Chapter 4
Jamie
I woke to Mark's arm across my waist and the pale gray light of a Havensworth winter pressing through curtains I hadn't chosen in eight years.
The bed was too small for him. His feet hung off the edge, his shoulder wedged against the wall, his body folded into a space designed for a teenage girl who'd never expected to share it. He hadn't complained. He'd just climbed in beside me last night and held on, and I'd let him.
I lay still, listening to his breathing. Slow. Even. The sleep of someone who was tired but not broken.
The room looked exactly the way I'd left it.
Jack had kept it intact. The lavender walls I'd begged for when I was twelve.
The bookshelf stuffed with paperbacks I'd devoured in high school.
The desk where I'd written my college application essays, drafts crumpled in the trash, Jack bringing me tea at midnight and telling me to stop overthinking.
For when you come home to visit, he'd said once, when I asked why he hadn't converted it into something useful. It's still your room.
My eyes traced the sloped ceiling, the dormer window, the way the morning light fell across the floorboards.
I was seven when Dad decided I needed my own space.
Jack was twelve, too old to share a bathroom with his little sister, and the attic was just sitting there, collecting dust and Christmas decorations.
Dad had this vision—a whole renovation, just for me.
My own little kingdom at the top of the house.
I remember watching them work. Dad and Jack, measuring and sawing, laying down new floorboards.
Jack was old enough to be helpful, young enough to still think a construction project with Dad was the best thing in the world.
He held boards steady while Dad nailed them in.
Handed him tools like a surgeon's assistant.
I wanted to help. Begged to help. Dad finally handed me a paintbrush and pointed me toward the wall.
"Stay inside the lines, sweetheart."
I painted for hours. Lavender—I’d chosen the color from a fan of swatches Dad brought home from the hardware store. Mom came up with cookies and milk on a tray, and we all sat on the half-finished floor and ate while sawdust settled in our hair.
I still remember the way Dad laughed when I got paint on my nose. The way Jack pretended to be annoyed when I kept asking questions. The way Mom looked at all of us like she couldn't believe her luck.
They'd been dead for eleven years now. Some days it felt like yesterday. Some days it felt like another lifetime.
I eased out from under Mark's arm, inch by inch, until I could slip free without waking him. My robe hung on the back of the door where I'd always kept it. I pulled it on and padded barefoot into the hallway.
The house was quiet. That particular stillness of early morning, before the world remembers to start moving.
I paused outside the nursery door. Cracked it open just enough to see.
Loretta was asleep on the small couch in Rosie's room. Rosie was curled on her side in bed, thumb in her mouth, blanket clutched to her chest.
I closed the door softly and headed downstairs.
The house hadn't changed much since I was a kid.
Same hardwood floors that creaked in the same places.
Same family photos lining the stairwell—Mom and Dad on their wedding day, Jack and me at the beach, all four of us at Christmas with matching sweaters and genuine smiles.
I touched the banister as I descended, my palm finding the groove worn smooth by decades of hands.
Jack's childhood room was Rosie's now. He and Sarah had moved into the master after they got married, and when Rosie came along, they'd converted his old room into a nursery.
Pale yellow walls. A mobile of stars and moons.
I remembered him showing me photos when she was born, so proud he could barely form sentences.
She's perfect, Jamie. She's absolutely perfect.
The living room still had the same couch, reupholstered twice but never replaced. I sank into it, pulled my knees to my chest, and let my eyes drift across the space.
I could almost see them. Jack and Sam tearing through the house, roughhousing the way boys did, knocking into furniture while Mom yelled at them to take it outside.
Megan sitting cross-legged on this same couch, braiding my hair while some show played on the TV, both of us shouting at the boys to keep it down.
Sam had been a fixture in this house ever since.
The kid from down the street who showed up for dinner so often my mother started setting an extra place without asking.
He was always here—shooting hoops in the driveway, doing homework at the kitchen table, sleeping on the floor of Jack's room after late nights of whatever trouble teenage boys got into.
He'd grown up in this house almost as much as we had.
I wrapped my arms tighter around my knees.
After our parents died, Jack and I inherited the house.
Our parents hadn't been rich—not Henderson rich, not Montgomery rich—but they'd been comfortable.
The life insurance covered the mortgage.
