Claire
“Can we go away with Uncle Bob this weekend fishing?” Harry asks.
I smile in relief. This is the first time Harry has talked to me all week. “Where’s he going?”
“Down to Bear Mountain. He called and asked if Patrick and I could go.”
“Oh.” I stare at him for a moment. “You really want to go away fishing now?” I ask. Typical kids—don’t understand that I need them close right now. “Is Fletcher going?”
“No, Fletcher said he didn’t want to after working all week.”
“I’ll think about it,” I reply.
He stares at me for a beat, as if waiting for me to say something.
“Do you want to talk about Saturday?” I ask.
He puts his hand on his hip with attitude. “Are you going to call Tristan and apologize?”
“I already went and saw Tristan, Harry.”
His face lights up in excitement. “What did he say?”
I shrug as I search for the right words. “We decided that we’re just going to be friends for the moment,” I reply as I sip my coffee. He doesn’t need to know the ins and outs of our conversation at the airport. I don’t want to remember it myself.
He frowns. “So ... he’s not coming back?”
My heart drops. “No, honey. Remember, I told you that he had to go to Paris to work for a while.” I take his hand and hold it in mine. “You need to understand why Tristan and I have a different opinion on the adoption thing.”
He stares at me.
“Tristan isn’t your dad, Harry, and although we all love each other, sometimes things don’t turn out the way that we want them to.
Tristan was my boyfriend, and going forward, I’m not sure where we stand with that.
I’m sad too. This is affecting all of us.
But he will always be your friend, Harry.
Nobody will ever take that from the two of you. ”
“Dad’s dead, Mom. And he’s not coming back,” he spits. “And Tristan wants to be my new dad ... and you won’t let him.”
My eyes fill with tears at his cold attitude. “Harry.”
“You ruined it,” he blurts out like a poison. “You’ve ruined everything.” He storms off.
“Harry, come back here!” I call after him.
He marches up the stairs and slams his bedroom door hard.
I drag my hand down my face. God, this is a fucking nightmare.
The first two months Tristan and I were together, Harry hated him with a passion, and now ... he’s the one who’s unable to cope with all of this.
There are three hearts connected to mine.
I dial my brother’s phone number and wait as it rings. “Hey, sis,” he replies, and I can tell he’s smiling.
“Hey,” I breathe. I love my brother, and at times like this I just want to go and sleep on his couch so that I can be close to him. He makes everything seem better, and I have no doubt that’s why my boys are seeking him out.
“How you doing?” he asks.
“Okay.” I sigh.
“How you really doing?”
“Pretty crap.” I smile sadly.
“Thought so.”
“You really want to take the boys fishing this weekend?”
“Yeah, sure. When Harry called me—”
“Harry called you?” I interrupt him.
“Yeah, said he wanted to get away for the weekend with the boys.”
I get a lump in my throat ... he’s really missing Tris.
“Anyway,” he continues, “I’m happy to go. I could use some time with them too.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll text Harry all the details and keep in contact with him,” he says.
“Thanks.” I sigh sadly. My heart feels like it’s about to break from guilt.
“Hey ... sis?” Bob says.
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing with Tristan? Everybody seems pretty damn heartbroken over there.”
My eyes fill with tears. “No, Bob, I’m not,” I whisper.
“You might want to work it out pretty soon ... before it’s too late.”
I get a lump in my throat. “I know,” I whisper through tears.
Too late.
A feeling I am all too familiar with. After Wade died, there were so many things that I had left unsaid ... it was too late to tell him.
“You okay?”
“Uh-huh,” I lie as I wipe my tears. “It’s been a rough week. I’ll survive.” I smile sadly. “I always do.”
“Bye, darlin’. Love you.”
“I love you too.”
I sit and stare at my phone for a moment until I can’t stop myself anymore. I text Tristan.
I love you,
xoxo
I hit send and stare at my phone, and eventually the word appears.
Read.
He’s read the message.
I wait ... and I wait ... and I wonder what he’s doing right now.
Text me back ... please.
But he doesn’t, and I cry because I know that it’s probably already too late.
I sit in front of Fletcher’s building in the loading bay. It’s Friday afternoon, and I’m picking him up from work. The boys left to go on their fishing trip straight from school. It’s just the two of us for three days.
I watch him walk out the front doors with Jameson. They’re talking and laughing.
Does Jameson know about Tristan and me?
Jameson glances over at the car and nods his head. He turns his attention straight back to Fletcher.
He knows all right, and he’s pissed.
The whole world thinks I’m doing the wrong thing ... maybe I am.
I love Tristan. With all of my heart, I love Tristan. I would give anything to have him back in my life. But I can’t give control to someone over my children; I just can’t.
It’s nonnegotiable.
And if he loved me, he would understand why.
This isn’t an acquisition; this isn’t just another takeover. These are my children.
Wade’s flesh and blood, and I won’t sign them over.
No matter how much it kills me.
And it might ... I’ve never felt so sad. Well, that’s a lie—I have felt this sad, but it was a different sad. It was grief, a deep dark hole of grief.
This time, my love is very much alive and well.
It’s a torture that I can’t explain.
