Jiya
“There’s so much going on—Karena, the children, and work,” I said softly, staring at Cole’s tombstone on Saturday morning.
“Karena calls and messages from time to time. She wants to keep in touch, and I’m glad about that.
” I smiled. “Then there’s the restaurant and the cafés.
They’re handling themselves quite well.”
I paused, looking around at the quiet cemetery before returning my gaze to his name etched in stone. Milo and Oreo hadn’t come with me today—they had stayed back to keep the children company.
“The children… boy, oh boy… they’re a handful,” I continued, shaking my head gently. “Always keeping me on my toes. You should hear some of the things they say and the kind of antics they pull.”
A soft laugh escaped me, but it faded quickly.
Turning away, I tried to avoid the subject that had been pressing against my chest all week, the one thought I kept pushing aside whenever it threatened to surface, but I knew I couldn’t run from it—not here, not in front of him, not in a place where truth always seemed to find its way out.
“Now there’s Caleb,” I admitted, my voice lowering as I looked back at the grave. “The last thing I need is for him to disrupt my already complicated life when it's finally beginning to feel stable again.”
I sat for a moment, letting the silence calm me. My mind felt like threads knotted together with no clear beginning or end.
“I don’t know what to do, Cole,” I whispered, swallowing hard. “I don’t even know how to feel.”
A gentle breeze drifted through the trees, brushing against my face like a quiet response.
“Watch over me and guide me, will you?”
I leaned forward and pressed a kiss against the cold marble before turning and heading back to my car, carrying his memory like I always did.
When I reached the driveway of my house, my cell phone rang.
I answered it as I stepped out of the car.
“Hi, Jiya,” Karena said. “How are you, dear?”
“I’m good. How’s everything there?”
“It’s good. The kids have both gone for slumber parties this weekend, so Derek has planned a date night for us tonight.”
“That’s great,” I said, genuinely pleased.
She needed this. I could hear it in her voice and sense the difference between the woman who had first come to see me and the woman she was now.
Karena sounded lighter, more at ease, more hopeful.
She called often, checked in on the children, and made an effort to stay connected.
The last time she called, she spoke to Lucas and Emma for nearly half an hour, laughing with them and asking about school and their favourite games.
It felt like progress, a small but meaningful step forward.
After all, she had asked for permission before stepping into their lives, and that alone meant something.
“Are the children there? I would like to say hello again.”
“Yes, they are. I’m just stepping into the house now,” I said, pushing the door open.
I placed the phone on speaker as Lucas and Emma came running towards me.
“Hi Nan-Nan!” the children shouted in unison.
The nickname had started the first time they met Karena.
Since I still hadn’t explained the truth about our relationship to the children while I was trying to build one with my own mother myself, the kids had asked what they were supposed to call her.
Karena had laughed and told them they could call her Karena, Grandma, or Nana.
Emma had immediately protested, insisting they already had a Nana Maureen, before declaring she would call her Nan-Nan instead. Somehow, the name had stuck ever since.
“Hi!” Karena replied warmly. “How are you guys?”
“Good,” they answered together.
“When are you coming to visit us?” Lucas asked.
“Soon, I promise,” Karena said. “This time, I’ll get you both lots of presents.”
“Yay!” the children cheered.
“Bye, darlings!”
Removing the speaker option, I brought the phone back to my ear.
“You don’t have to get them presents,” I said.
“I know. I want to.”
“It would be nice to see you, though.”
“Is next weekend all right with you?”
“Sounds perfect. See you then.”
I ended the call and found myself smiling, knowing that something broken was finally beginning to heal.
In the evening, I dressed the children for the annual fair in the village.
I kept replaying everything that had happened over the past week—the meeting at the office, Caleb and Greg showing up at breakfast, the shock of seeing him standing in my doorway as if the years between us had never existed.
He had found me after all. He had promised he would. And he had kept that promise. Or was it simply a coincidence?
Guess I would never know.
What troubled me the most was his silence. He hadn’t asked questions. He hadn’t confronted me. He hadn’t demanded answers. Instead, he had watched me carefully. That frightened me more than his anger.
Maybe it was because he didn’t care anymore.
He was getting married. He had a new life, new priorities, and new dreams that had nothing to do with me. I doubted he spent even a moment thinking about the past we once shared.
I had seen pictures of his fiancée online. She was beautiful and the daughter of a business tycoon and a successful business owner in her own right. Their photos were splashed everywhere across social media like a curated love story.
Caleb, on the other hand, had always claimed he disliked the media—or so he had told me when we were together. Watching him smile for the cameras in those photographs made me question everything. Was he still the same man I had loved? Or had time reshaped him into someone I no longer recognized?
I opened Instagram as a guest user and searched his profile. He wasn’t very active. He had thousands of followers but followed only a handful of people. His posts were sparse, his stories rare, as if he shared just enough to maintain appearances without revealing anything real.
I had called Elle during the week and told her everything. She had gone quiet at first, and then her shock came through in a rush of questions I could barely keep up with.
“What are you going to do when you see him at the office?” she had finally asked.
“I’ll be professional. Civil. Nothing more.”
And that was exactly what I was going to do.
“What are you doing, Mama?” Lucas asked, sneaking up beside me, pulling me back to the present, my phone almost slipping out of my hand.
Startled, I quickly closed the page on my phone.
“I was researching something for work, honey,” I lied. “Is everything alright?”
“I was wondering if I can hang out with my friends at the fair for a bit when we get there. Is that okay?”
I crouched so I could look him in the eye.
“There are going to be a lot of people there, sweetheart. You remember what happened last time. I can’t have you wandering off and getting lost.”
“But just for a little while, please, Mama.”
His puppy-dog eyes and pout softened my resolve.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Thanks, Mama!”
“Emma?” I called out.
My daughter bounced into the room wearing only her diaper, her hair tangled into soft curls, both dolls clutched tightly in her hands.
The sight made me laugh.
She had become such a chatterbox over the past year, copying everything Lucas did and said. Some nights, when I watched her sleep, I noticed she curled into the same position Caleb used to—one arm bent above her head, her hand resting near her ear. Father’s daughter.
I took her back to her room and dressed her. I slipped a blue top over her head and pulled on striped purple tights, and buttoned her pink cardigan while she dangled her feet on the dresser.
“Mama… wonsaya for dinner?” she asked.
“La… sag… na, baby,” I teased, remembering how much she had loved it during her birthday party in March. She had eaten it every day for nearly a week afterward and cried when it was finally gone.
“I said that,” Emma insisted, looking at me seriously.
“Of course you did.” I laughed. “But not tonight. We’ll eat something at the fair, okay?”
“Okay… but ice cream?”
“Sure, sweetheart.”
I finished tying her shoes just as Geeta walked into the room.
“I’m ready, Didi! I’ve got the bag ready for Emma and Lucas—clothes, diapers, and a few snacks… just in case.”
“Perfect,” I said.
After checking the doors and windows one last time, I set the alarm and ushered everyone outside. The evening air carried the distant music from the fairgrounds, mingled with the smell of popcorn and roasted corn drifting across the village.
Loading the children into the car, with Geeta settling into the front seat, I pulled out of the driveway and headed toward the fair, ready for a night filled with laughter, bright lights, and memories I hoped would remain untouched by the past.