CHAPTER 27
Julian
Istand alone in my study staring out at Manhattan while winter rain streaks softly against the large bay windows. The weather changed overnight, leaving the city wrapped in gray and silver and wet pavement reflecting traffic lights below.
January rain always makes New York seem lonelier and it’s in the loneliness that I tend to indulge in despair and struggles.
The townhouse is silent around me. It’s a silence that only old homes possess. The bigger the home, the greater the silence takes hold.
I exhale and turn back toward the desk.
I open the bottom drawer and pull out a stack of photographs underneath an old file of financial reports and correspondence from my various companies. I pretend these dense and voluminous documents are enough to hide the pain that lingers deep within.
Today is different. I lower myself into the leather chair and examine the first picture.
And there he is, smiling. Ben had Kylie’s smile.
Just a baby in this photograph, barely more than a few months old, swaddled in pale blue while Kylie cradles him against her chest. His eyes are fixed solemnly on the camera in that strange thoughtful way babies sometimes look at the world, as though they’re trying to understand it.
I simply stare at him. I see pieces of myself in him now in ways I couldn’t back then. The shape of his eyes. The skepticism that lies in them.
And yet, there’s so much of Kylie in him too.
The softness in his cheeks. A love overflowing from a smile so bright, it’s unnecessary to turn on the lights in the room.
“Seven,” I murmur into the quiet room.
That’s how old he’d be today.
Old enough for scraped knees and homework and jokes. Old enough to trail behind me through the arena asking endless questions about hockey players and statistics and why adults always take themselves so seriously. Old enough to fill this house with noise instead of memories.
I stare down at the photograph while grief moves through me, like a hurricane and tornado bundled into one. Inescapable no matter how hard I try to move past and through it.
A soft knock against the study door brings me back to the present.
The door opens quietly, and Percy steps inside carrying a silver tray. The man has spent decades knowing exactly what I need before I say a word.
Tonight it’s eighteen-year-old scotch poured two fingers high and a plate of dark chocolate sea salt cookies from the bakery on Madison, the ones Kylie loved when she was pregnant.
Percy crosses the room slowly before setting the tray onto the desk beside me. For a moment, neither of us speaks. He simply looks down at the photograph in my hands.
“Master Benjamin,” he says quietly. “I haven’t seen a smile that jubilant on the face of any other human, young or old.”
Percy lowers himself into the chair opposite me, the movement slower these days than it once was. Age has begun settling more noticeably into him over the last couple years, but his mind remains as sharp as ever.
“How are you holding up, sir?”
“Poorly would probably be the honest answer.”
Percy nods, like honesty is all he ever expected from me tonight. Not much different from most nights, really. It’s what makes him the closest confidant I have.
“I wonder what we would have done for his seventh birthday,” I say quietly, my gaze still fixed on the photograph.
Percy’s eyes drift toward the rain-streaked windows before he says softly, “I still remember that morning he was born. You sprinted through the maternity ward after I had alerted you she was in labor. I had never seen you move that quickly in your life.”
“Kylie was yelling at everyone,” I say as the memory returns to me too.
“She was terrifying,” Percy agrees. “One nurse fled the room. I believe it was her first delivery… or would have been had she stayed.”
I smile.
My eyes drift back down to the photograph. “I had a dream about Kylie the other night.”
Percy remains still, attentive.
I lean back slowly in the chair, dragging one hand down my cheek while I try to untangle thoughts I’m not certain I fully understand myself. “We were on the yacht… watching the sunrise.” I see it in my mind’s eye, clear as in the dream. “And Harper was there.”
I stare into the scotch while rain taps softly at the windows. “Kylie told me Harper was there for me and I woke up feeling…” I exhale slowly. “Guilty.”
Percy studies me now. “Because of Ms. Hawthorne?”
I nod. “Things with her are moving quickly. Much faster than I expected.”
And if I’m honest with myself, part of what gives me pause isn’t the speed itself but how little I want to slow it down. I pause before finally voicing the thought that has been clawing at me since the dream.
“Do you think I’m moving too quickly?”
Percy’s expression turns contemplative. “Oh, sir,” he says gently, “there is no proper timeline for grief. Or recovery from grief, for that matter.”
I lean back in the chair while he continues.
“The simple truth is that moving forward with your life is the only option any of us truly have. The alternative is remaining frozen beside ghosts forever… and that, sir, is no solution at all.”
I take a sip of my scotch.
“But of course,” Percy says, “we are only human.” His eyes drift toward the photograph still resting in my hands. “We do not let go of the past easily, particularly when the past contains great love.”
“Truer words,” I murmur.
Percy folds his hands loosely together. “That is the eternal conflict of the human condition, I think. We spend our lives grieving what we lose while simultaneously fearing what it means to move beyond it.”
Percy rises slowly from the chair and rests one hand against the desk. “You loved your wife deeply,” he says. “Nothing will ever diminish that.”
A chill runs through me. “I know.”
“But loving someone new does not erase the love that came before.” His expression gentles. “The heart is not nearly as finite as people imagine. It’s capable of learning to love again.”
I lower my eyes again to Ben’s photograph. Then, before I can respond, the front doorbell rings, the sound cutting cleanly through the stillness of the townhouse, and both Percy and I look toward the study door.
