47. Chapter 47
forty-seven
Laurel: Are you okay??? Tell me you’re safe.
He’ll get it when he’s out of the fire.
How do you absorb a day like this one? How do you go back to normal life after living through that nightmare? We wouldn’t have lived through it if it hadn’t been for Calder.
The hair on my arms tingles, realizing—we really could have died.
And in my gut, I know the worst part: I let Grant fold us into his arms when Calder was the one who saved us both. Watching that must’ve hurt him more than when Mercy saw Tanner let that woman wrap her arms around him. So much worse.
I know him. He’s already put up a wall I’ll never climb over. Not again. He let me back in once. He won’t again.
Looking at Bowie, finally asleep beside me, I know what I have to do.
I call Calder—getting voice mail.
Then I go to the spare bedroom. “Grant?” I shake his shoulder.
He blinks up at me from the guest bed. “Thank God. Get in here with me.” He lifts the covers like nothing’s changed.
“No, Grant. We need to talk. Let’s go outside.”
I leave his room, pour two glasses of tea in the kitchen—one sweet, one unsweet—and wait for him on the patio sofa.
Throwing on his clothes, he steps outside and sits beside me, staring straight ahead, both of us silent for a long beat.
“I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” he whispers.
The truth tears its way out. “Yes.”
His head drops into his hands, shoulders shaking quietly, and it hurts—because he’s the man I married. The man who gave me Bowie. You cannot live with a man this long and not love him.
But loving him doesn’t mean you can live with him.
I wrap my hand around his forearm. “Grant. It’s not about today. It’s about everything.”
I inhale deeply, drawing strength from a place I’ve never reached before.
“I didn’t come back here because of Calder.
I came because I was through living with a man I can’t trust. I knew I’d have to work, and I needed Mother to help me keep Bowie while I do.
But being back here—back in the world I grew up in—finding the person I was before I ever left—I’ve realized this is what I want.
Simplicity. Honesty. A life I can trust.” My voice breaks, but I don’t.
“And… given what’s happened between us, I can’t trust you. ”
“I can change.” He chokes on his words, something I never thought I’d hear.
“People don’t change, Grant. We are who we are.”
He leans back, staring at the sky, wiping his face. “How can I drive off and leave you two here?”
“Because you have to. Because I am not going back. And there’s no place for you here.”
He shoves the patio coffee table with his heel. “It’s him.”
“Yes and no.” Honesty at last.
It’s like a weight lifts from my chest. “I was in love with him when I left Ladera,” I whisper. “But you know I was faithful to you.”
“Yeah,” he scoffs. “With another man in your heart. No wonder.”
“No wonder what?”
He looks at me squarely, through eyes that are filled with anger and pain. “I never trusted your love, Laurel. Maybe I always knew there was some invisible something between us. It was him all along.”
My body sags.
There it is.
We were always coming to this, even if he hadn’t cheated—because I did first, in my heart. My voice is suddenly small. “Right or wrong… I can’t go back to who I’ve been, someone pretending to be happy when I’m not. I found myself again, Grant. Here.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, he tilts his head slightly. “You expect me to just drive away and let another man raise my son?”
“Another man won’t raise your son. I will.”
“And you’ll baby him, Laurel. You’ll turn him into a—”
“Don’t say it.” Dad’s in the doorway, looming like a giant. “She’s a good mother. He’s a good boy. You’ll always be welcome in this house, Grant, as his father. But it’s time for you to go. I don’t expect to see you when I get up in the morning.” He turns, closing the door behind him.
Silence envelopes us.
“Fine.” Grant stands. “I’ll get my things.”
“Do you want to tell Bowie goodbye?”
“No.” He shakes his head, his back to me. “I can’t.”
“Mommy? Where’s Daddy?” Bowie asks over his bowl of cereal—his first in two days. With Grant here, he got oatmeal like Dad. Neither of them liked it. Grant didn’t see me drown Bowie’s oatmeal in brown sugar.
“Daddy had to leave for work.”
“Oh.” He stirs his cereal, little brows tight, thinking. “Where’s Calder?”
My breath catches. “I don’t know, Baby. He’s at his house, I guess.”
Bowie nods once, decisive in that little-boy way. “I want Calder.”
So do I.
“I don’t know where Calder is, Baby. We’ll see him later.”
“Well, shit. Dammit. Hell,” Dad mutters behind me.
Bowie turns, stunned.
“Here’s you three dollars, Bowie.” Dad hands over a wad of bills. “You want to put it in your bank?”
Bowie scrambles out of his booster seat, snatching the money.
“Well, that’s one way to get rid of him,” I laugh.
Dad shrugs. “You made the right choice, Laurel. Grant doesn’t need to raise him.”
I walk to my father and wrap my arms around his middle—the way I haven’t since I was small. “Thank you, Daddy.” I bury my face in his chest.
He wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. “If that boy has something to say, he needs to say it. That bullshit about not speaking around adults… fuck.”
He understands.
“Calder left.” I sob into his chest and he squeezes me tighter.
“I saw, Laurel. And I saw the look on Calder’s face when Grant did what he did.”