Chapter 7 Jane #2
They returned to the carriage with hot cocoa warming their hands and snow globes safely stowed. The girls settled into their bench, but this time they arranged themselves differently. Maddy sat with Jane while Trinity chose to sit beside her father.
The girls still chattered, but their energy had softened. The long day was catching up with them, excitement giving way to comfortable tiredness.
Within minutes of the carriage starting to move again, Trinity’s chatter began to fade. Her head drooped slowly until it came to rest against Gabe’s shoulder. He adjusted carefully, making sure she was comfortable, one arm coming around to hold her secure.
He looked down at his daughter with an expression so tender it made Jane’s throat tighten painfully. That’s what love looked like. Pure and uncomplicated and fierce. The kind of love that would move mountains and weather any storm.
Maddy’s head lolled to the side, and Jane gently guided it to rest in her lap. The girl curled instinctively into Jane’s warmth, settling with a small contented sigh.
Something inside Jane stirred. Sharp and painful and overwhelming. She had to swallow hard against the lump forming in her throat as feelings threatened to break through the walls she’d built.
This. This was what she’d lost. What she would never have. The weight of a sleeping child, warm and trusting. The simple joy of being needed, of providing comfort and safety. Of building a family and a future.
She’d had it for such a brief time. Darren’s hand in hers. Taylor growing inside her. A future spread out before them like a promise.
And then twisted metal and sirens and a hospital room where futures went to die.
Jane looked across the carriage at Gabe watching his sleeping daughter, and something wistful crossed her expression before she could stop it. She allowed herself this moment. This glimpse of a life that might have been. The baby she’d carried would be...
No. She couldn’t think about that. Couldn’t go down that road.
The walls slammed back up, familiar and almost comforting in their solidity.
Gabe’s gaze found hers across the carriage, and their eyes held for a moment too long. Something passed between them. Recognition of shared pain. Understanding of what it meant to lose everything and still have to keep breathing, keep walking, keep pretending to be whole.
Both of them looked away quickly. It was too much. Too raw. Too close to things neither of them was ready to examine.
Jane focused on Maddy’s sleeping face. Safer there. Less likely to crack open the carefully maintained walls around her heart.
The carriage pulled up where it had started as the last light faded from the western sky. Trinity woke as they stopped, blinking sleepily up at her father.
“Are we back already?” she asked, her voice heavy with sleep.
Gabe smiled. “Already. Come on, sleepyhead.”
Trinity gently woke Maddy, who stretched and yawned before gathering her things. Both girls were practically bouncing again despite having been asleep moments before, excitement about their sleepover chasing away any lingering tiredness.
“We’re staying at your house!” Trinity squealed to Maddy as they walked toward the car.
“I know! We can watch Christmas movies, make popcorn, and stay up late!” Maddy’s enthusiasm matched Trinity’s perfectly.
Jane carefully extracted herself from Maddy’s weight, immediately missing the warmth even as she was grateful for the distance.
She automatically climbed into the driver’s seat. Once Gabe had settled the girls in the back, he climbed into the passenger seat. Twenty minutes later, they were pulling into the Christmas Inn’s parking lot.
Isabella and Christopher waited at the entrance, and Jane felt a pang seeing them.
They both looked tired but happy. Flour still dusted Isabella’s sleeve, and Christopher’s hair was disheveled, but they stood close together with their shoulders touching.
They fit naturally, like pieces of a puzzle that had found their match.
“How was it?” Isabella asked as the group approached.
“Amazing!” both girls chorused.
“The battery in my car died,” Isabella explained with an apologetic expression. “Christopher’s borrowing Charlie’s car to take us to my house.” She turned to Christopher with a grateful smile, and he returned it with something warm and intimate that made Jane look away.
That private moment wasn’t meant for her eyes.
Holly rushed down the stairs carrying Trinity’s overnight bag. “Almost forgot this!” She laughed and handed it to Gabe.
Chaos erupted as the girls hugged everyone, thank yous flying in all directions.
“Best night ever!” Maddy declared.
“The best!” Trinity agreed enthusiastically.
Jane stood trapped in the middle of it all, wanting to leave but not wanting to be rude. Holly’s arrival with the bag was the perfect excuse.
“Goodnight, everyone, and thank you for a wonderful evening,” Jane said quickly, already moving toward the door that led to the family’s private quarters.
Her eyes met Gabe’s briefly. His expression was unreadable, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. But then Trinity grabbed his attention.
“Dad, did you pack my toothbrush?”
The contact broke, and Jane took advantage of the distraction. She slipped away quickly toward the door connecting the inn to the family house.
Behind her, she could hear laughter and the girls’ excited voices. Christopher said something that made Isabella laugh, the sound warm and genuine. Normal sounds. Family sounds.
Everything Jane had lost.
Jane stepped through the door into the private hallway, and the door closed behind her with a soft click. The silence hit her like a physical blow. Sudden and absolute and suffocating.
And with the silence came the crumbling of walls she’d maintained for three long years.
Tears welled up in her eyes without warning. She slapped her hand over her mouth to stop the sob that wanted to escape. She couldn’t break down here. Not in the hallway where someone might hear. Where Gran might come looking for her and ask questions Jane couldn’t answer.
She rushed down the hall to her bedroom, her hands shaking as she turned the doorknob. She got inside and bolted the door behind her. Safe. Finally safe.
Jane slid down the door and collapsed onto the floor, and all the grief she’d been suppressing for the past three years finally spilled out.
Three years of holding together the pieces of a shattered heart. Three years of pretending she was fine, she was healing, she was moving forward. Three years of telling herself the pain would fade, that time healed all wounds, that she’d be okay eventually.
All of it came crashing down.
Sobs wracked her body, and she couldn’t stop them. Didn’t even try. Darren’s face flashed through her mind, the way he’d smiled at her on their wedding day. The way he’d held her when they’d first learned about Taylor. The plans they’d made, the future they’d dreamed about.
Taylor. Her baby girl. Five months along. Not quite viable. Not quite a person in the eyes of the world. But real to Jane. So achingly real.
And tonight had added new pain. Fresh reminders of what could have been. The warmth of Maddy’s weight in her lap. Trinity’s easy adoration. Gabe’s understanding eyes that saw too much, that recognized the grief she carried because he carried his own.
All the things she could never have. All the futures that had died in twisted metal and hospital fluorescent lights and the devastating words “I’m sorry, there was nothing we could do.”
Because when you lost everything once, you learned. You learned not to want. Not to hope. Not to open your heart again. Because if you did, if you let someone in, fate would take them too. Better to be alone. Safer to be numb. Easier to survive when you had nothing left to lose.
But tonight had cracked something open inside her. The careful walls she’d built. The numbness she’d cultivated. The safety of keeping everyone at arm’s length.
And now she couldn’t stop the flood.
Jane sat on the floor in the darkness of her room, let the tears come, and let the grief have her completely. Tomorrow, she would rebuild the walls. Tomorrow, she would be strong again, would put on the mask of competence and capability that everyone expected.
But tonight, just for tonight, Jane let herself break.
Because sometimes breaking was the only honest thing left to do.