I know Tristan is hurting, too, and I can’t comfort him, and I can’t get through to him.
He won’t answer my calls. He won’t listen to me.
And I said some horrible things that I wish I could take back, but in the end, I stand by my decision.
Why can’t he see that?
Fletcher comes and gets into the car. “Hi,” he says as he throws his bag into the back seat.
“Hi.” I smile over at him. “How was your day?”
“Yeah, good.”
I pull out into the traffic. “Let’s go out for dinner, just the two of us.”
“Ah ...” He hesitates.
“You don’t want to?” I frown over at him.
He scrunches his nose up. “Not really. I’m tired. It’s been a big week at work. I just want to go home and chill, if that’s okay.”
I nod, saddened. “Okay, takeout it is.”
The drive home is made in silence. I thought Fletcher was okay about Tristan and me, but maybe that’s just because he was quiet. Now that I’m alone with him, I’m sensing more of his feelings.
He’s angry.
With every mile we drive, the silence builds more animosity between us.
We get closer to home, and I pull into the bottle shop. “I’m just going to run in and get a bottle of wine.”
Fletcher rolls his eyes, unimpressed.
I get out of the car and slam the door, annoyed. Since when is getting a bottle of wine a fucking crime? I walk around the shop as I mutter to myself angrily.
I’ve lost Tristan for standing up for my kids on behalf of their dead father, and now they aren’t talking to me?
What a joke.
And no matter how much they love Tristan, they can’t love him as much as I do.
I march back out to the car with a bee in my bonnet. Damn kids. I start the car, and we drive the two blocks home. Fletcher gets out and slams the door and marches inside.
Something inside of me snaps, and I storm in after him. I find him in the kitchen.
“What is your problem, Fletcher?” I snap.
“If you don’t know what my problem is, then you’re purposely ignoring my problem,” he snarls.
I’m taken aback with his aggression. Fletcher never gets angry with me—never. “You are old enough to understand this, Fletch. I’m not the bad guy here. I’m acting on behalf of your dad.”
“What?” he cries as he screws up his face in disgust. “You think that you’re acting on behalf of Dad?” he scoffs.
I put my hands on my hips. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Dad sent Tristan for us, Mom.”
His eyes search mine.
“Don’t you see?” he yells. “Dad was the one who found Tristan and sent him to us.” His eyes well with tears. “What the hell would a man like Tristan Miles want with us ... if Dad hadn’t arranged it in heaven?” he cries.
My face falls. Pain sears my heart. The thought of my beautiful Wade searching for a new dad for his children breaks my heart, because I know it is something that he would do.
If he could send the best man on the planet to me, he would have.
He did.
The room begins to spin. Everything becomes foggy as I imagine Wade watching me from heaven with my broken heart ... his children with their broken hearts ... unable to help us.
“You’re the only one who doesn’t see it,” Fletcher snaps.
“You think your dad sent Tristan for us?” I whisper.
“I know it, Mom. Harry and Patrick know it ... why don’t you know it?” he whispers through tears. “How can’t you see it, Mom? When it’s all we can see.”
I drop my head and stare at the ground. Tears run down my face. They are hot and taste salty.
He runs out the front door, and it slams behind him. I put my face into my hands.
This heartbreak, this pain ... I can’t do it anymore.
Make it stop.
The sun peeks through the curtains, and I listen to the lawn mower next door. Every now and then it runs over a rock, and it makes a jarring sound.
Why do they have to mow their fucking lawn every Saturday morning and wake the entire neighborhood?
They don’t even work. Why can’t they do it during the week?
Why so early on the weekend?
I get up and go to the bathroom and peer through the side of the drapes at the perpetrator. I should storm down there and give them a piece of my mind.
But I won’t, because this has been annoying me for years now, and I just smile every time I see them. They’ve had to put up with my hooligan kids throwing balls into their yard and riding their bikes across their lawn as a shortcut. I guess we’re even.
I grab my phone and return to bed. I cried all night last night. I feel like I’m having a fucking breakdown or something. Things can’t get any worse. I do feel a little better today, though, so that’s something.
I go onto Facebook and scroll through. I go to Instagram and browse for a while, and then a video comes up from my brother’s story.
He’s dancing in a bar.
Huh?
I go back and watch it again. It must be old footage. He’s out in the boondocks camping with the boys ... where is this bar?
I read the caption: dancing the night away .
Huh?
I flick through to Bob’s Facebook page and scroll down. Sure enough, he’s posted a pic of himself getting on a plane, with the caption Florida here I come .
What?
I immediately dial his number. It rings out, and I call again.
“Hello,” he answers groggily in a very hungover voice.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“Florida.”
“Where are the boys?” I snap.
“Huh?”
“Where are the boys?”
“What do you mean? They canceled and said they couldn’t go. I came here with my buddies.”
I sit up in bed. “Bob, they’re not here. I haven’t seen them since Friday morning.”
“What?”
“I thought they were with you?” I cry.
“I thought they were with you!” he cries back.
“Oh my God,” I whisper as my eyes widen.
“What?”
“They’ve run away, Bob.”
“Holy fuck, call the police.”