Chapter Ten Remi
Chapter Ten
Remi
The sound of laughter echoed across the patio as the side gate creaked open. Remi glanced up from her book just in time to see Bas step inside their yard, followed by Sage. The late-afternoon sun gleamed off the water, casting a shimmering light onto their faces.
Bas was barefoot, wearing swim trunks and a sleeveless shirt, a towel tossed over one shoulder.
He flashed that easy grin, charming and warm.
He was just as comfortable at their pool as Zoe was.
Their pool had been his through several summers.
He had even become so comfortable with their family that he barely knocked before entering their home.
And they were fine with it. Bas had become family.
But Sage … not so much. Still, she trailed behind him in a bright yellow bikini, her deep red tresses pulled up into a bun, sunglasses perched on her nose.
“I thought I heard some Marco Polo going on over here,” Bas called, already heading toward the pool steps.
Mila popped up from the water. “Bas!” She squealed, as if she hadn’t just met him and behaved as if she’d known him forever. Then she splashed toward the edge.
Sage gave a polite wave. “Hey everybody.”
“Hello, Bas. Hello, Sage.” Remi gave a light smile, returned Sage’s wave, but her eyes lingered just a second too long, flicking from Sage to Zoe, who had remained still in the pool and said nothing.
Her daughter’s expression was unreadable, casual on the surface, but Remi saw the way her jaw flexed, the way she avoided looking directly at Bas or Sage.
“Room for one more?” Bas asked, already peeling off his shirt.
Zoe shrugged, but Mila piped up with a cheerful, “Of course. Come on in, the water’s great.”
Sage settled into one of the pool chairs, stretching out like she owned the place. She rested her sparkling water on the table, crossed her legs as if she was at a fine resort. “This is nice,” she said. “California’s sun is something amazing.”
Remi felt the shift in the air—the subtle tension that Bas seemed to be trying to ignore.
He had to feel it. He and Zoe had always been so easy with each other—like best friends.
But there was no mistaking the thickness.
Something was brewing just beneath the surface, and not just in Zoe’s narrowed eyes, or the way Bas avoided looking at her for too long.
Zoe sank beneath the water, disappearing into the turquoise ripples.
When she resurfaced on the opposite end of the pool, there was a wrinkle on her forehead—a frown on her face.
She swam toward the edge and pulled herself out, water cascading from her gym shorts as she grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Bas watched her. His grin faltered, eyes trailing her every movement. “Zoe,” he said, barely above a whisper. She didn’t turn around.
Remi hadn’t stopped watching. The invisible threads between her daughter and Bas were still there—stretched now, maybe fraying, but definitely not severed.
She saw it in the way Bas shifted uncomfortably in the pool, the way he laughed at something Mila said but didn’t take his eyes off Zoe.
Sage noticed too. Her mouth curved into a sly smirk as she leaned back further into her lounge chair, clearly enjoying Zoe’s discomfort—staking her claim.
“You should’ve been here this morning, Bas,” Mila said, pulling herself out of the pool. “My mom made beignets. Like, real New Orleans ones. Powdered sugar and all.” She was clearly trying to lighten the mood because giving her mother any sort of compliment was unusual, particularly for her.
Bas chuckled. “I’ll take that as a challenge to make breakfast tomorrow.”
“You cook?” Sage asked, lifting her sunglasses—raising a brow.
Remi wondered just how much this girl knew about Bas, and what possessed her to follow him home to Napa Valley. Where exactly was her home, and why wasn’t she there for the summer?
“Heck yeah!” Bas gloated. “Learned from the best—both my mom and Mr. G. My mom taught me to use only the freshest ingredients in an omelet, but Mr. G taught me how to make some of the meanest shrimp and grits you will ever taste.”
Zoe sat at the edge of the pool now, legs dangling into the water, her face turned toward the vineyard. Her thoughts seemed far from the casual conversation behind her. Remi could see that, for sure.
“We’re headed down to Bodega Bay … for a bonfire later,” Bas announced as he hopped out of the pool. “Mila, you coming?”
“No, I’m stuck on this series I’ve been watching. In fact, it’s about to come on. I’m going in for a bit.” Mila placed her hand on the handle of the patio door. “Next time, though.”
“Cool. You, Zoe?” He was grasping for straws—knew it was a long shot.
Zoe didn’t even look his way, just said, “No thanks.”
As the sun dipped lower in the sky and the chill of the evening began to set in, Remi reached for her book again but didn’t open it.
She watched her daughter instead. Watched as Bas and Sage left through the same gate on the side of the house that they had entered earlier.
She watched the small silences that said everything.
Remi placed a tea bag in her mug and pulled honey from the shelf.
She stood in the kitchen, watched as Zoe sat on the sofa, her legs curled underneath her, flipping through the pages of the book she’d purchased at the bookstore earlier.
Just as the teakettle let out a sharp whistle, she heard a buzz—the digital sound of Zoe’s phone vibrating on the island.
She glanced at the phone as the screen had lit up with a message from Bas:
I wasn’t trying to hurt you with Sage, but you haven’t taken any of my calls for weeks. Honestly, I thought you moved on. You were so different after we lost the baby …
Remi froze. The baby?
