Chapter Twelve
Oliver
Twenty-four hours. That’s how long it took for me to get comfortable with Lemon in my space.
A single day.
And here she is, only a week later, brightening things.
Even now, she shimmies on a chair to reach the mantel, dusting a portrait of my wife.
It’s surreal, to say the least.
The only two women I’ve ever felt right about, side-by-side in my home, neither attainable.
Somehow, I’ve never felt more connected to them both. And call me crazy, but when Lemon’s near, it’s as if Lauren is too, pushing us together, linking our hands.
An overwhelming calm fits over me, and I want desperately to sink into it, but how is that fair?
Leaning into these feelings only gives the girls someone to count on who may very well leave when the summer is through.
The last thing they need is more loss.
And the last thing Lemon needs is me dimming her light.
I promised Mr. Perkins to keep his daughter out of trouble, but I vowed to my wife on her deathbed to keep our own children safe from harm, be that physical or mental.
I achieve both by keeping my feelings for this woman what they are—only feelings.
I pound the tenderizer over the chuck steak, encouraging my thoughts on the task before me and not the coruscating light source that is my new nanny, arranging flowers around Lauren’s portrait.
Her spirit mocks me at the sight, laughter practically pouring from the clouds and piercing my heart as we both fixate on the tan legs and tight shorts before me.
A slow smile finds a place across my lips at the memory of Lauren and I in our twenties, drunk from the sun and discussing who we’d entertain with a hypothetical hall pass on the beach.
“I’d do her,” I can hear her now.
Fuck. I miss my wife like I miss breathing once I’ve let it all out.
And then there’s Lemon. I’d do her, too, Lo.
I want to, trust me. But how is it fair to be happy? Can I be?
Is it allowed?
The year after Lauren died is when I met her, this anomaly of a woman who seeks attention but detests validation.
I tried to ignore her. It helped I was grieving.
An old, depressed widow of a man she hardly noticed.
But years of unfiltered light in your eyes will eventually blind you.
I fought my entire body to look away. It didn’t matter that she was an adrenaline chasing groupie with cartoon hearts for eyes, Lemon Perkins filled some twisted void in my life simply by living her own.
A complete train wreck, she’d have given someone her full social and mother’s maiden name had I not stopped her. Become enraptured by her presence in my life.
But Lauren was my first love, my only wife, and no woman could ever come close to what we had. So that was it. I told myself I could watch. I could protect. But I would never touch Lemon Perkins, no matter how much I wanted her.
I didn’t count on her wanting me back.
And here she is, the most captivating secret I have, living and breathing in my home.
Laughter pours from the open foyer, and my eyes water at the sound of my usually silent child dancing with her own voice.
I poke my head in to see Kimmie and Poppy rearranging the living room with Lemon.
True to Bryar’s fashion, she’s nowhere in sight, and it irks me I can’t get through to her.
Another problem I can’t seem to solve. I wish that kid would participate in the family for once.
It hits me then that the whole family isn’t here. Not just Bryar, but…my eyes trail to Kimmie. Alone.
“Where is Cami?” She’s fiercely protective of her twin. “She never leaves Kimmie’s side in case she needs to speak for her.”
“I don’t know.” Lemon shrugs. “Fifty percent is a great return rate, though.”
“Are you joking?” My jaw flexes, and I’m irritated as I’ve ever been at the way her smile seems to tease and taunt. I’m both attracted and appalled by all it stands for, but I don’t have time to play games if my kid is missing. Surely she realizes that.
“Did she get off the bus or not?” I say as calmly as possible, directing my lack of control to the fingerings of Brahms Sonata Number three in D Minor against my palm.
“Wow.” She shakes her head as her eyes slide to my silent concerto.
“You’re serious, aren’t you? You think I’d forget a whole-ass kid?
” She fumes when I can’t meet her stare to confirm, but memories of Cami alone flood my mind.
Of the nanny that forgot her, just after Lauren passed.
Kimmie cried nonstop for her twin, Poppy said, until a six-year-old Bryar convinced the young sitter there were supposed to be two toddlers, not one.
I mean who the hell had I let take care of my children?
All while I was away for work. Kimmie stopped making sounds after that.
All that crying and then nothing. Cami’s never left her side since.
My fingers stop with the memory.
“Seriously, Oliver?” Lemon eyes me quizzically.
But I’m not joking. “Where is she, Lem?” My watered eyes meet her blazing purple ones, but I don’t answer the question I see there.
