inside me, sharp and not entirely unwelcome. For years I’ve buried the thing between us so deep it stopped breathing.
Rightfully so. I was married. I loved Cooper and my family. My loyalty was theirs and I never let myself wonder what if.
Yet, standing here after we’ve come from the gravesite and I’ve watched my kids trace their hands over Cooper’s name in stone, I look at Padraig and feel an old current crackle to life.
It’s wrong.
It’s disorienting.
But, it’s real.
I probably shouldn’t be feeling this. Not here. Not now. Not with my children still
holding the weight of their father’s death in their small, fragile hearts.
I do feel it, though. Grief and memory and whatever’s always lived between me and Padraig collide in the same breath, and I don’t know how to stop my heart from stumbling in my chest.
Everything disappears. The years. The almosts. The never-will-be’s.
Padraig catches my gaze and something flickers behind his eyes.
Recognition.
Regret.
A love so old, so embedded, it can’t help but show.
I swallow hard. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” he grits out.
Then Rafferty whimpers, and the spell breaks.
He rocks his son soothingly. “We should—uh—get going.”
I nod, stepping back, placing a hand on Jude’s shoulder.
“Bye, Rafferty,” Lila says.
Padraig meets my eyes one last time. “Maybe we could catch up soon?”
“I’d like to,” I whisper.
He turns toward Mara, who adjusts the bag on her shoulder and follows him out.
Jude looks up at me. “He was nice.”
“Yeah.” I hold back tears. “He’s very nice.”
Lila tugs my sleeve. “He’s your friend?”
God, he was so much more.
Some part of me will always ache for what we were and what we might have been. But not today.
Today belongs to my children and to the man who loved them.
To the life we had before it shattered.
Tomorrow, the ache for Padraig will be there.
Maybe then, I’ll be ready to embrace it.