Chapter 21
JIYA
Iwatched the way Cole had mingled with my family over the past few months, and every time I did, I found myself thinking back to that conversation when he had revealed that he had a brother.
The look on his face that day was something I wouldn’t forget. There had been sadness there, but also regret. It told me more than his words ever could. It told me how much he missed having family around. I was sure his brother would forgive him if he knew the truth.
Living alone in that big, empty house could not have been easy for Cole. The silence in it must have been unbearable at times. His memories probably haunted him day and night, circling back when the evenings got too quiet, and there was no one to distract him from the loss.
“You know I still haven’t visited their graves,” he said to me one night during dinner.
His voice had gone quieter, heavier, and when I looked up at him, I could see the sadness sitting behind his eyes.
“It’s been too long, and I don’t think I can.”
I placed my hand on his. The gesture came naturally, instinctively, because I wanted to comfort him in whatever small way I could.
“You will when you’re ready. And you’ll know exactly when that is.”
I felt that he was afraid to face his late wife and daughter in that way. It was probably too daunting for him, too final, too painful. Guilt likely still lived in some hidden corner of his heart, refusing to leave completely.
Still, his therapy sessions seemed to be helping him a great deal, at least from everything he had shared with me.
My family could only fill one part of the emptiness in his life, along with his photography work and his growing routine.
But there was another part of that void that only his own family could fill.
Blood relations.
People who had known him long before the grief, long before the drinking, long before he had become a quieter, broken version of himself. He needed the people who had grown up with him. He needed his family.
That thought stayed with me until I headed to the restaurant one afternoon to meet Jack.
After we spent a few minutes gushing over Emma and going through the week’s restaurant budgets, we sat in the office with glasses of iced tea in our hands.
The numbers and work reports blurred into the background as the real reason I had come there kept pressing at me.
“I have something I would like to ask you,” I said.
“Sure, what’s up?” Jack asked, leaning back slightly in his chair.
“Do you know anything about Cole’s brother, Liam?”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Yes... Why?”
I hesitated for only a second before saying it out loud. “I was thinking of getting in touch with him to let him know about Cole.”
“Have you asked Cole if that is what he wants?”
His question made me pause, but I had already thought about that. Or at least, I had tried to. I told Jack about the conversation Cole and I had shared, about the sorrow in his voice when he mentioned Liam, about the loneliness I kept sensing in him, no matter how much he tried to move forward.
“Cole has tried from his side,” I said. “But Liam doesn’t know what his brother has been struggling with for the past two years. That could make him change his mind. Don’t you think?”
Jack let out a slow sigh. “It could.”
That tiny possibility, that small percentage of hope in Jack’s answer, was all it took for me to move forward. Once I had decided on something in my heart, it was hard for me to let it go.
Jack gave me Liam’s number, and I called his office. My nerves were already alive beneath my skin as I spoke to his secretary and set up an appointment.
The next day, after leaving Emma with Geeta and dropping Lucas off at school, I headed into the city to meet Liam.
As I stepped into the elevator of the tall glass building in Downtown Victoria and pressed the button for the forty-second floor, my thoughts spiralled with every second that passed and every floor that rose beneath me.
Am I making a mistake? Should I interfere in Cole’s life again?
Would he be angry with Jack and me if he found out?
The higher the elevator climbed, the more uncertain I became.
I had acted on instinct, on emotion, on the conviction that I was doing the right thing, but standing in that enclosed space with my reflection staring back at me from the mirrored wall, doubt started creeping in.
What if I made things worse between them?
What if Liam refused to listen? What if Cole saw this as a betrayal instead of help?
That was the last thing I wanted. Hurting him was never my intention.
When the elevator doors opened, I stepped out into a sleek, polished office floor that felt worlds away from the slower, warmer life of Cowichan Bay.
A young blonde receptionist in a grey suit looked up and greeted me with a professional smile.
“Hi! How can I help you?”
“Hi, I’m Jiya Flores. I’m here to meet Liam Harris.”
Too late now.
She smiled, confirmed my appointment, and led me to a conference room, asking me to wait there. As soon as she left, the silence around me seemed to grow louder. My breathing turned heavier, and I tapped my foot against the floor without even realizing I was doing it.
Then I heard footsteps approaching.
I looked up, and the moment he entered, I knew immediately that he could be none other than Cole’s brother.
“Hi, Ms. Flores,” he said in a deep voice, carrying the same Australian accent that instantly reminded me of Cole. “I’m Liam. Nice to meet you. How can I help you today?” He gestured for me to sit as he took a seat across from me.
The resemblance struck me at once. The same blue eyes. The same chiselled jawline. The same kind of commanding presence. The only real difference between the two men was their hair. Cole’s was a few shades lighter.
“It’s Jiya,” I said with a polite smile. “I’m Cole’s neighbour and friend, and I would like to talk to you about him.”
The change in Liam was immediate.
His smile vanished, and his body went stiff with caution.
“What about him?” he asked.
“Well, I’d like to tell you about what he has been through in the last two years.”
“I don’t think I want to know,” he said coldly, standing up and looking at me with guarded, distant eyes.
His reaction made my heart pound faster, but I pushed through it. I had not come all this way to retreat now.
“I’m not here to make you feel guilty,” I said, rising as well, my voice firmer than I intended. “I’m here to tell you that he needs family. His family. You.”
“Why?” he asked curtly. “He seems to have you, since you are pleading his case. I don’t think he needs anyone else. He certainly didn’t need me for the past two years, even though I had tried to keep in touch with—”
“He does need you,” I cut in before I could lose my nerve. “He needs your support and your love.”
“What do you mean?” He scratched his temple.
I let out a breath, my chest tightening with everything I was about to say. “He never got over losing his wife and daughter. He was drinking himself to death.”
The effect of my words was immediate.
I watched Liam’s face go pale, and in that instant, I knew this could be the turning point. He had no idea what Cole had been going through.
“He checked himself into a rehabilitation centre in November last year and completed a sixty-day program.”
Liam took a step back.
His lips parted slightly, and all the coldness in his face cracked like ice under pressure.
“He has taken up photography and bought a small gallery featuring his work. He’s trying his best to change. He’s trying to become better.”
I lowered my eyes for a moment, thinking of Cole, of all the effort he put into rebuilding himself day after day, and then I looked back at Liam.
“But he’s incomplete. He’s lonely. He needs to feel whole again. And to do that, he needs your support and your love. More than anything, he needs his family.”
Liam’s gaze lowered slowly. The hardness in him seemed to crack under the weight of what he was hearing. He sat down heavily in the chair, looking stunned and lost in thought.
I figured he was probably trying to process everything I had just revealed.
I stood there for another second, my emotions tangled between hope and fear.
“That’s all I came here to say,” I said quietly. “The rest is up to you.”
Then I turned and walked out of his office.
Just before I fully stepped away, I glanced back and saw him still staring at me, his mouth slightly open, as if he had been left with more than he knew what to do with.