I’m not sure I know how.
“Cam’s with me!” Bryar calls from the sitting room where I hurry in to find the same teen I was just judging, painting bright blue polish over her little sister’s wiggling toes. A new guilt packs right on top the old that I made assumptions about both Bryar and Lemon just now.
What is wrong with me? Why am I like this?
Bryar casts an annoyed glare my way when I rush to kiss them both on the head. But they’re here. They’re safe. And they’ll have no idea the fear that courses through every inch of me at the thought of the alternative until they have their own kids one day.
“For Mom.” Cami beams, showing off her polish. “Bry said her favorite flowers were the little blue ones.”
“Forget-me-nots.” I nod, gesturing to the streamers above the piano. “What’s all this?”
“Lemon said we can have a memory day.” Cami bounces excitedly. “Isn’t that fun? I don’t have any memories of Mom, so Bryar and Poppy will have to tell them. I know Kimmie will love it, too.”
Bryar scrunches her nose when I turn for confirmation of this and she nods. “A memorial, Dad.”
I don’t miss how she draws in a trembling breath when she does, as if she thinks I’d forbid such a thing. “Of course,” I choke. “You do what you must, and I’ll…I’ll just go…”
“Hold on, Cam.” Bryar stares at the polish for a quick second, looking every bit the like her mother before she leads us to the privacy of the fireplace.
“I know you don’t like this kind of thing, Dad, but Poppy’s been…
she’s starting to…” She turns her face to the side and sniffles. “She’s forgetting Mom.”
I can’t find the words I need, but I know it’s not a day of talking about my dead wife in the presence of my new nanny and my children who need me sturdy and strong in the wake of this life-changing promotion, not withering and depressed.
“I can’t do this, Bry. You girls have your event. I’ll go to my office, all right?”
“No.”
Her brows pull and she takes my hand. Funny how I thought it was smaller. When did it grow so large that it could cradle mine?
“You need to be there, Dad. We want you to be there.”
“Baby, please understand it’s not that I don’t want to remember her, it’s—”
“You miss her just as much as I do. But you always act like you don’t. You act like nothing ever matters. You have to let yourself feel things, Dad. Mom would—”
“Mom’s not here. And you are a child. My child!” It’s louder than intended.
Shit.
“Bry, I didn’t mean—”
“You know what, Dad? You did mean.” Tears shine over her eyes. “I can’t convince you of anything, not even this. You’re always right. About life and death.”
Cami rears her head our way, and it dawns on me they were having a one-on-one without Kimmie, because Kimmie is with Lemon. This moment is something they’ve never gotten together before.
Thanks to the woman I just doubted.
“Why are you guys fighting?” Cami’s whisper is laced with worry, and I can’t bear that.
Not because of me.
“We’re not, Cam.” Bryar casts sharp daggers at me when I don’t respond.
I don’t even know how I got to this moment. One where my teenager felt the need to parent me.
But if she’s right?
“Dad’s just getting ready to put the steaks on the grill.
That’s all.” She cuts me one last dismissive glare before returning to her little sister with a pasted smile.
“Now, was it pink you wanted on this side? Mom had this bright pink purse. Not sure if you remember it, but Dad hated the thing, and one time…”
I let myself out, the story of Lauren’s atrocious purse bringing a smile to my lips even as tears fill my eyes.
Even if I want neither of those things.
I brace myself for the weight that follows her memories.
The ones there to slam me against a solid metal wall, pinned by the nothingness of her departure, but when I pass through the living room and find Lemon shining brightly as ever, laughing and dancing with my girls, the pain is somehow lessened.
Kimmie, my most sensitive child, is in full acceptance of someone new.
Poppy has a confidant.
Bryar is spending time with her siblings.
And for the first time ever, Cami is learning who she is apart from her twin.
Is my daughter right?
Is it time to feel?
When everyone’s nestled in their respective quarters, I find solace in the one place I’m able these days.
I sink into the hot tub until my neck rests against the rim, water sloshing around me and spilling to the deck below.
The night sky is above, and warmth surrounds me. I wish I could pluck the stars from the sky and replace the light I lost all those years ago.
But life doesn’t work that way.
Positioning the headphones over my ears, I lie back and let the melody of Bach’s Chaconne, Partita Number Two, become my present. The bow slides back and forth across the strings of the violin, calm and calamity at war.
Fitting.
The tempo rises and falls in waves, and the song becomes a roadmap to my grief that computes for once.
It makes sense in song.