Chapter 11
COLE
Two weeks had passed since the restaurant had been closed.
I had turned my porch into my new drinking spot just to pass the time.
I did not like being inside the house anymore because the memories there clawed at me constantly, leaving me exhausted and isolated.
Every room held something I had once loved.
Every corner carried an echo of laughter that no longer existed.
The walls themselves seemed to remember Eva and Chloe, and some days that felt unbearable.
The neighbours never greeted me, even when they saw me sitting there.
The children did not come anywhere near the house either.
They stayed away from me, even though they were the same children who once played with my daughter in this very yard.
I felt like a ghost haunting my own street.
It bothered me more than I wanted to admit that no one had ever come by to check on me.
Still, I shrugged the thought away because it had already been two years.
Maybe that was how grief worked for everyone else.
Maybe after enough time passed, they assumed a man either healed or disappeared quietly into whatever was left of himself.
Taking another sip of my beer, I remembered Jack’s words from the day he returned my cheque.
“She didn’t want your money after all, Cole. I think you’re wrong about her and her intentions.”
I had thought the money would prove me right about Jiya, but that plan had completely backfired. She did seem different. Many people had approached me over the years, trying to buy the restaurant from me, but no one had ever offered to co-own it until she appeared.
A couple of days earlier, I had passed out on my front porch chair.
When I woke up, I noticed a blanket covering me.
Later that day, Jiya came by with food to check on me.
I told her to go away and threw the blanket onto the floor.
She quietly picked it up and walked back to her house, leaving the food on the shoe rack by my door.
I had not meant to be rude or cruel toward her, but she stirred emotions in me that I did not want to face.
The sight of her son beside her, and now the thought of her unborn child, somehow made me feel even more miserable.
There was something painfully whole about them, even in their brokenness, and being near that kind of fragile life scraped against everything dead inside me.
I had moved to Cowichan Bay five years ago. Back then, I had been a happy man with my wife and a new baby on the way. We chose this village because Eva did not want to raise our children in the city. She dreamed of owning and running a restaurant here.
My family had a successful construction business, so I had the funds to turn her dream into reality. When the restaurant first opened, it quickly became a success, with locals filling the tables and tourists drawn to its cozy charm.
Now, everything felt like a distant memory.
As I stared at the picture of my wife and daughter, memories surged through me. My chest tightened until I could barely breathe. Rage burned through me like a fire I could not put out. I grabbed the photo frame and smashed it against the ground.
The sound of shattering glass echoed through the room.
Something inside me snapped wider after that.
I grabbed the table and flipped it over, sending everything crashing to the floor.
I rolled up the sleeves of my two-day-old shirt and slammed the cupboards open and shut.
Pieces of glass scattered across the room as I kicked the furniture and punched the wall.
When I looked down, my knuckles were bleeding.
The physical pain meant nothing compared to the anguish inside my chest.
I screamed in agony as I walked from one room to another, throwing anything within reach onto the floor. It felt as though if I broke enough things, maybe the pressure inside me would finally crack open and leave me alone.
But it never worked.
It never did.
Suddenly, I heard a knock.
I froze. My pulse raced, and my breathing came out in harsh bursts.
None of my previous outbursts had ever drawn anyone’s attention. No one had ever come to check on me before.
Ignoring it, I continued moving through the house until I heard another knock.
This time it came from the window.
I turned.
Jiya’s face peered through the glass.
“Go away!” I shouted.
When I heard nothing afterward, I continued stumbling through the wreckage toward the kitchen in search of another bottle of beer. The house reeked of alcohol, sweat, and dust, but I did not care anymore.
As I chugged the beer down, I heard the front door open.
“I told you to go away,” I roared as I marched toward the intruder. “That was not code for you to come inside.”
It was Jiya.
Her son stood outside with a dog beside him.
My six-foot-three frame moved toward her slowly, like a predator stalking its prey. I knew how I must have looked—unkempt, furious, half-drunk, and barely human. Some part of me figured she would run.
“I came to check if you were okay,” she said calmly. “By the looks of it, you do not seem to be.” Her eyes swept across the room.
Glass, wood, and porcelain were scattered everywhere.
“I said leave,” I growled.
“No,” she replied firmly, staring up at me despite the height difference between us.
The scent of her perfume drifted toward me, mixing with the smell of my own body odour. My eyes locked onto hers.
“Suit yourself,” I said coldly. “Do not blame me if something happens to you.”
I turned and went upstairs, leaving bloody footprints behind me. The exhaustion finally caught up with me. The moment I reached my bed, I collapsed onto it and passed out.
When I woke up later, my head felt heavy and foggy. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and placed my feet on the floor.
That was when I noticed the bandage wrapped around my foot.
Frowning, I remembered someone entering the house, but I could not clearly recall the face or the conversation.
Panic surged through me.
I rushed out of my room and stomped downstairs.
Then I stopped.
The sun streamed through the windows. The scent of oranges and cinnamon filled the air.
