The Days Between

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Saturday, May 27

Kathryn

For the second time that day, Andrew appeared in her house. Only this time it wasn’t jarring. She craved him, his comfort, his smell. Kathryn lifted her head from her tearstained pillow, and he was there, in her bedroom, in her space. Andrew looked taller, his shoulders squared, his neck a blotchy red, but his movements were controlled when he closed the bedroom door and strode toward her. “May I?” he asked, and when Kathryn nodded, he lowered himself onto the foot of her bed.

“I’m sorry, Drew. About all of this.” She tucked her feet beneath herself. “Max shouldn’t have had to resort to cornering us. It’s all my fault.”

“Maybe I can reason with him when he calms down.” Andrew’s eyes were pleading.

“Andrew, no.” Kathryn shook her head at the thought of her son’s wounded eyes. This wasn’t Andrew’s to fix; it belonged to her alone. Her eyes darted to her phone, face up on the bedspread, dark. She’d called Max three times, each instantly rejected. So she’d sent a text: Max, please talk to me. Nothing.

After she’d heard Max’s car speed down the street, Emmy had dashed to her bedroom and locked the door behind her, ignoring Kathryn when she’d knocked.

Andrew inched closer and reached across the bed, but didn’t touch her hand. Andrew didn’t want to touch her after he’d seen what a terrible mother she was. Tears sprang to her eyes once more. “I hit him. I’ve been so judgmental of Emmy’s mom, but I’m the worst mother in the world.” Kathryn let her face fall into her hands. “Oh God. Harper. She’s going to kill me.”

A tick of silence. “You had to have had your reasons.” In his tone, Andrew sounded as if he was convincing himself. But he shuffled closer. “Raising him on your own must have been tough. But ... you’re not alone in this anymore.” His words throbbed like a bruise. “I’m here now. I don’t want to be in the dark anymore—we’re past that point. I want to know all of him. Even the gritty parts. Especially those. Please. Tell me where it went wrong.”

Kathryn palmed a tear from her cheek. “It was all because of Lucas and his money.” She failed to veil the bitterness in her tone. “Harper’s husband. Her Lucas.”

“Money?” Andrew’s brows arched. “What money—how much?” She glanced up. Andrew’s shoulders drooped, and he mumbled, “I’m sorry—that’s not my business.”

Kathryn cleared her throat. “Lucas left a trust for Max that matured the day he turned eighteen, in the fall of his senior year of high school. That’s how Max bought that car.” She stared at the far end of the room. “I know Lucas meant well, but I worked so hard to protect Max, and the minute he got access to that money, he’s had no limits. He got access to a massive amount of cash before he was emotionally equipped to handle life.”

“This Lucas”—Andrew scratched at the bedspread—“that’s who you went to see the day you left? Was there ... something between you two?”

Kathryn’s neck snapped to face Andrew. “No. It wasn’t like that.” She swallowed and pushed herself up against her pillows.

“Then please. Tell me.”

Kathryn’s throat was tight. “Really, it all went wrong when Max was five.” A resigned sigh. “But please listen to the whole story before you judge me.”

Andrew nodded.

Anxiety coursed through her, and she took a long, grounding breath. “The day I left your apartment ...” Kathryn’s gaze fell, then lifted back to his face. “When I told my mom I was pregnant, we got into an argument, so Harper invited me over for the night. She and Luke had this incredible house right on the beach, and I stayed there. I rented a cottage on their property. That’s where I lived when Max was born. We all became a kind of family, especially after Emmy was born. The kids adored each other.” Kathryn swallowed. Her mouth was dry. “The years just kind of slipped by, and we were so happy . I thought it was a sign I was doing the right thing for Max.” She closed her eyes. “Then everything fell apart.” Her voice shrank. Andrew reached out, slipped her hand in his, squeezed. I’m here. It’s okay.

Kathryn started to talk.

Then

For weeks after Harper and Lucas had gone to the doctor, the couple’s cars came and went at odd hours, leaving the beach house still, its dark upper windows looking down at Kathryn like ominous eyes. Kathryn’s nerves buzzed, and she tossed at night, imagining what Harper might have seen that night in the kitchen, Kathryn gripping Lucas’s hand. And all their late nights together, the raw vulnerability of their conversations. Lucas was never anything more than a dear friend. How could she make Harper believe her? Would she lose her best friend over a misunderstanding?

