39. Chapter 39
Caitlin
The kitchen door is propped open with a paint can to let in the morning breeze, and I step inside without knocking. Adam is on his knees in the dining room, measuring something along the baseboards. He looks up at the sound of my footsteps, and the surprise on his face is unmistakable.
“Caitlin,” he says quickly, standing. There are shadows under his eyes, and a tightness around his mouth. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be back.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I reply, lifting the bag I’m holding. “I brought lunch. Turkey and avocado wraps, and Aunt Charlene sent some of those fried apple pies you love.”
He nods, a small smile touching his lips but not quite reaching his eyes. “Thank you. That’s… that’s really thoughtful.”
An awkward silence stretches between us. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
“Listen,” he finally says, his voice low and careful. “After what happened the other day, I’d understand if you wanted to take a break from working here. I can finish the house on my own, if that’s what you need.”
The offer hangs in the air between us. He’s giving me an out, a way to distance myself from him and the painful memories we’ve been excavating together.
“I want to be here,” I tell him firmly. I don’t add that being away from him these past three days has felt wrong somehow, like a step backward rather than forward.
I don’t tell him that Aunt Charlene’s words about forgiveness and understanding have been echoing in my mind, making me view everything in a different light.
Surprise flashes across his face, there and gone so quickly I almost miss it. “Okay,” he says with a nod. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” I confirm, moving toward the kitchen to put away our lunch. That’s when I notice it, or rather, the absence of it. “Adam, where’s the dining room table?”
The table had been our workspace, covered with blueprints and tools and the detritus of renovation. Now the space where it stood is empty, just bare hardwood floors stretching from wall to wall.
Adam goes back to his measuring. “I moved it.”
“Moved it where?” I press, looking around as if the massive oak table might be hiding in a corner.
“It’s…” he hesitates, shoulders tensing slightly. “It’s in the garage. I needed more space to work.”
Something about his tone doesn’t ring true. The table wasn’t that much in the way, and we’d been working around it just fine until now. But I decide not to push it. Whatever his reasons, Adam clearly doesn’t want to discuss it.
“Okay,” I say instead, putting our lunch in the kitchen. “How’s everything coming along?”
He seems to relax slightly at the change of subject. “Good. Better than I expected, actually. The plumbing in the upstairs bathroom wasn’t as bad as I expected.”
I watch Adam as he continues his measurements, noting the careful way he holds himself, like something inside him might break if he moves too quickly. He looks tired, no, more than tired. He looks exhausted.
“Have you been having trouble sleeping, Adam?” I ask, opening the thermos of coffee I brought him. “You look terrible.”
He looks up, flashing me a tired smile. “That bad, huh? It’s a good thing I’m not a vain man. And yes, I’ve been sleeping. Some.”
“Some meaning what? An hour? Two hours?” I hand him the coffee, our fingers brushing briefly.
“Enough,” he says, taking a grateful sip. “I’m fine, Caitlin. There’s just a lot to get done.”
We fall into our familiar routine. Adam returns to work in the dining room while I start priming the newly repaired walls in the kitchen. The physical work feels good, gives me something to focus on besides the swirl of emotions that threatens to overwhelm me whenever I look at him for too long.
We work side by side until we have to leave for our shifts at the restaurant. As I’m putting away my tools, I catch Adam watching me, with an unreadable expression on his face. When our eyes meet, he doesn’t look away.
“I’m glad you came today,” he says quietly.
“Me too,” I reply, and I mean it. Whatever happens between us, I’m glad we’re facing it together instead of apart.
* * *
The next several weeks pass in a blur of work on Grandma’s house and gradually warming days. Adam and I work together on the house almost every day, but there’s a new guardedness about him; he’s tiptoeing around me in a way he never did before.
“You don’t have to be so careful with me,” I said once, surprising myself with the words. “I’m not going to fall apart again.”
Adam has looked up, his expression softening. “I know you won’t. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, Caitlin.”
Some of the tension between us dissipated at his reply. But he still maintained a careful distance even as we laughed together over lunch or celebrated small victories like getting all the kitchen cabinets painted.
Sometimes, I stop and watch Adam as he works, seeing the precise way he measures twice before cutting, the care he takes with even the smallest details.
There’s something deeply sad about the intensity of his focus, as if he’s pouring every ounce of himself into this house to avoid facing what’s happened between us.
The dark circles shadowing his eyes look like bruises.
Adam looks like he’s running on fumes and determination alone.
But every time I try to bring up his obvious exhaustion, he changes the subject.
Today I’m elbow deep in dinner prep at the restaurant when Jenny bursts into the kitchen, her normally composed face pinched with worry.
“Adam’s gone,” she says without preamble. “He got a call about twenty minutes ago, stepped outside to take it, and hasn’t come back.”
I set down my knife and turn towards her. “Do you think he left?”
“His truck’s still here,” Jenny says, twisting her apron between her fingers. “But I can’t find him anywhere.”
