11. Morning Visits #2
The question hit harder than shouting would have. There was hurt in it, real hurt, and something else I couldn't name.
“I don't know what to think of you,” I shot back, my voice cracking slightly. “You show up here with groceries like we're family, like you have some right to?—”
“To what? Care whether you're destroying yourself?” He stepped closer, and I could smell his cologne, something clean and warm that made my stomach do things I didn’t want to acknowledge.
“Care?” I laughed harshly. “That what you call it? Pretty sure the word is nagging .”
“Funny,” he said flatly. “Most people would call it keeping you alive.”
“Yeah, well, most people don’t stock my fridge like some kind of judgmental fairy godmother.”
The corner of his mouth twitched—almost a smile, almost—but his voice stayed rough. “Because that's all this is, Rowan. Watching you drink yourself to death at nine in the morning while you fuck strangers to feel something.”
The words hit like a slap. “That's not?—”
“It's not what? True?” His eyes burned, but there was something behind them, something breaking.
I scoffed, weak but sharp. “You’re awfully invested for someone who claims not to give a shit.”
“You think I don't recognize self-destruction when I see it?” His voice got rougher, more raw. “You think I haven't been watching you tear yourself apart since you got back here?”
“Why do you care?” The question came out smaller than I'd intended, almost vulnerable .
He exhaled like it hurt. “Because she would have cared.” He ran a hand through his hair, and I could see his composure starting to crack. “Because every time I look at you, I see her. And every time I watch you hurt yourself, it feels like losing her all over again.”
The honesty of it gutted me. I wanted to lash out, to say something cruel enough to make him leave, but the words wouldn’t come.
Instead, I muttered, “Bet she wouldn’t approve of you hovering over me like a prison guard.”
“She’d approve of me keeping you alive.”
“See, there it is again—nagging.” My voice trembled, the mockery too thin to hide the truth underneath.
“And for the record,” he continued, his voice dropping lower, “I don't give a shit who you sleep with. Men, women, whoever makes you feel less alone for a few hours. What I care about is that you're using them like medication, and it's not working.”
“Funny,” I said bitterly. “You sound jealous.”
That stilled him for half a second, something flickering in his gaze before he shoved past it.
And god help me, the flicker made my stomach twist in a way I didn’t want to name.
It was reckless and wrong, but there it was: the thought of Elias jealous sat too comfortably in my head.
The idea of him caring who touched me—of him wanting to be the one—hit like a live wire.
I hated myself for it, and I wanted it anyway.
“How would you know what works for me?” I asked, my voice sharper than I meant, like maybe I could cut the thought out before it rooted deeper.
“Because I've been there.” The admission came out rough, like it had been dragged from somewhere deep. “After she died, I tried everything. Drinking, isolation, throwing myself into work until I couldn't think anymore. Nothing worked. You know what finally helped?”
I shook my head, not trusting my voice.
“Talking to someone who understood.”
The silence that followed was deafening. I could hear my own heartbeat, could hear Roxie moving around under the couch, could hear the distant sound of Harbor's End waking up outside.
Roxie emerged then, trotting out like she owned the place, tail high. She jumped onto the coffee table, sniffed Elias’s sleeve, and gave a satisfied trill before curling up against his arm.
“Traitor,” I muttered. “She’s supposed to be my emotional support animal, not yours.”
Elias’s mouth twitched—almost a smile. “Maybe she just likes people who actually feed her.”
“Excuse me? I feed her.”
“Vodka fumes don’t count.”
I rolled my eyes, but the sound that came out of me was closer to a laugh than a retort. And it scared the hell out of me, because for one dangerous second, I wanted to lean into him—into the steadiness, the warmth, the way his presence made the room feel less empty.
The silence stretched. Roxie purred under his hand, perfectly content, while I sat there trying not to stare at the way his fingers moved—steady, careful, like he knew how to handle fragile things.
My throat felt tight, and I hated that the thought of being one of those fragile things made something inside me ache.
Elias stroked Roxie absently, his gaze never leaving me. “Maybe she’s just smarter than you. She knows where the stability is.”
“Stability?” I scoffed, though my chest tightened. “ You? With your tea collection and your perfectly folded sweaters? Please. She just likes that you don’t forget to feed yourself.”
For the first time, something almost like amusement flickered across his face, but it vanished as quickly as it came. The air between us shifted anyway, the silence humming with something heavier than words.
“I don't know how to do this,” I whispered finally.
“Do what?”
“Any of it. Be here, talk about her, exist in the same space where she used to be happy.” My voice cracked completely. “I don't know how to be around you without feeling like I’m betraying her memory.”
Something moved in his expression, the anger melting into something softer but no less intense. “Why would being around me be betraying her?”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t tell him that every time he looked at me like that—steady, unflinching—I felt my pulse stumble, felt heat coil in places that had nothing to do with grief.
Couldn’t admit that the thing clawing at me wasn’t just loss, but want.
Want for him. Want that was dangerous and twisted and wrong in ways I couldn’t even say out loud.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
He turned, like he was going to leave, and panic jolted through me. Not because I couldn’t handle the silence, but because some reckless part of me didn’t want him to go.
