Chapter 29 Honey
Honey
Honey folded her sweater into a perfect square and tucked it neatly into her half-full suitcase.
She glanced around the pink room that she already knew she’d miss. She ran her hand over the little lopsided marker heart on the wall she’d gotten used to staring at as she fell asleep. The unicorn lamp. The window where if she stood at the far right, she could see into the orchard.
Maybe she should paint her apartment back in the city. Not quite as bright a pink, but something warm. Something that made it feel like someone actually lived there. Soft peach, maybe. Or the yellow of the living room wallpaper. She blinked hard and reached for another shirt to pack.
A small gasp caught her off guard. Honey’s head snapped up to find Melly in the doorway, eyes going wide as she took in the half-packed bag. She barely had a second to brace herself before Melly drew in a lungful of air.
She let out a wail that rattled the windowpanes and stomped her foot in protest.
Footsteps thundered down the hall.
As soon as Brooke came into view, Melly jabbed a finger in Honey’s direction. “She’s leaving.”
“She what?” Brooke skidded to a stop. “You can’t leave!”
“She wasn't going to even say bye!” Melly accused.
Brooke flung her arms across the doorway just like she had that first day when Honey arrived at the house. Only now, instead of keeping her out, she was trying to keep her in. “Do something, Emma!” she shouted.
“I told you,” Emma said quietly, appearing behind them.
Brooke whirled on her. “Don’t say that! Say something useful! Make her stay!”
Emma’s jaw clenched, and she looked away, her silence louder than if she had screamed.
“Emma…” Honey said.
Out of everyone, it gutted her most to see disappointment in Emma’s eyes.
She was the reason she’d stayed, the reason she’d let her neat professional boundaries blur and tangled herself in the mess and beauty of this family.
She had seen the weight Emma carried and recognized it.
She had wanted to ease that burden, but she’d ultimately done nothing to help.
Now Emma wouldn’t even look at her.
“Forget it,” Emma muttered, eyes glassy. “It doesn’t matter.”
But it did. God, it mattered so much it hollowed Honey out. She closed her eyes and willed that ache in her heart to settle. She would not cry. She would not.
“I was going to say goodbye,” she managed.
“You promised you'd stay for the party,” Melly said, her voice wobbling now. “You pinky swore.”
Honey’s throat went tight.
She never should’ve let herself make promises.
They all froze at the sound of the back door creaking open. A moment later came the soft scuff of Ethan’s boots across the kitchen floor.
Then he stepped into view.
Pickles was tucked under his arm, his gangly legs dangling.
“He was hollering out in the pen,” he said. “Guess he’s not a big fan of his new roommates. I thought maybe you’d want…” He trailed off when he saw the half-packed suitcase on the bed.
“You’re leaving,” he said flatly, like it hadn’t been his own anger pushing her toward the door just hours ago.
“This is all your fault!” Brooke shouted at her dad, dropping her arms from blocking the doorway. “You ruin everything!”
“Brooklyn,” Honey and Ethan said at the same time.
But Brooke wasn’t finished. Her face crumpled, her voice breaking.
“You said Mom would still love us even if you weren’t together!
You said she’d come back when everything was better, but she didn’t!
You promised, and now you’re making Honey leave too.
You always say you’re fixing things, but you just make them go away! ”
“Brooke—” Ethan started, his voice rough.
“No!” she cried, tears streaking her cheeks. “You’re the reason Mom’s gone, and you’re the reason everyone leaves!”
Ethan swallowed hard, his jaw working as he fought to keep his composure.
His hands flexed at his sides before he reached for her, pulling his little girl against him.
She resisted for a moment before crumpling into his chest. He held her close, his eyes finding Honey over the top of Brooke’s head.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said, quieter this time.
“You can’t just let her go, Dad.” The words tore from Brooke’s throat.
His expression closed off at Brooke’s words.
He looked at his daughters like they were a mirror held up to every regret he carried.
And maybe, Honey thought, that’s what this was.
Maybe he was staring down the past, seeing another woman leaving, another suitcase packed, another choice he didn’t know how to stop.
But she was always a short-term guest in a home that had been hurting for far too long. He’d picked up the pieces of his family before. These pieces couldn’t be quite as shattered, Honey reasoned with herself. She wasn’t their mother. She wasn’t family. She was hardly even a friend.
But her heart cracked anyway.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Can I have a minute with Honey, please?”
The girls hesitated. Emma didn’t look at her as she turned and walked away. Melly lingered a heartbeat longer, her mouth wobbling like she wanted to say something, but she darted after her sisters before the words could come.
Honey turned back to the bed and busied herself, grabbing a rolled-up shirt and shoving it into the suitcase.
“I’ll make an excuse,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “To the girls. I’ll leave after bedtime.”