Uncle Peter glances at me, his expression unreadable. “Go find him,” he says simply. “I’ll handle things here.”
I nod quickly, washing my hands. As I dry them on a towel, I try to tamp down the worry gnawing at my insides. Adam wouldn’t just disappear in the middle of a shift without a reason. Something must be wrong.
I scan the dining room quickly, but there’s no sign of Adam’s tall frame. I check the back storage area, the bathrooms, even the small office where we handle paperwork. Nothing.
It’s not until I push through the back door into the parking lot that I find him. Leaning against the brick wall, phone clutched in his hand. His face is pale, almost gray.
“Adam?” I approach carefully, as if he might startle and bolt. “Are you okay?”
He looks up, and the raw pain in his eyes makes my heart clench. “Caitlin,” he says, his voice hollow. “I’m sorry. I just… I needed a minute.”
“What happened? Jenny said you got a call.”
“It’s my dad.” His fingers tighten around the phone until his knuckles whiten. “He had another heart attack. A bad one this time.” His voice cracks slightly on the last words. “Lauren says… she says the doctors aren’t sure which way it’s going to go.”
“Oh, Adam.” I reach for his hand without thinking, covering his white-knuckled grip on the phone. “I’m so sorry.”
He stares down at our joined hands as if they belong to someone else. “I don’t know what to do,” he admits quietly. “Part of me wants to get on a plane right now, to get to Iowa before it’s too late. And part of me…” He trails off, shaking his head.
“Part of you what?” I prompt gently.
His eyes meet mine, tortured with conflict. “Part of me wonders if I should go at all. I’ve been so angry with them, Caitlin. With my mother for manipulating me my whole life. With my father for never stepping in, for letting it happen.”
“I’ve been avoiding his calls,” he admits, his voice barely a whisper. “Not answering his texts. And now…”
His words hang in the air between us, heavy with pain. I keep my hand on his, a small point of connection in the midst of his turmoil.
“What do you want to do?” I ask, careful to keep my tone neutral.
Adam runs his free hand through his hair, a gesture so familiar it makes my chest ache.
“I don’t know. I don’t want him to die thinking I hate him.
I don’t want him to die without seeing him again.
” He takes a shaky breath. “But going back there… seeing my mother, seeing Millie, it feels suffocating, like a trap is closing around me again…”
I understand his fear. Mount Pella is where everything fell apart for us, where Adam was pulled back into toxic patterns by the people who should have protected him. The thought of him returning there, alone and vulnerable while his father is dying, makes my stomach twist.
Aunt Charlene’s words echo in my mind: “Adam was abused as a child. A parent doesn’t have to raise a hand against a kid to abuse them.
They can do it with words, with expectations, with emotional manipulation.
” I look at Adam now, my strong, capable Adam, who is rebuilding my childhood home board by board, and I see the wounded child beneath, the little boy who was never allowed to put his own needs first.
I make my decision in that moment, as clear and certain as anything I’ve ever known.
“If you want to go back,” I say slowly, “to say goodbye, or to try to make peace, or whatever you need to do… I’ll go with you.”
His head snaps up, eyes wide with disbelief. “What?”
“I’ll go with you,” I repeat, more firmly this time. “As a friend. For support.” I squeeze his hand. “You shouldn’t have to face this alone, Adam.”
He stares at me as if I’ve started speaking in tongues. “After everything that happened there? After everything I did? You would go back to that place with me?”
“Yes.” The simplicity of my answer seems to floor him.
“Why?” he whispers.
I think about all the reasons: because I can’t bear to see him hurting, because I understand now what he was up against, because maybe we both need closure on what happened in Mount Pella. But in the end, I settle on the simplest truth.
“Because you need someone in your corner,” I tell him. “And I want to be that person.”
Something breaks in his expression then, the careful walls he’s maintained crumbling. He doesn’t cry; Adam rarely does, but his eyes grow bright with unshed tears. He turns his hand under mine until our palms meet, fingers interlacing.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice rough with emotion. “But I can’t ask you to do that. To go back there, to face my mother, to see Millie—”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering.” I hold his gaze steady. “And I know exactly what I’m offering, Adam. I know what it means to go back there.”
He searches my face, looking for doubt or reluctance. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” I give his hand another squeeze. “If you decide to stay or go, I’ll support you. But if you want to go, you don’t have to do it alone.”
The tension in his shoulders eases slightly, as if I’ve lifted some invisible weight. “I need to go,” he says finally. “I need to see him, to try to make things right before…” He can’t finish the sentence.
“Then we’ll go,” I say simply.
We stand together, hands clasped, and for that moment nothing else exists except the two of us.
I don’t know what we’ll face in Mount Pella.
I don’t know if his father will survive, or if Adam will find the peace he’s seeking.
I don’t know if going back to the place where our relationship fractured will heal us or break us all over again.
But I do know that we’re facing it together this time. And somehow, that makes all the difference.