Chapter Eleven
The overjoyed parents were too besotted with their perfect, wonderful bundle to notice Audra limping.
She got to sit and hold Fox in his perfect preciousness.
She read an impatient and grumpy Magnolia a book for a little while to keep her occupied.
She chatted with Thomas’s parents, and Vi’s dad, who carefully tiptoed around the subject of Audra’s father, his cousin.
All in all, it was nice. It was refreshing to be in a happy environment, with family and friends and love and hope and excitement.
For a little while, she relaxed and didn’t think about being behind on chores or all the things happening to her that seemed harmless but had a whole lot of death in common.
She got sucked into life, and it felt wonderful.
Just when she was starting to consider texting Copeland because it was clear Vi was getting tired, even if she said she wanted everyone to stay, he appeared.
He brought flowers with a little balloon that said It’s A Boy tucked into it. No doubt from the hospital gift shop, but it was still a sweet gesture. One that made Audra’s heart mushy again.
“Do you want to hold him?” Thomas asked, angling the bundle toward Copeland.
Copeland stepped back as if Thomas was offering a grenade. “Nah, I like ’em a little sturdier. Congrats and all, though. I’m going to take Audra back, if that’s alright.”
Audra got to her feet, didn’t wince. The ibuprofen had helped, and even if she hadn’t elevated her ankle, she’d stayed mostly off it.
She bent over the baby bundle, gave Fox’s forehead a gentle kiss.
She gave Thomas a hug, Vi a hug, and Mags a big squeeze.
Exchanged goodbyes with all the happy grandparents, then followed Copeland out of the hospital room, high on family and love.
“Here,” Copeland muttered, taking her arm so she could lean on him a little bit while she limped.
And that was nice too. She couldn’t depend on it. She probably shouldn’t even enjoy it. There was no one to lean on in this life except herself.
Which was the depressing pinprick to her bubble of happiness. Once in Copeland’s car, it was another silent ride back. So silent, Audra actually dozed off in the passenger seat. She woke up, groggy and out of sorts, realizing only after a few blinks that the car wasn’t moving.
They were parked. In front of her house. The world was dark around it, but lights shone on the porch and upstairs. He must have left them on since she knew she hadn’t. He must have done it on purpose, with forethought to when they’d return.
Her heart ached. She wanted someone to do that sort of thing, someone to lean on, and yet she never let herself lean, so where did that get her?
Alone with no one to lean on.
But not disappointed. Not hurt. Just…drowning, apparently.
She shook her head. It was just this weird threat thing. It was messing with her equilibrium. Once it was solved, and Copeland was back where he belonged, she’d be back to normal again.
He was getting something out of the back of the car, so she pushed out of her seat. She limped toward the house, but Copeland quickly caught up. He had a duffel on his shoulder but grabbed her arm. “What part of staying off your feet is difficult for you to comprehend?”
She decided to ignore him. “It was nice of you to bring flowers.”
He shrugged. “That’s what people do, I guess.”
“But you were going to avoid it.” They stepped into the cozy living room. She turned to look at him. “What changed your mind?”
“I wasn’t going to avoid it. I just had some work to do first.”
She opened her mouth to delve into that, then remembered she’d promised not to poke at his sore spots, so she just nodded.
“Hungry?” She moved for the fridge, realized she should have asked him to stop at the grocery store. The only thing she had to offer was eggs.
She pulled out the egg carton, glanced at him to ask him if he had any preference for how she prepared the eggs, but he was standing there, scowling, something angry and volatile pumping off him.
That sore spot, vibrating with pain. She desperately wanted to know what had caused it, how to soothe it. She wanted to know so much, but she’d promised…
“Fine. If it’ll get you to stop looking at me like that, fine.”
A little stung, she tried to argue with him, because she was trying to let it go. “I’m not looking—”
“It’s nothing, but you’re not going to let it go.”
Completely offended now, she set down the eggs a little too hard. “I—”
“My ex-wife was pregnant when we got divorced.”
That shut her up right quick, with a sharp ache of pain for him. No wonder kids and family were a sore spot. Because however this story turned out, he’d said he didn’t have a child. And she could see the pain in his eyes even if he didn’t want it there.