She didn’t dare meet his eyes. If she did, she might crumble.
He blew air out. “I don’t want you to go.”
Her head snapped up. He looked like he hated saying it, but he continued anyway. “I was angry. That’s not an excuse, but…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have told you this was all your fault. It’s not.”
She shook her head quickly. “It’s okay—”
“No. It’s not.” His voice sharpened, but only for a second. “I don’t let myself need people anymore. Not since…”
The room went very quiet.
“Not since Leticia.” He sank onto the bed and rested his head in his hands. “I never told anyone this, but I’m the one who turned her in.”
Honey’s breath caught.
With his face still buried in his palms, he took a shuddering breath. “I called the feds on my own wife.”
He finally looked up, eyes distant as he stared out the window like he was watching the whole thing unfold all over again.
“She was unraveling. She was obsessed with the ley lines, convinced she could tap into them if she just tried hard enough. She stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. She’d forget the girls were even in the room sometimes. ”
He swallowed hard. “I thought if I reported it, she’d get help.
That someone would step in and make her stop.
And yeah, maybe I knew she’d leave me. But I didn’t realize she’d leave them.
” His voice cracked on the last word. “I thought I was doing the right thing by my girls. And it cost them their mom.”
Honey’s chest ached. It was too easy to picture the way the girls must’ve looked standing there, small and wide-eyed and not understanding where their mother had gone. Ethan had made an impossible choice and had been living inside the fallout ever since.
“So when you came here,” he said, “talking about order and rules and how if we just followed the right steps, everything would turn out fine…”
He looked at her. “It felt like you were saying everything I already hated myself for. Because that’s what I did. I followed the steps. I did what I thought was right. And I still lost her. My girls still lost their mom.”
Honey’s chest tightened. She wanted to take back every tidy plan and careful rule she’d laid out like they were some kind of cure. For the first time, she understood why he’d shut the door in her face that first day. It wasn’t just resistance he’d been giving her. It was guilt.
“She can’t be really lost,” Honey said. “If she was taken into custody, there must be some kind of record.”
“That’s the thing,” Ethan said. “She was released from custody. She just didn’t come home.”
Her throat ached. She wanted to reach for him, to insist there had to be another explanation, but the devastation in his eyes made her still.
“Believe me. I’ve done everything I could.
I’ve been looking for her every spare moment that I’m not working or taking care of the girls.
Because I thought if I could just find her, maybe I could fix it.
Maybe I could undo the worst mistake I ever made.
” His voice thickened. “I’ve been trying to hold this whole thing together on my own because, deep down, I didn’t think I deserved help. ”
Since she met him, she had thought of him as an immovable stone, but here he was, cracked open in front of her, and all she wanted was to press her hands to the fault lines and hold him together.
She stepped closer, her heart pounding in her ears.
He wasn’t just giving her facts now. He was giving her his shame.
The private, unvarnished truth he had buried under all that grit.
“I never wanted your help,” he added, laughing weakly through a sniffle, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand.
She let out a breath, somewhere between a laugh and a cry. “So you said.”
“But you helped anyway. You didn’t just make chore charts or rearrange the kitchen. You made this place feel like a home again. What I’m trying to say is,” His eyes met hers. “I want you to stay.”
Honey’s heart thudded painfully in her chest. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to fall into whatever this was and not think about the consequences. But she couldn’t forget what was coming.
“You’re going to lose your home.”
“I know.”
“I have a life in the city.”
“I know that too.”
She shook her head. “I can’t stay.”
He nodded slowly. “Just a couple more days. I know we can’t save this place, but we can give the girls a proper goodbye. Let them remember it not as the place they lost, but as the place we loved.”
Honey’s eyes burned as tears formed.
“And not just for them,” he added, his voice barely above a whisper. “I need it too. I want to say goodbye to this place with you here.”
She blinked back tears. “So we pretend, for a little while, that it’s all going to be okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Just for a little while.”
A long silence stretched between them.
The clock ticked in the kitchen. Wind rustled softly through the cracked window. Ethan’s breath hitched.
Then his hand came up, rough and calloused, brushing against her cheek.
The strange squawk of the cuckoo clock broke through the quiet, a sound that had startled her once but no longer did.
Now it was almost fitting, a reminder that time kept moving even when the rest of the world stood still.
It wasn’t the beginning of something, and they both knew it. It was a moment borrowed against time.
His gaze lingered on her mouth, then flicked up to her eyes, asking. Her fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt. And she answered without words, closing that last inch.
The kiss was soft, as though they might shatter if they pressed too hard. He kissed her like he was memorizing, like he knew he didn’t get to keep her, and she kissed him back like she’d been starved for gentleness and had finally found it.
When they came together, they didn’t say anything else.
They didn’t need to.