Chapter 58
Skylar
I whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
My wedding band—the simple, no-frills platinum one that my husband got for me so I could wear it even while I'm baking—glints in the fluorescent lights of the bakery. Business is booming, and footfall to the bakery has tripled in the last few days. So much so, we keep selling out by noon and have to close. It’s a problem I’m not complaining about, but we definitely need to make some adjustments, so it doesn't become a habit.
Besides, it gives me time to test out recipes in the kitchen, something I love doing.
I beat the egg yolks into the cooled butter-stout mixture I made and set aside earlier. Yep, this one has stout beer, in this case, Guinness, which was Ben’s favorite beer.
The first time he took me to our local pub, when I turned twenty-one, was after much cajoling, and only after I threatened to go there on my own if he didn’t.
I asked for a glass of wine, and Ben allowed me a small one.
He insisted I have a spritzer, giving in when I scowled at him.
For himself, he ordered a pint of Guinness.
When our drinks arrived, we raised our glasses.
"To my gorgeous sister, who’s all grown up—but remember, all of your boyfriends need to be approved by me." He smirked.
He had the last laugh. He wasn’t around to approve of the men I dated, but he did give his blessing for me and his best friend—now my husband—to be together when he made Nate promise to look after me.
I rolled my eyes, clinked my glass with his mug, took a sip of the wine—and made an oooh noise. Inwardly, I winced because the wine tasted more acidic than I’d expected.
Ben took a sip of the Guinness, and when he looked at me, I laughed. "You have a beer mustache.”
"You talking about my yeasty crumb catcher?" He chuckled.
"Whatever.”
“Here, give it a try.” He offered me his mug of beer.
I took a sip of the Guinness and promptly gagged. "Ugh!"
"Don’t like it?" He cackled.
"It tastes bitter, almost metallic." I made a face at him.
"It’s the nectar of the gods." He took another long pull of the beer, then licked off the foam. "Remember Skye, life is like a foam 'stache," he intoned.
I fixed him with a disbelieving look. "Oh?"
He nodded. "Here one minute, gone the next. It’s what you make of it when you’re wearing it that counts."
I shot a dramatic glance upward, as if praying for divine intervention. "Is this another of your kernels of wisdom?"
He thought for a minute, then shook his head. "Nah, just made that up, but it sounded profound, didn’t it?" He laughed.
I shook my head. My big, goofy older brother.
This had become our tradition whenever he was home between his tours.
We’d head to the pub, where he’d buy me a spritzer.
It didn’t matter that I drank wine when I was out with my friends; he always treated me like I’d just turned twenty-one.
He’d offer me his Guinness, which I’d always turn down, and that would draw forth some other platitude from him.
On one of our last such outings, he seemed happy, almost content.
It was wishful thinking on my part that he’d met someone.
If he had, he didn’t tell me. But I secretly hoped he’d found a woman who’d be waiting for him, someone loyal to him, someone who’d love him and care for him, and perhaps, give him a reason to not return on another mission.
I pour the mixture into a cake tin, then slide it into the oven.
I worried about Ben when he was gone, though I never showed it.
I wouldn’t have wanted him to feel that I was unhappy with his choice of a career.
Serving the country ran in his blood. It’s who he was.
He thrived on the adrenaline of being on the front line, facing the enemy, and living on a knife’s edge.
His identity was so tightly bound to that of being a Marine, I couldn’t imagine him doing anything else.
So, I took a step back. I never showed him how stressful it was for me when he was gone.
I never hinted at how lonely it felt without him.
"Do you have some cake mixture left for me?"
I hear his voice behind me and whirl around. "Ben, you came?"
He walks forward and takes my hands in his. "I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye, was I?"
"Oh, Ben." A tear slides down my cheek. "I miss you so much."
"Me, too, little sis." He pulls me into his arms. "There, there, you’re not alone. You have Nate.” He pats my head.
“I wish you were here, too.” I sniffle.
"But I am."
I lean back and scowl at him. "What do you mean?"
"I’ll always be in your heart, sis. I’ll always be there for you when you think of me."
"Promise?" I take his hand in mine and kiss his knuckles.
"Promise." He gently extracts his fingers from mine, then leans around, scoops up some of the cake mixture from the side of the mixing bowl, and licks it off. "Hmm…" There’s a contemplative expression on his face.
