Chapter 15 Tanner
TANNER
The drive home felt longer than two hours.
Seth had still been asleep when I left. I’d stood in his doorway for a long moment, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the way his face went slack and unguarded in sleep.
He’d be catching a flight to his parents’ place in a few hours.
We’d said our goodbyes last night—careful, measured, neither of us quite bridging the distance that had settled between us over the past week.
Have a good trip, I’d said.
You too, he’d answered.
And then we’d gone to our separate rooms, and I’d lain awake for hours, trying to figure out how we’d gotten here. I hated not sleeping next to him, but I knew that if I had, he’d have woken up with me, and then I wouldn’t have left until he needed to go.
The exit for my hometown appeared on the right. I signaled, merged, and felt my chest go tight the way it always did when I came home. It had gotten worse since Dad died—every street corner a reminder, every familiar storefront a ghost.
Mom’s car was in the driveway when I pulled up. The house looked the same as it always did—a brick ranch with white shutters, the magnolia tree Dad had planted when I was born now tall enough to shade the front windows. Someone had hung a wreath on the door. New. Mom must have bought it recently.
I sat in the car for longer than I should have, hands still on the steering wheel, trying to prepare myself for whatever waited inside.
This was the first Thanksgiving without him.
The first holiday where his chair at the table would be empty, not because he was confused or agitated or unable to sit through a meal, but because he was gone.
In some ways, we’d been grieving him for years—losing pieces of him bit by bit as the disease progressed. But this was different. This was final.
I grabbed my bag from the passenger seat and headed for the door.
Mom met me in the entryway with a hug that lasted too long.
She’d lost weight since I’d last seen her. I could feel her shoulder blades through her sweater, sharp in a way they hadn’t been before. When she pulled back, her eyes were wet, but she was smiling.
“You look good,” she said, cupping my face in her hands. “Better than the last time you visited.”
“That’s not a high bar.”
“Take the compliment, Tanner.” She squeezed my cheeks once—a gesture from childhood that should have been annoying but instead made my shoulders drop. “Are you hungry? I’ve got a pot roast in the oven, but I can make you a sandwich.”
“I’m okay. Maybe just coffee.”
The kitchen smelled like slow-cooked beef and caramelized onions, the scent so familiar it hit me like a physical blow.
This was what home was supposed to smell like.
This was the kitchen where I’d sat at the counter doing homework while Mom cooked, where Dad had snuck bites of stuffing when he thought no one was looking, where we’d been a family before everything fell apart.
I leaned against the counter and watched Mom move around the space. She had a rhythm to her cooking—efficient, practiced, the muscle memory of decades of meals. The coffee maker gurgled to life, and she pulled down two mugs without asking.
“How’s school?” she asked. “You said you had that presentation.”
“It went well. The committee seemed impressed.”
“Of course they were.” She handed me a mug, already fixed the way I liked it. “You’ve been working so hard on that research. I’m proud of you.”
The praise hit somewhere behind my ribs. I took a long drink of coffee to hide whatever was happening on my face.
“And the grad school applications?” she continued. “Any news?”
“I got into Wilmington. Full funding.”
Mom’s whole face transformed. “Tanner! When did you find out? Why didn’t you call me?”
“It was recent. Things have been…” I trailed off, not sure how to explain the week I’d had. “Busy.”
“Well, this calls for a celebration. Wilmington was your first choice, wasn’t it?” She was already pulling a bottle of champagne from the fridge. When had she bought champagne? “We’ll toast at dinner.”
“Mom, you don’t have to—”
“I want to.” She set the bottle on the counter with a decisive thunk. “Your father would have been over the moon. He always said you’d do something important with your work.”
The mention of Dad hung in the air between us. For a moment, neither of us spoke. The coffee maker dripped. The oven hummed. Outside, a car passed on the street, its engine fading into silence.
“I miss him,” I said. The words came out rough.
“I know, baby.” Mom crossed to me, wrapped her arm around my waist. “I miss him too. Every single day.”
We stood there for a while, just holding on to each other. I breathed in the familiar smell of her perfume—something floral, the same scent she’d worn my entire life—and let myself be held the way I hadn’t in months.
The morning was peaceful. It reminded me of the way things used to be.
