Kate
Nothing’s new about my inability to sleep in the middle of the night. Insomnia’s plagued me for most of my life. In fact, my mom still laments about all the sleepless nights when I was a child.
What is new, however, is the clunking noise coming from downstairs at two o’clock in the morning.
This house was built a hundred years ago—floorboards that creak under the slightest weight, windows that whistle during storms, and pipes that rattle are part of the charm.
So I’m used to hearing things while I lie awake, staring up at the white ceiling, but I’m not used to hearing this.
With a groan, I throw back the thick homemade quilt—a wedding gift from one of Jackson’s great-aunts—and roll out of bed.
The wood planks are well-worn, full of divots and dents that my feet conform to with every step across the dark room.
I slip into the hallway expecting to find that one of the kids has gotten out of bed, but their bedroom doors are closed.
Skipping the second, fifth, and seventh steps, I gingerly make my way downstairs, fingertips skimming the rounded wood banister.
Light pours out from the kitchen, illuminating the hallway and casting shadows at harsh angles.
I lick my lips, curling my sweaty palm around the newel post at the base of the stairs.
Once we had a raccoon find its way into the kitchen after one of the kids didn’t properly shut the back door, but as crafty as they are, raccoons don’t need the help of warm overhead lighting to wreak havoc on a trash can.
I blink down the adjoining hallway, struggling to confirm whether the primary bedroom door is open or shut. For how seldom Jackson leaves the bedroom, I can’t imagine he’s rummaging through the kitchen at two o’clock in the morning.
Under normal circumstances, he’d be the one dealing with a potential intruder.
Here I am without a weapon or even a plan, creeping into the kitchen and praying I’m about to come face-to-face with a bear, rather than a strange man.
With a gulp, I press a hand to the wall to steady myself and decide I can probably run fast enough to get to the knife block, if needed.
Assuming the home invader hasn’t thought of that and taken the knives for himself. Fuck.
And I left my phone upstairs, so calling the police is out of the question. Double fuck.
Typically I handle pressure with ease. Years ago when Cecily first came to the ranch, her abusive ex showed up here while the boys were out on the range, and I didn’t so much as flinch at the danger.
The hallway floor planks are smooth on the balls of my feet as I tiptoe out of the shadows and into the kitchen to find Jackson seated on one of the counter-height stools.
He’s in a baggy, dark gray shirt and his hair is messy, likely from tossing and turning in bed.
Two mugs are set out in front of him. Relief courses through my veins like the slow flow of warm whiskey.
“Jackson?” I whisper-yell.
He startles, and his arms flail in front of him, searching for purchase on the smooth counter to keep him from toppling backward.
“I heard noises and thought somebody had broken in.”
“Sorry.” His nose scrunches and he slips off the stool, preparing to leave. “I…I needed to get out for a minute.”
“You don’t have to go. This is your house, too. You’re allowed to be in the kitchen—or anywhere—whenever you want.” I meet him across the island, watching him settle into his seat again, and my eyes fixate on the second cup, filled to the brim with a creamy liquid. Tea, perhaps. “Who’s that for?”
Jackson’s focus flits between the two matching off-white ceramic mugs. “Oh, uh…I don’t know, to be honest. For some reason, I was craving a cup of tea, and then I must’ve been confused and made two…. You can have it, if you want. It’s—”
“Sleepy tea.” I finish his sentence, reaching for the mug and cradling it with all the care in the world.
He’s coming back.
He thinks it’s random. He was confused and accidentally made two cups of herbal tea because he couldn’t sleep.
But that first summer, when I was nothing more than his mom’s aide, neither of us were sleeping well.
Lucy Wells loved her chamomile tea, so that’s what Jackson poured for me that first time we found ourselves alone in a kitchen cloaked in moonlight.
The sicker his mom became, the more often he and I ended up here.
Until eventually, I knew that if I tiptoed into the kitchen in the middle of the night, he’d be waiting with two mugs.
We fell in love over cups of tea in the middle of the night, whispering our deepest secrets and fears, laughing silently about silly, delirious jokes, until laughter led to kissing with my lower back pressed to the counter edge and our tea growing cold.