"What’s missing?"
"Nothing, it’s good," he says in a tone that implies there’s definitely something missing.
"Ben," I warn.
"No, really, it’s good; just not a patch on drinking a pint of stout."
I make a face. "Ugh, I shouldn’t have asked you for your opinion."
"But I’d have given it anyway." He grins, then leans down and kisses my forehead. "Take care, sis. And make me one promise."
"Anything."
"Your first born… You’ll name him after me?"
"Of course." I laugh. "But we’re not going to start a family, not for a few years."
He gives me a knowing smile. "Love you."
"Love you, too, big bro."
He turns and prowls out.
"Starling?" I start out of my reverie to find my husband standing in front of me.
He’s watching me with a worried glance. "You okay?"
I sniffle. "Of course. When did you get here?" I blink away the remnants of that vision from my eyes. “I... spoke to Ben again… Only this time, it felt like a goodbye, but… Also… It filled me with so much hope.” I look between his eyes. “Is something wrong with me that I speak to my dead brother?”
“Oh, baby.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. “There is no right or wrong here; we all cope with grief in the best way we can.”
“H-how do you do it? Don’t you miss him? How do you always seem so much in control?”
He laughs. “First, you should know by now, I am never in control around you. As for Ben…” His features grow soft.
“A part of me will always regret having stepped out that day, leaving him alone. Even though there’s another part that tells me I shouldn’t blame myself, that I couldn’t have possibly known what he’d do.
But we are nothing without hope for the future, and what I know is that I will always carry with me the way he touched my life.
How he influenced my love for eating good food—”
“Ben did love that,” I muse.
“How he was always optimistic, always believed in doing his best at whatever task was at-hand. How he simultaneously cheered on everyone around him, while also causing them to pause and think about his pithy sayings. We are but amalgams of everyone we meet, and I’ll carry Ben’s lasting impression on me for the rest of my life. ”
“You’re right.” I lean back in the circle of his arms. “Now I know my brother is here with me, always. He survives in my memories of him, in my hopes and dreams for the future.”
Still, that mention of a baby? I touch my stomach. Nah, not possible.
"You sure you’re okay?" Nate glances down at where I’ve pressed my hand to my stomach.
"Yes, I am.” I lower my hand and smile up at him.
"You sure?" He searches my face. I can’t hide anything from this man, nor do I want to.
"I’m sure. I was saying goodbye to Ben, is all."
His features soften. "How is he?"
I nod. “I’m glad I got to see him one last time. I feel confident he’s happy, wherever he is."
“I owe him so much. If it weren’t for him, I’d have never met you." He cups my cheek. “There’s something I wanted to tell you.”
There’s a look in his eyes, something which tightens the band around my chest. My guts churn. “What is it?” I whisper. “Is everything okay?”
“It is.” He half smiles. “There’s someone I want you to meet.” He slides his hand into mine, clasps my fingers, and leads me out into the shop.
There’s a young woman sitting at the table nearest the door.
Next to her is a pram. I closed up earlier, but Nate has a key to the shop, so he must have let them in.
She looks up as we approach. Her dark hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun.
She has dark circles under her eyes, and hollows under her cheeks, but her gaze is clear.
She’s wearing a coat over her jeans and sweatshirt, and when we reach her, she rises to her feet.
She looks from Nate to me. “You must be Skylar,” she says in a soft voice.
“And you are?”
“Luna.” She glances down at the baby asleep in the pram. “And this is Arrow.”
“Arrow. That’s a strong name.”
“He’s a strong boy, like his father.”
That churning in my stomach intensifies. “His father?”
She nods. “You knew him.”
“I knew him?” I clutch at my husband’s hand. The hair at the back of my neck rises. No, it can’t be, can it? “Was his... was his father—"
She nods, a sad smile on her face. “Ben. He’s Arrow’s father.”
My heart threatens to jump out of my ribcage, and my stomach bottoms out. Ben is Arrow’s father? I draw in a sharp breath. “But how... Did he know that—”
“That I was pregnant with his child? No. I found out after he left on his mission. I emailed him, messaged him, even wrote him letters, but I don’t think he got any of them.”
“Once we got to the hospital, he was too injured to stay on top of his communication. And later, after he recovered, he seemed to lose interest in the outside world. The fact he couldn’t go on any more missions seemed to drain the life out of him,” Nate explains.
