Chapter 23
COLE
Over the weekend, Jiya left Emma and Lucas with Geeta for a couple of hours and came over with Jack to help me move into my new apartment.
While the staff moved around my apartment unpacking boxes and placing things where they belonged, Jack excused himself and said he had to check on the restaurant.
I walked over to the fridge, grabbed two glasses of iced tea, and handed one to Jiya.
“Guess who I met a couple of days ago?” I asked, watching her reaction carefully.
She turned toward me. “Who?”
“My brother, Liam.”
“Oh,” she said, pretending to be surprised. “That’s nice. How did it go?”
“It went quite well.” I took a sip of the iced tea and studied her over the rim of the glass. “Especially since he got a visit from you, which you didn’t mention.”
She cringed slightly and looked away.
“How did you even find him?” I asked.
“Jack helped me,” she admitted quietly. “I’m sorry, but I wanted to do something nice for you since you’ve been there for me through everything.” She looked down at the floor and bit her lip. “I’m sorry for interfering, but I felt if he knew the whole story, he would come around.”
I stepped closer to her.
“Thank you,” I said sincerely.
She lifted her head and looked at me.
“Your interference helped our relationship,” I continued, smiling. “It will take some time to mend it, but it was a good start when I met him for lunch.”
“I’m so happy for you,” she said.
Then she hugged me tightly.
The moment my arms wrapped around her, my heartbeat picked up. I allowed myself to hold her before she pulled away, patting my shoulder lightly as if brushing aside the moment. Then she asked me to tell her about my meeting with Liam.
Finally settled into my new place, I stood in the living room with a glass of lemonade in my hand and looked around slowly.
The apartment felt like the beginning of something new… a fresh start.
Even though I had moved on, pieces of my past were still with me. A few framed photographs of Eva and Chloe sat on a shelf. A silver-coloured box rested nearby, containing Eva’s letters, her favourite earrings, Chloe’s handkerchief, and her favourite toy.
I could not bring myself to remove my wedding ring. For now, I had decided I would keep wearing it, even if one day I started dating again.
In the den, I placed my easel beside a stand filled with paintbrushes and tubes of paint. That space would be my creative corner. My place to work, to think, to breathe.
A couple of days later, my realtor called and informed me that my previous house had been sold.
The news brought a sense of closure.
That weekend, I visited Liam and met his wife and their children.
For the first time in years, I felt like I belonged somewhere again.
My family.
The family I had returned to.
The family that made me feel whole again.
Liam and I continued the conversation we had started during lunch earlier that week.
“Since you like photography and you have been on the payroll all this time, why don’t you put your talent to work?” he said.
“How?” I asked.
“Architectural photography,” Liam explained. “Instead of our company outsourcing it, why don’t you do it?”
I thought about it seriously. Was I ready for that kind of responsibility again? Could working together help repair the damage between us? Liam was the one who suggested it. He wanted to fix things too. Working together might actually help us rebuild what we had lost.
I agreed.
I made a mental note to inform Andrea and Marjorie, the two women I had hired to manage my gallery. They handled my schedule and helped sell my work, but now they would need to balance that with my photography work for Liam’s company.
I started visiting Liam on weekends or dropping by for dinner on weeknights, sometimes even staying overnight.
“Remember the time you stole Dad’s Mustang to impress your girlfriend in high school?” I asked him one evening after Jessica and the kids had gone to bed.
“I didn’t steal it,” Liam said with a grin. “I borrowed it.”
We both burst out laughing.
As my relationship with Liam improved, my visits to my therapist gradually decreased. My physical and mental health continued to improve as well.
Still, there was one thing I had been avoiding.
Silvia had told me I would know when I was ready.
Over the past few days, I had started to feel that moment approaching.
One afternoon, I stopped by Jiya’s house.
When I walked inside, I saw her running around the living room playing with Lucas while Emma lay in her crib laughing.
I had not been able to visit for a while because I was working full-time with Liam’s company while still handling photography gigs around the village.
“Hi! What a nice surprise,” Jiya said when she saw me.
Lucas shouted excitedly and ran toward me.
Jiya picked Emma up from the crib. “Look who’s here to see you, Emma,” she said as she handed her to me.
The moment I held Emma, my heart fluttered. An undeniable chemistry, like a father and daughter, had been imprinted between us. I hugged Lucas while balancing Emma in my arms.
Geeta brought us green tea, and we sat together at the dining table.
“How are you?” Jiya asked. “How’s work going?”
“It’s quite busy,” I replied, helping myself to a cookie.
“I think I’ve taken too much on my plate.
I need to cut down on the part-time offers.
” I told her about Liam making me the official photographer for the company.
“Sometimes he drags me into my old office to get opinions on new projects,” I said with a grin.
“He’s quite cheeky that way.” I explained the current project we were working on—a two-tower development in the heart of the city, one tower being a hotel and the other a residential building.
“The architecture is modern with a touch of historical elegance,” I said while gently bouncing Emma in my arms.