The family room looked completely different.
The furniture stood upright again. The piles of clothes that had been scattered across the floor had disappeared.
The broken pieces had been cleared away.
The place no longer looked like the inside of my mind.
Confused, I walked into the kitchen.
Jiya stood there stocking the refrigerator.
Every bottle of alcohol I owned had been emptied and neatly arranged on the dining table.
“What the hell did you do?” I shouted, startling her. “What have you done?”
Anger surged through my veins.
“You emptied all my alcohol? What the shit? Look at this place!”
I moved frantically from one room to another.
“Did you go upstairs? Did you touch the rooms upstairs?” I demanded as I clenched my fists and walked toward her.
“We did not touch anything. We just cleaned up.”
“We?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Yes, the cleaning helpers and myself,” she said calmly.
I stepped closer to her, my chest heaving. “Why did you do this?”
She picked up the picture of my wife and daughter, pointed to it, and said quietly, “I did it for them.”
I snatched the picture from her hands.
“How dare you? HOW DARE YOU?” I shouted. My muscles strained as anger surged through me. “You broke into my house and turned everything upside down?”
Someone touching my wife’s and daughter’s belongings was unacceptable. I was furious. Those were not just objects. They were all I had left. The thought of someone else’s hands on them made something savage rise in me.
“It is not breaking into your house if your door was unlocked,” she replied calmly.
“I did not permit you to enter, and I certainly did not ask you to clean this place. You touched things you were not supposed to touch. How am I supposed to find anything now? You do not know anything,” I bellowed.
“I might not know everything,” she said, stepping closer, “but I do recognize pain, and you are hurting. If you plan to drink yourself to death, let me know. There are children in this neighbourhood, and they do not need to see you doing this to yourself.”
“No one asked for your help!” I shouted. “You walked in here yourself. Do you think anyone in this neighbourhood cares what happens to me?” I scoffed bitterly. “No one does, and no one will.”
“Well, I do,” Jiya said firmly. “I came here with my son because we were worried about you. Does that count?”
Her words struck a nerve inside me.
“Get out of my house!” I shouted as I pointed to the door. “Leave me the hell alone.”
“No,” she said steadily. “I will not leave until I know you are fine and that you will not drink like a fish the moment I leave.”
“It is best if you leave now before you face my wrath,” I hissed.
Adrenaline flowed through my body. I wanted to hurt something. I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted to see blood. I wanted the chaos inside me to match the chaos outside me.
Still, she held my gaze.
“No, your wife and daughter—”
“They are dead!” I shouted. “My wife and daughter are dead. Are you happy now?” My voice broke. “I should have been on that plane with them,” I whispered. “I wish I had died with them.”
Silence filled the room.
For the first time in a long time, I had spoken those words aloud. I blamed myself for their deaths. I blamed myself for not being there with them. I blamed myself for choosing to fly out a day later.
I lived with that guilt every single day. Shame wrapped around my throat like a tightening rope. I had even tried drinking myself to death, but that had not worked either. Somehow, I was still here, and they were not, and I hated that truth with everything in me.
Jiya walked slowly toward me. “It was not your fault,” she said gently. “You cannot blame yourself.” She placed her hand on my shoulder.
I shook it away.
“Do you think they would want to see you like this?” she asked softly. “Killing yourself slowly? Do you think this is what they would want if they were watching you from above?”
“I do not believe in that crap,” I snapped.
“Eva and Chloe are gone. They are dead. No one can bring them back. I am alive, and they are not.” Anger flashed through my eyes.
“Now get out of my house,” I said furiously.
“You have done enough damage already. What gives you the right to come here, to touch things? Why do you even care?”
Then I heard footsteps behind us.
I turned.
Her son stood there. He looked small, with his arms hanging at his sides.
“Because you were sad,” he said softly. “We did all this to make you happy. We do not want you to be sad anymore.”
He walked toward me and pointed at the photo in my hand. “And because they do not want you to be sad either.”
Time froze.
Everything stood still.
The boy stood in front of me with wide blue eyes and furrowed brows.
In that instant, everything inside me collapsed like a house caving in. I dropped to the floor and knelt before him.
The boy was not afraid of me. He did not step back. He was not repulsed by me. He somehow understood my pain. Or maybe children understood grief better than adults did because they had not yet learned to look away from it.
Tears rolled down my face. My vision blurred.
The boy placed his small hands on my face. “Do not cry,” he said gently. “It is going to be okay.”
I pulled him into my arms and wept while he hugged me back. The sound that came out of me did not even feel human anymore. It was years of bottled-up emotion breaking loose all at once.
“I’m Lucas,” he said quietly. “This is my Mama, Jiya. What is your name?”
I forced myself to breathe.
Slowly, I loosened my hold on him just enough to look at him.
Lifting my tear-filled eyes to meet his, I answered through my trembling lips, “Cole,” I whispered through my tears. “My name is Cole Harris.