“But he had you. He had me. Why couldn’t he reach out to one of us?” I turn to Nate. “Why? Why didn’t you force him to call one of us.”
“I tried.” Nate swallows. “I went so far as to dial your number on my phone once, but he grabbed it out of my hand and threw it. He broke down afterward and made me promise I would not do that again. And he—” Nate raises his gaze to Luna’s.
“He never mentioned you. It was only when I found out he’d put you down with Skylar as his next of kin that I realized he had a girlfriend. ”
Luna’s lips twist. “It was a new relationship. We met a few days before he shipped out. We were instantly attracted to each other and were inseparable until the time he left.” Her eyes glitter with unshed tears.
“We never got to explore things further. I never got to tell him I loved him. I don’t know if he loved me, either, I—"
“Oh, I know he loved you.” I pull away from Nate and take Luna’s hand in mine. “He told me.”
“He told you?” Her brow furrows.
I shift my weight from foot to foot. “This is going to sound strange, but the only way I’ve gotten through the last year is by talking to him.”
“You spoke to him?” She blinks. “I don’t understand.”
“Was it a figment of my imagination? Probably. Did it feel real to me? Very much. It felt like he was communicating with me. Like he was giving me the courage to keep going. And he hinted that he’d met someone special.
” I laugh. “I thought that was definitely me being wishful in my thinking, but meeting you now, I realize he was trying to let me know, in his own way, that life goes on.” I look down at the sleeping Arrow, so does she.
“And he told me to take care of you, too.”
“I wish he’d had a chance to see him—” She swallows.
“I should have told him he mattered to me before he left, but I thought... I thought... Maybe it was just a hook-up for him, since he didn’t indicate otherwise.
And then I found out I was pregnant. When I didn’t hear back from Ben, I assumed he didn’t want anything to do with me.
I was saddened, but my hands were so full with Arrow, it's what kept me going. Later, I received the money from Ben’s survivor benefits.
It didn’t feel right to keep it, but I knew I had to do it for Arrow. ” She bites the inside of her cheek.
“He put you down as his next of kin, and he’d only just met you. So, he must have felt a connection to you.” I swallow. “Do you think”—I turn to Nate—“do you think he had an inkling of what was coming? That he wasn’t going to be around much longer, and that Luna would need the money?”
“Perhaps. It’s possible his intuition directed him to do so something.” Nate turns to Luna, “I also think he may have seen some of your messages, and knew you and the baby would need help, so he left all the benefits from his being a Marine to you.”
“But if that’s the case, why did he take his own life? Shouldn’t he have been motivated to live for his child, if not for me or Luna?” I cry.
Nate squeezes my shoulder. “I think he was so caught up in his own personal hell, he couldn’t tell things apart.
I think he was so depressed, even the prospect of having a child to return to couldn’t penetrate whatever space in his mind he’d retreated to.
I don’t think he was thinking clearly when he”—he swallows—“when he took his own life.”
“I should have reached out to you earlier.” Luna’s chin trembles. “I should have told you about Arrow’s existence, but... I... I wasn’t ready. It was all too much for me.”
“Understandable. I was shattered to find out about Ben. I couldn’t face the reality of it until a few days ago, and I was his sister. I can only imagine how broken-hearted you must have been to lose the father of your child.”
She releases my hand and clasps her fingers together.
“It... wasn’t easy. Nate came to inform me of Ben’s death.
He tried to keep in touch and help after that, but I didn’t want anything to do with him.
I knew about you, of course”—she jerks her chin in my direction— “but I wasn’t ready to meet anyone from Ben’s past. It was all I could do to take one day at a time and focus, first on my pregnancy and then, on the baby.
Once Arrow was born, everything changed.
As soon as I felt strong enough, I contacted Nate and told him I was ready to meet you. ”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Luna and Arrow but—”
“She made you promise.” I smile at him. “I’m glad you’re a man of your word, husband.”
His features soften.
He wraps his arm about me. I reach up to kiss him, when Arrow starts crying. Both of us turn toward him.
Luna picks him up. “Hey, baby, did you have a good nap?”
Arrow stares at her with big blue eyes. Eyes so like Ben’s. And his features. And that shock of jet black hair. I draw in a sharp breath. “Oh, my god, he looks so much like Ben.”
“He does.” Luna holds him out. “Would you like to hold him?”