44. Ethan
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Ethan
Oliver is crying.
Consciousness hits all at once after that.
I’m out of bed before thought fully catches up with movement, my pulse already spiking into worst-case territory.
Fever, nightmare, fall, hurt, gone.
I don’t remember crossing the room. I only remember the hallway, cold beneath my bare feet, and the sound of my son trying to breathe around sobs.
“Oliver?”
His bedroom door is open.
He isn’t in bed.
For one terrible second, every part of me stops. Then I hear him again from Addy’s room.
I push open her room door slowly, and the scene inside punches the breath from my lungs.
Oliver’s sitting on the floor beside Addy’s suitcase.
The suitcase sits open beside the bed, half-packed and unmistakably real.
Clothes folded inside. Toiletries on the bed. A cardigan draped over the side because she set it there and walked away before finishing. I guess before she went out with her sister.
Oliver clutches one of Addy’s sweaters to his chest.
His face is wet.
When he looks up at me, his chin trembles. “Is Sunshine leaving?”
I can handle almost anything. Board meetings with hostile men who want my chair. Emergency landings. Software failures. Federal investigators. Headlines. Stock plunges. Years of grief so heavy it changed the shape of my life.
But my five-year-old son sitting beside a half-packed suitcase, asking whether another woman he loves is leaving him?
No.
That I cannot handle.
I crouch in front of him. “Oliver.”
“She’s leaving.” His voice cracks. “She packed her clothes.”
I glance at the suitcase.
I knew Addy was scared. I knew she said she wanted to go back with Luci for a while. But some arrogant, stupid part of me didn’t believe she’d really do it. I told myself she wouldn’t really leave because the alternative felt unbearable to even consider.
So I filed it away as temporary panic. Hormones, exhaustion, fear. A conversation to revisit once the company stopped burning, once Bryce was contained, once I had enough information, enough control, enough of anything to offer her something that wasn’t wreckage.
I treated the woman carrying my children as a pending item, and now my son is crying beside her suitcase.
“She didn’t say goodbye,” Oliver whispers.
The words land exactly where they’re meant to.
Because that’s what he remembers, even if he doesn’t have the language for it.
People disappearing. A mother who went on a flight and never came home.
Adults whispering, doors closing, grief entering a house before he was old enough to understand why the air had changed.
I sit on the floor with him. “Listen to me, Addy hasn’t left.”
“But she’s going to.”
I don’t answer fast enough.
His face crumples.
Damn it.
I pull him into my arms, and he comes willingly, sobbing against my chest.
“She likes it here,” he cries. “She likes Captain. And me. She said I’m her favorite tiny pilot.”
My eyes burn. “She does like it here.”
“Then why is she packing?”
Because I failed to make her feel safe. Because I froze. Because she is carrying three of my children and still thinks she might be too much to keep, and I let silence do what Bryce did with words.
I close my eyes and press my mouth to Oliver’s hair. “Because grownups get scared too.”
He hiccups. “Of suitcases?”
“Sometimes.”
“That’s dumb.”
A broken laugh slips out of me. “Yes.”
He pulls back, wiping his nose with his sleeve. Megan would’ve corrected him. Addy would’ve made a joke. I just let it happen because there are larger structural emergencies.
“Are you scared?” he asks.
I look at the suitcase. “Yes.”
His eyes widen. “You are?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I already lost one woman I loved.
Because the last time my life changed this fast, it ended with a wreckage report and an empty side of the bed.
Because Addy is sunshine and soft citrus and sarcasm in my kitchen.
Because she hums terrible songs under her breath when she thinks no one hears.
Because she made my son laugh again. Because she talks to my dog as if he has legal authority.
Because she looked at the darkest part of me and didn’t flinch.
Because I’m in love with her.
The realization isn’t gentle.
I am in love with Addy Clarke.
And despite everything I convinced myself to believe, she was preparing to leave anyway.
“I’m scared,” I say carefully, “because Addy is important to me.”
Oliver sniffles. “Then tell her.”
If only life were as simple as my son makes it.
Maybe it is.
Maybe I’m the one who kept making it complicated because complications are easier to manage than truth.
“I will.”
“Now?”
Before I can answer, Captain appears in the doorway, stretching dramatically as if he’s been summoned. He trots in, sniffs the suitcase, and immediately tries to remove one of Addy’s socks.
“Captain.” He freezes with the sock in his mouth. “Drop it.”
He drops it onto Oliver’s lap.
Oliver gives a watery giggle.
Good.
“Right, Oliver, go brush your teeth. Put on actual socks. Both feet. Then take Captain to the kitchen.”
After he’s gone, I remain in Addy’s room for one more moment.
The suitcase sits open. It shouldn’t be a threat. It’s fabric and zippers. Luggage. An object. But I’ve seen enough departures to know sometimes grief starts with packing.
I step out and close the door halfway behind me.
Then I go to war.
By seven a.m., three maternal fetal specialists are awake because I made them be.
By eight, the penthouse has a nutritionist, a pregnancy care coordinator, and enough medical equipment to survive a small apocalypse.
By nine, Jeffrey stops asking questions and starts making calls.
Addy thinks she’s leaving.
I intend to prove otherwise.