A faint crease forms between Percy’s brows. “Were you expecting anyone, sir?”
“Of course not,” I say. “Certainly not today.”
This day, each year, is a day of solitude. Only Percy has ever spent meaningful time with me, and for that I’m grateful.
But visitors?
No. Absolutely not.
Percy inclines his head gently before disappearing from the study, leaving me alone again.
I stare down at the image, at the tiny face that somehow still manages to hollow me out every year, and I try to gather myself enough to move beyond this mood before Percy returns. I return the photos to the drawer and close it just as I hear footsteps return down the hallway. Percy appears first.
And Harper steps in behind him.
The sight of her unsettles me. She’s beaming and can see quite clearly that I am not.
Her smile falters when I don’t reciprocate the grin plastered on her face.
“Harper,” I say slowly as I rise from the chair.
“I texted you this morning,” she says, though uncertainty already flickers beneath the words. “You never answered.”
“I’m sorry,” I reply, my voice sounding strangely distant even to myself. “I’ve just been… preoccupied.”
She studies me. Then, determined not to let it derail her excitement, she pushes past the awkwardness with a small nervous laugh.
“Well,” she says, glancing briefly toward Percy before looking back at me, “I figured this probably wasn’t news I should deliver over text, anyway.”
Part of me realizes I should already know why she’s here. I should understand the energy radiating off her right now. Instead, all I can think about is Ben’s photograph sitting in the drawer only a few feet away from me.
“You could have called first,” I say.
I watch confusion flicker across her face, followed quickly by hurt she immediately tries to smooth over. “Oh,” she says softly. “I didn’t think I needed to.”
Percy backs out of the room, closing the double pocket doors behind him.
“It’s fine,” I say, because that’s the polite thing to offer.
Harper smiles again, brighter this time, breathless beneath her excitement.
“I wanted to tell you in person,” she says. And then the words pour out of her in this beautiful, unfiltered rush of happiness that normally would have undone me instantly. “I got it,” she says, laughing as though she still can’t fully believe it herself. “The job. Julian, I actually got it.”
Her entire face lights up as she speaks and yet her happiness bounces off me. I can’t even smile.
She doesn’t seem to notice. “They officially offered it this afternoon and apparently they interviewed more than twenty-five people,” she continues, words tumbling over one another now.
“And they said it wasn’t even close. They told me I had exactly the instincts and leadership they were looking for and—” She breaks off with another disbelieving laugh, one hand pressed against her chest. “Dylan is completely losing his mind over it. He already started calling me a corporate girlboss, which I think is technically supposed to be insulting, but honestly, I was too excited to care so I’m choosing to take it as a compliment. ”
She keeps talking, thoughts spilling forward in a joyous rush that fills the entire study with warmth.
And I should be there with her, matching her enthusiasm, bombarding her with questions and kisses. After all, I created this opportunity for her because I knew she was capable of it long before she ever believed it herself.
But today, I’m not capable of any of it.
Guilt still claws relentlessly through me. The dream, Ben’s birthday. I need time to understand what to do, who I need… who I can let in and who must remain on the outside.
I force myself to gather enough composure to give her anything. “That’s… incredible, Harper,” I say. “I, uh. Congratulations.”
But even to my own ears the words sound wrong. Manufactured and fake. It’s worse than not saying anything at all.
I can tell it hits her like a slap. “Yeah… thank you,” she says quietly.
I see her desperation to make sense of my reaction, or lack thereof. “I just…” She lets out a faint awkward laugh. “I thought you’d be happier.”
“I am happy for you.”
“You don’t seem happy, like, actually happy.”
Harper studies me more carefully now, all her earlier excitement replaced by concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Julian.”
She’s trying to reach past the walls I’ve spent years building. And lately, with her, I’ve been letting her. But not today. Today is different. My grief split me open and leaves me exposed. “I’m fine,” I say more firmly.
She stays quiet, but I can see it plainly in her face. She knows I’m lying.
“This is different,” she says.
I say nothing.
“You don’t have to tell me everything,” she says. “But I can tell something’s bothering you.”
The concern in her voice should comfort me.
Instead, it presses against my every raw nerve, creating further discomfort.
I do not want to discuss this. None of it.
Not today, not ever. I do not want to unpack Kylie and Ben and dreams and guilt while Ben’s seventh birthday remains a “what-if” in a series of milestones that will never happen.
“Harper, I’m not going—”
“I’m just trying to understand why you’re suddenly so far away.”
She’s right—I am far away right now. That distance is what I’ve used because it’s how my dad coped with the losses in his life. It’s in my DNA. I’m retreating emotionally while standing directly in front of her.
Finally, she exhales softly and takes a small step backward.
“Okay,” she says. “I think maybe it’s best if I go.”
A loaded silence stretches between us. Then I hear myself answer, “Probably.”
I see the hurt flash across her face before she pushes it away with remarkable maturity because Harper is emotionally intelligent enough to understand this likely isn’t about her. She knows something larger is happening beneath the surface here.
But understanding it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“Right,” she says. “I really was excited to tell you. I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“I know, and it’s fine.”
But the damage is already done. She opens the right pocket door and slips out and I’m left alone, in the solitude I’ve created, perhaps where I belong forever.