One overcast Saturday night, Kathryn waited in her living room for the kitchen light to flick on at the beach house, and when it did, she crossed the driveway and rapped on the door, heart thudding. The Lucas who appeared stole her breath. The handsome man was gone; now his face was gaunt, and his T-shirt hung on his bony shoulders. Kathryn gasped, all thoughts of Harper whisked away. “Luke—what’s going on?”

Lucas paused before he ushered her inside, and electric anxiety coursed through Kathryn as she dropped into a chair. Lucas lowered himself delicately across from her and drew a long breath. “It’s not good, Kathryn.” He broke her gaze. The room was still. “I need something from you,” he rushed. “I need you to promise you’ll look out for Emmy. I don’t know if Harper can handle raising her.” His eyes flicked upward to meet Kathryn’s, an unfamiliar desperation in his expression. “I’ll make sure you have access to whatever you need—money, a lawyer, anything—so you can make sure Emmy’s okay.”

“Luke, back up—”

“No, Kathryn, I need you to listen.”

Something significant was coming. She could hear it in his voice and see it in his hands, as both were unsteady, and Kathryn steeled herself.

“You need to promise me, because in less than a month I’ll be dead.”

His words sucked the air from the room. “That’s not funny, Luke.” Her voice was small.

Lucas’s shoulders dropped, and he shook his head slowly, his eyes hollow, resigned. “You have no idea how much I wish this were a joke.” His bony hands rested on the table; his eyes didn’t look like his own.

“Luke, tell me what’s going on,” Kathryn whispered.

“A tumor. In my brain. It’s grown rapidly, growing as we speak, and it’s already spread to other organs.” Lucas’s eyes held hers, and they said more than he could have. “Harper and I saw a slew of doctors, and they all said the same thing: in its location, it’s inoperable.”

Kathryn read his surrendered expression: there was nothing any of them could do.

“It’s the worst, having all this.” He motioned to the walls around him. “Millions. And I’m just ... helpless.”

His expression would stay etched in Kathryn’s mind for the rest of her life. Lucas wasn’t sick; he was dying . “There has to be something the doctors can do. Something. ”

“We’ve— I’ve —opted out of any kind of treatment. It won’t help.” Again, his eyes spoke the truth. “I didn’t know how to tell you, I’m sorry, and Harper’s been—” Lucas’s voice wobbled. “I don’t know what to tell Emmy.” His voice broke, and for the first time since she’d known him, Kathryn watched Lucas crumple. Lucas was light and life and happiness, and now he sat before her, his shoulders trembling, tears spilling onto the draping fabric of his shirt.

Kathryn had spent countless nights sitting at this table, drinking tea, hashing their day-to-day problems, and now she clutched Lucas’s hand in hers like she could keep him there forever. He was warm to her touch, but defeat hung in the room, everything she had slipping from their control.

“I’ll make sure you and Max are taken care of. You may not want to reach out to Andrew, and I can’t make you, but I’m not going to let you go through what my mom and I did.” Luke’s eyes narrowed. “It’s important to me that my daughter can depend on you. Can you give me that one last thing?”

Kathryn gripped his hand so hard it must’ve hurt, and she promised.

Over the following weeks, Harper and Lucas locked themselves on the upper floor of the beach house. Their cars came and went. Sharp voices floated on the ocean air. The handwritten note Kathryn had left in the kitchen with bags of groceries went unanswered. If I can help with anything, I’m here. I love you.

One afternoon she returned to the cottage to find Harper pacing the driveway, Emmy beside her.

Lean Harper was frail. Her face etched with anguish. “Luke’s at the hospital. I need you to watch Emmy.” She drove away.

Kathryn lifted Emmy and placed a kiss to the girl’s temple, relishing her sweet smell. Berry bubble gum. Emmy wrapped her velvety arms around Kathryn, and they regarded the house, Luke’s broken palace. Columns of sunlight beamed above, the rush of the ocean on the salty air. The song of gulls.