I could not wait to photograph the construction at different stages and capture the final result when it was completed in about a year and a half.
Jiya nodded as she listened, making eye contact and asking questions.
Every time she looked at me like that, I felt my pulse quicken slightly.
It reminded me of Eva. She used to listen to me the same way when I talked about work.
God, I missed having someone to share these things with.
After a while, I handed Emma to Geeta.
I paced around the room for a moment before finally sitting down across from Jiya. I crossed and uncrossed my arms nervously.
“The visits to the therapist’s office have decreased,” I said.
“She’s happy with my progress.” I scratched my arm absentmindedly before continuing.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, but I’ve kept pushing it away.
” My fingers twisted the wedding band on my finger.
“I want to visit my wife’s and daughter’s graves,” I said quietly.
My voice broke slightly. “Will you go with me?”
Jiya reached across the table and held my hand.
“I’ll be right there beside you.”
The weather was gloomy as I drove toward the cemetery, thick grey clouds hanging low in the sky as if they were pressing down on the world.
Before heading there, I stopped by a flower shop and bought two bouquets—daisies, Eva’s favourite flowers, and roses, which had been Chloe’s favourite.
Holding them in my hands felt painfully symbolic, as if I were carrying fragile pieces of the life I had once known and lost in a single devastating moment.
I returned to the car and handed the bouquets to Jiya for safekeeping before starting the engine again. My fingers clasped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turned white.
Calm down. Everything will be fine.
The words repeated in my mind, but my body refused to listen. My chest felt tight, and a restless unease coiled deep inside me, growing stronger with every mile that brought us closer to the place I had avoided for far too long.
When we reached the cemetery, I parked the car and sat there for a moment, staring straight ahead and gathering what little courage I had left before finally stepping out.
I held the flowers in one hand, the stems cool and slightly damp against my palm, and ran my free hand through my hair as we made our way toward the graves.
With every step, my breathing grew faster, and I could feel my chin beginning to quiver. A cold sensation spread slowly through my body, followed by a sharp ache in my chest that made it difficult to draw a full breath. The closer we got, the heavier everything felt.
God, I would kill for a drink right now.
The thought came suddenly and fiercely, tempting and familiar. But those days were over. I had promised myself they were over, even though this was harder than I had imagined.
Desperate for anything to keep me from breaking apart, I glanced around the cemetery, searching for something—anything—that might distract me from the storm raging inside my chest.
Then I felt Jiya’s hand slip into mine.
I turned and looked at her, and she met my gaze without hesitation, gently stroking my hand with her thumb.
Her touch was reassuring, as if she understood exactly what I was feeling without a single word needing to be spoken.
That simple gesture sent a soothing calm through me, spreading slowly through my body.
My heart continued to race, but the panic that had been clawing at my chest began to loosen its grip.
Her presence gave me the strength to keep walking.
Together, we reached the graves.
The sight of the marble tombstone with Eva’s and Chloe’s names carved into it brought a painful lump to my throat. The letters felt too permanent, too final—a cruel reminder that this loss was not a nightmare I could wake up from, but a reality I had been forced to live with every single day.
I knew I needed to do this. I had stayed away for too long, hiding from the pain and pretending that distance would somehow make it easier to bear.
The last time I had stood in this place was the day I buried them.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, fighting to keep that memory from crashing into me with full force. The sound of shovels hitting dirt, the unbearable silence that followed, and the hollow emptiness carved inside me afterward were memories I had tried desperately to bury along with them.
When I opened my eyes again, I slowly knelt.
They were buried side by side, just as they had lived—inseparable in life and now in death.
My fingers trembled as I traced the letters of their names carved into the stone. My chest tightened painfully as I placed the bouquets gently on their graves, my hands lingering there as if I were afraid that letting go would mean losing them all over again.
I felt Jiya’s hand squeeze my shoulder. Without thinking, I reached for her hand and held it tightly in return. It must have hurt, but she didn’t pull away or complain. Instead, she stayed by my side, letting me hold on to her as everything inside me slowly gave way.
A tear slid slowly down my cheek.
“I’m so sorry I haven’t come by,” I whispered, my shoulders curling inward as the weight of my guilt pressed down on me like wet sand. “I promise to come more often.”
At that exact moment, the clouds parted, and rays of sunlight broke through the grey sky, spilling gently over the graves as though the world itself was offering a moment of grace.
Jiya’s hand remained on my shoulder, and the warmth from her touch spread slowly through my body, melting the cold that had wrapped around me since we arrived. My chest loosened, and my breathing steadied as something deep inside me finally shifted—something that had been locked away for years.
For the first time in a very long time, I felt a small willingness to forgive myself and accept what had happened so that I could finally move forward.
I stood up slowly and turned toward Jiya.
“Thank you,” I said quietly, my voice thick with emotion. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
She smiled gently, her eyes filled with kindness and strength. “This is what friends are for.”
Standing there beside her, in the stillness of that sacred place, with the sunlight warming my face and her presence at my side, I realized something.
Our friendship was going to be extraordinary.