A cold wave swept through her. Her hands went numb, the mug nearly slipping from her fingers. She turned toward the living room. Zoe sat curled up on the sofa now, cradling her knees, her face turned away, the book turned face down on the coffee table.
Remi stared at her daughter—her child—and suddenly did not recognize her. A thousand moments replayed at once: the mood swings, the quiet disappearances, the unspoken grief. There was a time when Remi had noticed a change in her daughter that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
It all made sense now.
Why she had come unglued at the flea market. Why Sage’s presence had felt like a betrayal. Why she’d pretty much acted as if Bas was invisible at the pool this afternoon. Why she’d come home this summer with silence folded tight around her like armor.
Remi pressed a hand to her chest. The air felt thin.
Her baby had lost a baby. And she hadn’t even known.
Remi stood at the island for a long time, one hand still on her chest, the other wrapped tightly around the back of the kitchen chair. Zoe’s phone buzzed again, but she didn’t look this time. She didn’t need to.
She breathed in slowly, then walked past Zoe to the patio door.
Outside, the sun was beginning to slip behind the cypress trees, casting long shadows inside, across the room.
Zoe hadn’t moved from her spot. She paced a couple of times, trying to decide if the time was right to mention it, or if she should wait for a better time.
Remi slid next to her on the sofa. Her voice was soft but steady. “Zoe.”
Zoe looked up at her mother, sat up a little straighter. “Yeah?”
Remi’s fingers massaged her temples. “I saw your phone. Bas texted you.” She breathed in deeply. “I wasn’t being nosey. Well, maybe I was …”
Zoe blinked. Her lips parted. She looked away from Remi. “Oh.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Zoe shook her head, eyes locked on the blank television screen, as if it were on. She seemed to know exactly what Remi was referring to.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t want to disappoint you and Daddy. There was already so much going on—with school and everything. I was scared you’d think I wasn’t going to finish. That I might drop out.”
“Zoe.” Remi’s voice caught. “You lost a baby.”
“I couldn’t even say it out loud, Mom. Not then. Not even to Bas at first, not really. We didn’t even know what we were doing. We were irresponsible.” Her voice cracked. “I just … wanted it to go away.”
Remi moved closer, but not too much. “You didn’t have to go through that alone.”
Zoe’s eyes shimmered, but she didn’t cry. She hugged her knees tighter.
“I didn’t feel like anyone would understand. You always look at me like I’m that little girl with the scraped knees and Glitter Glue. I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
Zoe was wrong about one thing: Remi would’ve understood—all too well.
It was raining the day she had found out she was pregnant—a baby boy—before she and Gerard were even married, long before Zoe.
She was just a freshman at LSU. Warm Louisiana rain, heavy and slow, slid down the windows of Gerard’s apartment.
She sat on the edge of the tub, arms wrapped around her stomach—not protectively, but just anchoring herself.
The test stick lay on the bathroom counter showing two lines, blunt and unapologetic.
Gerard had gone for beignets. She hadn’t asked him to. He just said he’d be back in twenty, and he kissed her cheek like it was a normal morning.
It wasn’t.
She kept staring at the pink lines like they might change if she waited long enough.
Gerard’s phone rang—his landline. She thought it was probably him, wondering if she wanted coffee with the beignets. She didn’t answer. Her throat was dry and her skin felt tight. She hadn’t pictured herself holding a baby or telling anyone. She couldn’t even wrap her mind around it.
Gerard came back with a white paper bag and two cups of coffee.
“Brought extra. They’re fresh too,” he said, smiling.
Remi remembered having really looked at him.
The crooked grin. The way he always leaned too casually against the doorframe.
The smell of beignets that lingered in the air mixed with the cold bite of realization that had just settled in her lungs.
She was thankful his roommate wasn’t there. She might’ve come unglued had he been.
“I need to tell you something,” she said just above a whisper.
He sat beside her on the bathroom floor. She didn’t cry and neither did he. He just pulled the test toward him and stared at it as if it were a language he didn’t understand. When he finally looked up, he didn’t say anything profound. Just, “Okay, baby. We’ll figure it out.”
But the truth was, they didn’t need to figure it out. Because all too soon, it was over. They both cried the day they lost Gerard 2.0, the nickname they had both agreed on for the baby boy who would never make it into the world.
Remi was never the same after that.
She let Zoe’s words settle. I didn’t want you to worry. Didn’t want to disappoint you and Daddy. Then she reached over, slowly, and placed a hand over Zoe’s.
“I don’t need you to be okay. I just need you to be honest with me. When I know what’s going on, I can help you. And you don’t have to protect me, sweetheart.”
There was a long pause between them.
Finally, Zoe whispered, “I thought if I came back here to Napa—maybe if I saw Bas, we could forget it happened. Maybe I could get past it. But I don’t think I can, Mom.”
Remi gave her daughter’s hand a tight squeeze. “No, you won’t ever forget. But you don’t have to carry it alone anymore.”
Zoe didn’t say anything, but she didn’t pull away either.
Remi wouldn’t tell her about Gerard 2.0. Not yet. Not tonight. But one day she would.