Chapter 8 Charli
EIGHT
Charli
The Trumpet: Carries the melody of the dirge, a sound that, in New Orleans, has always resembled something trying to get free.
For a second, I forget how to move.
The grocery bags hang heavy in my arms while my brain tries to catch up with what I’m seeing.
Reeves Stone.
Six years have passed since the last time I saw him, but the recognition hits instantly.
The black Hummer rolls past my driveway before the brake lights flare twenty feet up the street. The truck stops at the curb, engine idling in the warm evening air.
He’s stopping.
My mouth goes dry, and I realize I’m still standing there with an armful of groceries like someone pressed pause on the rest of my body.
I should go inside. Close the door and pretend I never saw him.
Instead, I turn and set the bags back in the car before walking down the driveway toward the truck.
The Hummer alone costs more than I made last year. I know because I was with him when he bought it.
I think about the insurance claim I've been fighting for six weeks over a forty-dollar co-pay, and keep walking anyway.
Each step is automatic, like my body has already decided what to do while the rest of me struggles to catch up. My heart pounds hard enough that every breath comes shallow.
The wind chimes at my neighbor’s house stir in the evening breeze as I reach the open driver’s window.
The scent hits me first, the same clean soap and leather I remember from another lifetime.
His hair is shorter now, and the years have filled out his shoulders beneath the dark t-shirt. Both arms are covered in tattoos that run down to his wrists. He didn't have a single tattoo the last time I saw him, and now he looks like he's covered in them.
But his eyes haven’t changed.
The intense emerald green, just like Benjy's, are still dark and steady, watching me with that same unreadable calm that used to make my pulse race.
“Are you stalking me now?” The question is meant to break the ice, a little tongue in cheek, but once it leaves my mouth it doesn’t sound that way.
He shakes his head and looks forward, one wrist resting on the top of the steering wheel.
“I’m just messing with you. I thought I saw a black Hummer yesterday.”
“I’ve been driving to clear my head. When I realized I was near Magnolia Lane yesterday, I wanted to see if your parents still lived here.” His voice is deeper than I remember. Or maybe I’ve forgotten how it carries through the air between us.
Twice in two days is not an accident, but I don’t press.
“Yeah, I was able to snag a house down the street. Doing the small town thing.”
God, that sounds like everything he didn’t want.
A dog barks somewhere down the block. The truck's engine hums between us.
"I didn't mean to bother you. I was just driving by. You know how I love to just drive."
I imagined this conversation a hundred different ways, but not like this.
We really look at each other. The lines around his eyes weren’t there before, and neither was the small scar above his right eyebrow.
A strand of hair slips across my face. I tuck it behind my ear, buying myself a second.
“I heard about your dad,” I say. “I’m so sorry for your loss. He was a great man.”
“Thank you. He was great in a lot of ways. It’s still surreal.”
His shoulders stay squared, like he's standing at attention even while seated.
There is a part of me that wants to step forward and wrap my arms around him.
But that isn’t my place anymore.
“Are you still in the military?” I ask.
“Yes. I have about a week left here before heading back overseas. I came for the memorial, of course, and I’ve been catching up on rest.”
“I’m glad you have that time with your brothers.”
A porch light flickers on at the Hendersons’ house. Evening shadows stretch across the pavement while my groceries sit forgotten in the driveway.
His gaze drifts past me to the house, taking in the yellow light, the potted plants on the porch steps, the metal art piece hanging from the eave.
“It suits you,” he says.
The words land heavier than they should.
We stand there, neither of us saying what actually matters.
The truck idles, low and steady.
He watches me with that same intensity, and my skin prickles with it.
Reeves shifts in his seat, glancing at the dashboard, then back at me.
“I should let you get back to your evening.”
His voice carries none of the questions I once imagined hearing if we ever stood face to face again. There’s no mention of a child, no acknowledgment of what we created together. Just polite distance, as though we’re acquaintances who happened to run into each other on the street.
Maybe that’s all we are now.
“Right.” I tuck my hands into my back pockets and draw a slow breath.
Neither of us moves. The streetlights flicker on along Magnolia Lane, casting long shadows across the pavement.
“I should get these groceries inside before everything melts.”
He nods, relief crossing his features. “I’m sorry for startling you. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
His words land like a stone in still water. They are too small for what lies between us and too heavy for a moment like this.
“No apology necessary. It’s nice to see you. Drive safe, Reeves.” I shrug lightly.