“Elias—” The word slipped out before I could stop it, raw and pleading. He paused, glanced back, and for a second our eyes locked. Too long, too sharp. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff, dizzy with the urge to jump.
I didn’t say the rest. Couldn’t. So instead I let him leave, the door clicking softly behind him. The sound felt final, but my body betrayed me—the thud of my heartbeat still racing, the ache of wanting him to turn back even as I told myself I hated him.
Roxie wound around my ankles, purring like nothing had changed. But everything had. I’d just realized that the thing I feared most wasn’t losing Elias. It was wanting him.
The cemetery on Windhill was quiet. The grass was still damp from last night's rain, and the smell of earth and salt from the nearby sea mixed in the air like a blessing and a curse.
I stood at the entrance for a long moment, reading the names on the weathered sign. Harbor's End Memorial Cemetery, established 1847. Nearly two centuries of people who'd lived and died in this place, who'd found their final rest overlooking the water they'd spent their lives working.
But I didn't know where she was. Had never asked, had never wanted to know the specifics of where they'd put her body while I was too fucked up to function. The cemetery stretched out before me like a maze.
I started walking, reading names and dates, looking for something familiar. The older section was filled with elaborate Victorian monuments, angels with broken wings and quotes about eternal rest. The newer section was more modest, simple headstones marking more recent losses.
It took me twenty minutes to find her.
Elaine Margaret Grant. The name carved into white marble that was already beginning to weather at the edges.
Beloved wife and mother
The words felt inadequate, like trying to sum up the ocean with a teaspoon of salt water .
I knelt in the damp grass and set the lilies carefully at the base of her headstone. The white petals seemed to glow in the pale morning light, a splash of brightness against the somber gray of stone and earth.
My fingers traced her name carved into the marble, the grooves cold and unyielding under my touch.
She was really gone. Not traveling, not angry with me, not waiting for me to call and apologize. Gone in the most final way possible.
“Didn't think I'd come back, huh?” I said, my voice catching slightly before I forced it steady. The words felt strange spoken aloud in this place, too loud and too quiet at the same time.
The wind moved through the grass with a low hiss, rustling the new leaves on the oak trees. For a second it almost sounded like a response, like she was trying to tell me something I wasn't ready to hear.
I told her about Roxie, about how she'd appeared in the middle of the road like a gray and white ghost, about how she hid under the couch and only came out when she thought it was safe. About how taking care of something so small and fragile felt like the first meaningful thing I'd done in months.
“She's got your stubborn streak,” I said, surprised by the fondness in my own voice. “Won't eat unless I'm not looking, won't let me pet her unless she decides it's okay. Smart girl.”
I talked about Harbor's End, about how small it felt after New York, how the silence pressed down on me like a weight I couldn't shake. About how I'd forgotten that stars were visible at night, how the sound of the ocean was different here than it had been in my memories.
“I hate this place,” I admitted, the words scraping against my throat. “I hate how everyone knows everything about everyone, how they look at me like I'm some kind of tragedy they can't stop watching. I hate how it smells like salt and sadness and all the things I left behind.”
My throat tightened, emotion rising like bile. I swallowed it down, pushing it aside before it could break me completely. Crying wouldn't bring her back, wouldn't fix the years of silence between us, wouldn't make any of this hurt less.
“I haven't written anything,” I said, the confession feeling like admitting to a crime. “Music used to be... it used to be everything. Now it just sounds like noise.”
The silence that followed was heavy, familiar.
“He's still here,” I said finally, almost under my breath. “Elias. Your husband. Feels weird seeing him, talking to him. Like I'm trespassing on something that was never mine to begin with.”
I thought about this morning, about the way he'd looked at me when that guy had walked out of my bedroom. Not disgusted, not judgmental, but something more complicated. Like he'd seen something in me that I wasn’t ready to acknowledge.
“I think I fucked it up,” I said. “Whatever chance we had to... I don’t know. Be something. I threw it away because I’m apparently incapable of not destroying everything good in my life.”
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of rain and spring flowers and the eternal presence of the sea.
I rubbed at the back of my neck, let out a weak laugh.
“You’d probably tell me to stop being dramatic.
Roll your eyes, hand me a plate of cinnamon rolls, and say something like ‘Rowan, for God’s sake, you’re not the first idiot to make a mess of things.
’ And then you’d hum while you cleaned the kitchen, like my entire existence wasn’t falling apart. ”
I shook my head, staring at the lilies I’d laid down. “ You’d love Roxie. She’s got better table manners than me. Stares at me like she’s judging my life choices, so yeah, she’d fit right in with you.”
When I finally stood, my legs were unsteady, stiff from staying in one position too long. The lilies looked small and fragile against the vast expanse of grass and stone, but they were all I had to offer. All I’d ever had to offer.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and this time it came out softer, almost like a secret between us. “For everything. For staying away, for being angry, for not being what you needed me to be. And yeah—for not learning how to cook. You were right about that too.”
I turned and walked away without looking back, afraid that if I lingered any longer I might collapse completely.
The cemetery gate closed behind me with a soft clang, and I found myself back on Harbor’s End’s quiet streets, surrounded by the living world that continued its relentless forward motion whether I was ready or not.