Mom had me chopping vegetables for a salad while she worked.
We didn’t talk much, but the silence was comfortable in a way it hadn’t been since before Dad got sick.
There was something grounding about the work—the repetitive motion of the knife, the pile of carrots and celery growing on the cutting board, the simple task of contributing to something.
“I wanted to do something,” Mom said, breaking the silence. “To honor your father. Today.”
I set down the knife. “What did you have in mind?”
“I found some of his old photos in the garage.” She kept her eyes on the casserole, layering marshmallows with careful precision. “Some from before we were married, all the way through his retirement. I thought we could look through them together. See him the way he used to be.”
My throat went tight. “I’d like that.”
“I wasn’t sure if it would be too hard for you.”
“It might be.” I picked up the knife again, resumed chopping. “But I want to remember him like that. Not just the way he was at the end.”
Mom nodded, her jaw working. For a moment, I thought she might cry, but she just took a breath and went back to what she was doing.
“There’s something else,” she said. “Something I need to tell you.”
The shift in her tone made me pause. I watched her wipe her hands on a dish towel, watched her take a breath like she was steeling herself.
“I’ve been seeing someone.”
The words didn’t register at first. I stood there with the knife in my hand, celery half-chopped on the board, trying to make sense of what she’d said.
“Seeing someone,” I repeated.
“His name is Frank. We met at the grief support group I joined last spring.” She was speaking fast now, like she’d been rehearsing this. “He lost his wife three years ago. Breast cancer. We started talking after meetings, and it just…happened.”
I set down the knife because I didn’t trust my hands. “How long?”
“Four months.”
Four months. She’d been dating someone for four months, and I hadn’t known. All those phone calls, all those check-ins, and she’d never mentioned—
“I wanted to tell you in person,” she said, reading my expression. “I know the timing is… I know it’s complicated.”
“It’s not complicated.” The words came out too fast. “You’re allowed to be happy, Mom. Dad would want you to be happy.”
“I know that. In my head, I know that.” She twisted the dish towel between her hands. “But it feels wrong sometimes. Like I’m betraying him by moving on.”
“You’re not betraying anyone.”
“He was sick for so long. And I loved him—god, I loved him—but by the end, I was so tired. So worn out from watching him disappear.” Her voice cracked. “And now I feel guilty for being relieved that it’s over. For finding something good in the middle of all this grief.”
I crossed to her, wrapped my arms around her the way she’d held me earlier. She was crying now, quiet tears that soaked into my shirt.
“You carried so much,” I said. “For so long. You don’t have to feel guilty for wanting to live again.”
“When did you get so wise?”
“I’m not wise. I’m just good at telling other people things I can’t believe about myself.”
She laughed, watery and raw. Pulled back and wiped her face with the dish towel. “He’s coming for dinner. Frank. If that’s okay. I wanted you to meet him.”
The request landed heavier than it should have. Some part of me—the part that was still a kid who’d watched his parents dance in this kitchen—wanted to say no. Wanted to keep this space sacred, just the two of us honoring what we’d lost.
But Mom was looking at me with hope in her eyes, and I couldn’t be the reason that hope died.
“Of course,” I said. “I’d like to meet him.”
Frank arrived at two.
He was taller than I expected—broad-shouldered, gray at the temples, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that suggested he smiled often. He shook my hand with a firm grip and looked me in the eye when he introduced himself.
“Tanner. Your mother talks about you constantly. It’s nice to finally meet the engineering prodigy.”
“I don’t know about prodigy.”
“False modesty. I’ve seen the papers she’s printed out.” He grinned, and something about the expression reminded me of Lincoln—warm, genuine, no pretense. “She’s got a whole folder of your research.”
I glanced at Mom, who was blushing. “You printed my papers?”
“Of course I did. What else am I supposed to do when you send me links?”
The interaction was surreal. My mother, blushing over a man who wasn’t my father, in the kitchen where my parents had spent two decades building a life together.
I should have felt something—anger maybe, or betrayal.
Instead, I felt a strange kind of relief.
She wasn’t alone. She had someone who made her blush, who knew about my research, who looked at her like she was something precious.
It didn’t erase the grief. But it existed alongside it.