Without waiting for a response, I turn and walk back up the driveway. I gather the grocery bags from the backseat and close the door with my hip.
The truck pulls away behind me, the low rumble fading as he turns down the street. When I glance back, the red taillights disappear around the corner.
The scent of exhaust lingers in the cooling night air.
I stand motionless on the porch, grocery bags growing heavier in my hands, wondering how we managed to have an entire conversation without saying anything that mattered.
I push the front door closed with my foot and stand in the entry hall while the refrigerator hums in the kitchen.
Otherwise, the house is silent.
And I have never been more aware of how alone I am.
My hands start to tremble.
The grocery bags slip in my grip as I carry them to the kitchen counter. Milk. Ice cream. Apples. I move items from the bag to the refrigerator on autopilot, but my brain won’t cooperate.
I put the cereal box in the freezer, catch myself, then stand there holding it.
Six years and two minutes of conversation through an open truck window, and my hands are shaking, and I can’t think straight.
This reaction isn’t from nerves. From the specific, inconvenient memory of what those hands on that steering wheel used to feel like on my skin.
Get it together.
I set the box down and grip the edge of the counter, drawing in a slow breath.
He didn’t mention the letter.
He didn’t ask about Benjy.
For six years, Reeves existed only in memory and in the green eyes of our son. Not flesh and blood on my street, studying my house.
Why now? What does he want?
I grab a glass from the cabinet and fill it with water. The liquid sloshes over the rim as my hand shakes.
With Benjy at my parents’ house for the night, I welcome the silence.
I carry the glass onto the back porch and sink into the wicker chair, holding it against my breast while the night air moves through the live oaks.
Nothing has changed, I tell myself.
Reeves made his choice years ago.
He’ll be gone in a week.
Early morning light spills across my desk as I twist a pen through my fingers. The laptop screen glows with the MidSouth acquisition proposal.
I'm not seeing patients today. I have a continuing education course in New Orleans, but I have to close this out so it isn't weighing on me
I click through the document again, pausing at the same clause I've read five times.
"Streamlined productivity benchmarks." My patients aren't benchmarks.
They're Melissa with cerebral palsy who laughs when we do mirror exercises.
They're Trent who worked three months to stand unassisted for ten seconds.
The cursor blinks at me. My reflection in the screen looks tired.
I glance around my small office. It's nothing fancy, with cream walls with framed diplomas.
Children's artwork adorns the corkboard behind my printer.
The woven rug Mom found at a yard sale sits diagonally on the wood floor and the Fiddle Leaf Fig tree I've grown from a sapling to the five-foot giant it is looms in the corner.
This place is mine.
I reply and begin typing.
Dr. Henderson,
Thank you for your generous offer—
The words come easily enough, but my mind keeps drifting to last night. Reeves in that black Hummer. The way his eyes scanned my house, lingering on Benjy's toys scattered across the yard.
I backspace, deleting a sentence that wandered off-topic. Focus.
While the financial terms are certainly attractive...
His eyes. They looked older. Harder around the edges. But still, that same intense focus that made me feel both seen and stripped bare.
I shake my head and plant my elbows on the desk, forcing myself back to the email.
After careful consideration, I've decided to decline the acquisition offer...
Did he get my letter? Does he know about Benjy? The questions circle like vultures, making it impossible to concentrate on a simple rejection email.
Of course he got my letter. I left it on his windshield while he was at the gym, just like I always left him letters. There's no reason to believe he didn't. It's only wishful thinking that he didn't instead of choosing not to respond to the reality that I was pregnant with his baby.
I straighten my shoulders and type more deliberately.
I've built this practice to serve our community in a specific way, and while your offer is generous, I believe maintaining independent operation best serves my patients and my professional goals.
There. Professional. Clear. Final.
I press send before I can overthink it further. The screen confirms delivery with a soft swoosh, and just like that, a decision that should be monumental slides quietly into my sent folder.
The clock on my desk reads 8:15 AM. Forty-five minutes until my first patient arrives.
I close the laptop and walk to the window, watching sunlight paint the parking lot. A squirrel races up an oak tree near the building. Normal. Ordinary. Everything exactly as it was yesterday.
I rest my forehead against the cool glass.
Nothing has changed.
Reeves Stone drove through town, stopped long enough for an awkward conversation, and then left again.
That’s all.
Except now I know he’s here.
And for the first time in six years, the past doesn’t feel nearly as settled as I convinced myself it was.