There was money for my school, money for groceries, enough of a cushion that Jack could catch his breath before he had to start running.
He was twenty years old. A sophomore in college with a girlfriend and a plan and a future that had nothing to do with raising a fifteen-year-old.
He came home anyway.
I'd never asked him if he resented it. I was too afraid of the answer.
I remember the day he told me he was going to apply to the fire academy. We were sitting on the back porch, the summer before my senior year.
"Firefighters are first responders." He was staring at the yard, not at me.
"First on scene. First ones through the door when someone's in danger.
" His jaw tightened. "I couldn't save Mom and Dad.
I know that. But maybe I can make sure some other kid doesn't have to go through what we went through. "
He'd said it so simply. Like it was obvious. Like the path from grief to purpose was a straight line anyone could walk.
That was Jack. He always knew who he wanted to be. He never wavered, never second-guessed, never looked back. He saw a problem and he ran toward it, even when—especially when—everyone else was running away.
He was, to me, in every way, a hero.
"Hey."
Mark appeared in the doorway, rumpled and bleary, his hair sticking up on one side. He'd pulled on jeans but no shirt, and he looked cold, arms crossed over his chest.
He crossed the room and kissed my temple. "How long have you been up?"
"A while."
"Did you sleep at all?"
"Some."
He nodded, not pushing. That was one of the things I'd always appreciated about Mark. He knew when to press and when to let me be.
"Coffee?" He was already moving toward the kitchen. "I saw a machine in there. I think I can figure it out."
"Cabinet above the sink. Filters are in the drawer to the left."
He disappeared around the corner. I heard him opening and closing cabinets, running water, the familiar sounds of someone navigating an unfamiliar kitchen. A few wrong drawers. A muttered "where the hell" before he found the filters.
I should have gotten up to help him. But I couldn't quite make my body move.
"What's the plan for today?" His voice carried from the kitchen over the sound of the coffee maker starting to gurgle.
"Funeral home at 10:00 a.m. We need to finalize the arrangements." I pushed myself off the couch, finally, and walked to the kitchen doorway. "Then the florist. Then Jack's lawyer wants to meet about the will and guardianship paperwork."
"That's a lot."
"Yeah."
Mark turned to face me, leaning against the counter. "I'm here. Whatever you need. You know that, right?"
"I know." I managed something close to a smile. "Thank you."
"What about breakfast? I could make eggs. Toast." He opened the refrigerator, peering inside. "There's... some cheese. Butter. Something that might be bacon."
"Sam's coming over. He's going to help with everything."
"Oh." Mark straightened, closing the fridge. "That's nice of him."
"He was Jack's best friend growing up." I moved past him to grab a mug from the cabinet. "He's practically like a brother to us."
Brother. The word didn't sit right.
"Good. That's good." Mark nodded, genuine. "I'm glad you have people here."
The coffee finished brewing. I poured two mugs, handed one to Mark. We stood there in the kitchen, neither of us sure what to say next, the silence filling with all the words we couldn't find.
"Morning." Loretta's voice was rough. She hadn't slept well either. "Coffee ready?"
She appeared with Rosie on her hip, both of them still in pajamas. Rosie's face was puffy with sleep, her thumb hovering near her mouth, her eyes tracking the unfamiliar man in her kitchen.
"Just made a pot."
Loretta set Rosie down and moved toward the mugs, but halfway there she stopped. Wrinkled her nose.
"You smell that?"
I inhaled. Faint, under the coffee. Smoke.
"Those damn boys again." Loretta shook her head, irritation cutting through the exhaustion.
"I've told them a hundred times. Smoking right there by the side of the house, throwing their cigarette butts wherever they please.
" She poured her coffee, still muttering.
"Bad enough they're killing their own lungs.
Don't need them poisoning Rosie's air too. "
"I'll talk to them," I said.
"Won't do any good. Boys." She said it like a diagnosis. A chronic condition with no cure.
A small frustration. Background noise.
We had a funeral to plan.
Sam arrived at 10:00 a.m.
He shook Mark's hand, insisted on driving, and loaded us into his truck like a man with a plan. Mark took the back seat without being asked. I sat up front and watched Havensworth slide past the window.
I watched him drive. Hands steady on the wheel. Checking mirrors. Patient at a red light, not reaching for his phone, just waiting.