“The kid wasn’t mine. She let me think it was though, for a while anyway. So, yeah, the whole my-friend-is-a-new-dad thing is a little weird and reminiscent of a terrible thing that happened a long time ago. The end.”
She didn’t breathe. It was…terrible. She knew he didn’t want sympathy or thought he didn’t. But she also knew, whether he realized it or not, he was saying this because he needed to. Because it was weighing on him, eating at him.
He’d stepped into a hospital room where he once thought he’d be in Thomas’s spot, but instead he was just this…solitary outsider.
Even though she wasn’t sure he’d welcome it, she moved over to him. Put her hand on his shoulder, rubbed her palm up and down in a hopefully comforting move. “Copeland, that’s awful.”
He didn’t jerk away like she expected him to. He stood there, glaring at some point on the wall behind her. His breathing wasn’t quite steady, and the anger and grief pumped off him. He’d no doubt bottled it up all evening, and now it needed to come out.
But when he spoke again, most of his anger had fizzled into a sad kind of bitterness.
“You know what the worst part is? I would have stayed. I offered to stay. Be a dad, because the father was dead, and I’d loved him too.
And after all that—cheating on me with my best friend, mourning him with me when he was killed, telling me she was pregnant with my kid—she still said no. ”
“That’s…”
“It was a long time ago.” He stepped away from her hand. “I don’t know why I…” He shook his head. “We need to eat something, get some sleep.”
“We’ll do scrambled eggs and toast. Not exactly gourmet, but it’s all I got.” She limped over to the counter, tears burning in her eyes. He would not appreciate them, so she blinked them back as best she could as she scrambled the eggs, sliced some bread and tossed it in the toaster.
He got out plates. She was out of juice, and it was too late for coffee, so he filled glasses with ice water. They worked in easy silence as they got the meal ready and then sat at the table and ate it.
She managed two bites before she couldn’t take it anymore. “Tell me the whole story, Copeland. I think you’ll feel better.”
He shook his head, merely pushing the eggs around on his plate. “There’s no feeling better.”
“Maybe. But bottling it up… Believe it or not, I get it. I’d rather never talk about a lot of things, but Rosalie always makes me. And it’s usually better. It’s like…you know, getting the toxins out. Have you ever talked to anyone about it?”
“My parents know everything.”
“But have you ever…laid it all out? Told the whole story. Got it out of your system? The grief doesn’t just disappear—how could it? But everything’s magnified when you just hold it in. Until one day, it explodes.” She mimed the explosion with her hands.
“You mean like dumping that all out on a near stranger.”
“I think cohabitating has moved us up from stranger to at least some form of acquaintance. Maybe even friend. The kind of friend that lends an ear when someone needs it.” She refused to look away, instead held his hurting gaze. “Like it or not, admit it or not, you need it.”
THERE WAS JUST something about her. Against all his normal excuses and certainties, Audra dug under something. She weakened that wall he’d built between himself and the past. He didn’t want to go back there, but she made it sound like he had to.
Like he might actually survive if he did.
Copeland wanted to resist that pull. Resist this…connection. But she was just sitting there, looking at him, pretending like she knew how to make all this pain go away, and he was desperate enough to listen to her.
“We grew up together, Ethan and I. Became cops together. I went into the detective bureau. He went into SWAT. He liked the immediate danger. I liked the puzzle. I met Danielle while we were out one night, started dating her, got married. He gave me a hard time about tying myself down, but when we bought a house, he bought the one next door. I figured someday he’d settle down too, we’d raise our families next to each other.
Our wives could be friends. It’s hard being a cop’s wife. Good to have community.”
It still hurt, a deep, pounding pain that he thought he’d never escape. Those dreams he’d had for a future, and just how almost everyone he’d loved and trusted had made it impossible.
But he wasn’t one of those guys who blamed everyone else. He’d had to look at himself clearly and honestly to make the decisions he had. And one of the honest truths he’d uncovered was that he maybe kind of deserved it.
“I loved being a detective once I made my way up the chain. I threw myself into cases. I wasn’t home.
The job became my life, and Danielle became someone…
at home to handle everything. Ethan worked different hours than I did, so he helped her out.
I can’t be shocked she cheated. I can’t begrudge her that. ” He’d worked very hard to believe it.