If I’m going to get my husband back, this is the place.
My elbows knock against the quartzite counter, and I prop my heavy head in my hands. Steam gently billows in the space between him and me, and I watch him with adoration as his shaky hands lift the mug to his mouth.
“Did I wake you up?” he asks, licking a stray droplet of tea from the corner of his lip.
“No, I couldn’t sleep and heard a ruckus down here. Thought I better make sure a wild animal hadn’t gotten in.”
“I couldn’t remember where anything was…practically had to open and close every single cupboard to find what I needed.”
I smile. “I’m not sure you knew your way around this kitchen before, if that makes you feel any better.
” Hot liquid trickles into my stomach, the warmth spidering out through my veins until my entire body feels flushed.
“But you remember how to make a good cup of tea, so who cares if you don’t know where the mugs belong. ”
I nearly spit out the blend of chamomile, spearmint, lemongrass, and whatever else when Jackson quietly says, “I think I remember my mom dying.”
“Sorry…” I cough and sputter, setting my mug down and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “You do?”
He nods, and I watch the muscles of his throat move with a large gulp of tea. “My brothers and dad don’t want to talk about it, so if I’m right, then that’s gotta mean it came from my own brain, right?”
Playing it cool, I respond, “I guess so.”
“You were here then…. Can you tell me if I’m right?”
I was here, all right. Sobbing as I kept myself busy making tiny triangle sandwiches that no one would ever eat.
There was nothing else to do that day. The ranch was eerily quiet, as if the entire world was taking a beat of silence, and I couldn’t possibly take up space at Lucy’s bedside.
I heard the sobs. I felt the rush of cool air pass through the entire house when she took that last breath and stole the color from some of my favorite people.
One by one, her boys stumbled out of the room forever changed.
Austin retreated to his room, and when he came back out days later, he was a mere shell of the guy I’d met months prior.
Denver sobbed so hard he threw up. Jackson punched a hole in the wall just outside the room, which Bennett meticulously patched in the middle of the night—his own form of working through the pain, I suppose.
I nod hesitantly. “I can tell you.”
Slow and steady, with breaks to compose himself, Jackson relives the day his mom died.
Some details are missing—he remembers music but not which song—while others, like the slow thump of the rocking chair in the corner of the room, are clear as a bell.
I love that some hazy memories are returning, but I hate this for him.
Of all the moments to remember, his brain chose the one he’s probably spent years wishing he could forget.
“I’m so sorry, Jackson.”
“I’m right…aren’t I?”
Instinctively, I move around the end of the island, and I envelop him in a hug like I did that day.
Wrapping my arms tight around his torso and letting him give me his weight.
Jackson pulls me closer, sweeping the heat of his palms down to my lower back and pressing my cheek to his chest. Our heartbeats fall in sync as if no time at all has passed since I was last in his arms, and I can’t help the tears that fall in meandering rivulets down my cheeks.
He has no idea how something as simple as a hug has every fiber in my being yearning for more.
I didn’t know if I’d ever have this again, and now that I do, I’m so scared to let go.
I’m right back in the hospital, clinging to him for fear that letting go would make him slip away.
He’s been home for weeks, and while he should be getting better each day, Jackson’s only become more detached.
Odessa’s birthday party felt like the first positive change, and now I’m terrified a single bad memory will carry him deeper into depression.
“You’re right. I’m so sorry,” I mumble against the soft fabric of his T-shirt. “I didn’t want you to get your memory back like this. Did something trigger it?”
I’m instantly racking my brain for ideas of what might need to change in our bedroom.
It was all renovated before we took it over, because the last thing either of us wanted as we started our own family in this home was the constant reminder of Lucy’s final moments in the room that should be our sanctuary.
Jackson’s hot breath cascades from the top of my skull down to my shoulders, and I relax into it. “I’ve been having these dreams lately, and they feel…I can’t quite tell if they’re memories or stories my brain is making up. That one felt too raw to be made up.”
“Have you been having good dreams, too? Maybe they’re all real.”
I feel his nod move my hair around. “Yeah, not any big moments. Just us outside—me and you on a porch swing. Sometimes the kids are playing in the grass.”