That day stretched longer than any Kathryn could recall. She let herself inside the beach house, where the children skittered off, and searched for something to occupy her mind. She stuffed a vase of dead lilies into the trash, then moved to the living room, where, beyond the panoramic windows, the sun sparkled on the waves as if nothing had changed, and the indifference of the world felt like a kind of cruelty. The children’s voices came from the hallways of the upper floors, disembodied, like the laughter of ghosts.

That evening she took the kids for fast food, then put them to bed.

In the dark, she peered from the cottage to the empty house. She expected the light to flick on, Lucas’s silhouette in the kitchen. The smell of coffee in the morning, Emmy’s sweet toddler chatter, Harper crooning a response. Swallowing tears, she realized she’d taken those moments for granted; they’d never exist again outside of her memory.

Harper returned the following morning, alone, eyes wide and unfocused. Kathryn didn’t need to hear the words; she knew Luke—larger-than-life Luke—no longer inhabited this earthly plane. Harper fell into Kathryn’s arms in the driveway, her thin body trembling. “I’m so, so sorry,” Kathryn whispered between her own sobs. The tragedy of all of it was overpowering; Harper left to live the remainder of her life without the man she’d planned to share it with; Emmy wouldn’t know Lucas as she grew. Luke’s dreams for a loud, lively family blown out as effortlessly as a birthday candle. A ripple effect of lives decimated by a single rogue cell that divided, multiplied, a tiny event blooming beneath the surface until its catastrophic consequences. Their makeshift family, shattered.

In the days that followed, Kathryn and Harper existed outside the structure of time. Kathryn learned grief could be physical, like an open wound. It was indifferent; life offered no other option but to forge on. It ravaged Harper; Kathryn watched her fade to nearly nothing. Her clothing draped her small frame. Harper didn’t venture to the upper floors; instead, she and Emmy lived in the downstairs guest room. Kathryn curled beneath the duvet with Harper and held her as she wept. It was Kathryn who eventually climbed the staircase and let herself into Harper and Lucas’s sprawling suite. The space was frozen in time, the bed unmade, Emmy’s toys discarded on the rug. Harper’s and Lucas’s nightstands were littered with neon-orange pill bottles, glasses of water, alien-looking medical devices. Kathryn let herself into the bathroom and scanned the pill labels for Harper’s name. She found what she was looking for, beside Lucas’s and Harper’s toothbrushes, charging side by side, and a bottle of Infants’ Tylenol. Kathryn handed the pills to Harper. “Please remember to take these.” But Harper offered only a distracted nod.

Harper’s mother, Nora, came to the house each day, something she’d never done while Lucas was alive, and swatted Emmy away whenever the little girl appeared. As Nora ordered a crew of movers from room to room, Kathryn realized the woman seemed determined to extract Harper from the ruins of her marriage as efficiently as possible.

Kathryn toured several properties beneath the hopeful gaze of a Realtor. She felt nothing but numbness at the sight of each one. The two-story home on Cherry Street checked her boxes, she recognized through her haze: the neighborhood was neat, just steps away from the high school Max would attend soon enough. The bay window in the living room allowed the butter-yellow morning sun to fill the space. In a twenty-four-hour flash, the offer she’d placed had been accepted, her closing date secured. But the thought of vacating 228 Ocean Avenue sliced a place deep inside her heart. In the cottage, Kathryn boxed their belongings. Then she inked her signature on the closing documents for the Cherry Street house. Maybe Harper and Emmy could join her; they didn’t need their family to break apart.

Nearly all of Emmy and Harper’s belongings had been transported from the beach house under Nora’s eye. “Come stay with me and Max, Harp,” Kathryn urged.

Harper’s eyes were dull. “I can’t, Kat.” There was no life, no fight, left in her voice. Had she been taking her medication? “Nora’s right; it’s time I went back home.”

So it was just the two of them: Kathryn and Max. When she brought Max to pick a bedroom as his own, he shook his head. “I don’t want to live here,” Max howled, fat tears streaking his cheeks. “When Lucas comes back, I want to go home. With Harper and Emmy.”

His words stabbed her. Home. The people they had loved were their home. “I know, baby. Me too. But this is going to be our home now.”

Max looked at the blank wall, resigned, his small body shaking. Kathryn held him. She had no words. In his sweet blue eyes she could see the darkness of the world had seeped in, despite her best efforts to protect him.

While Max was in school, Kathryn set about unpacking their belongings. Maybe she could make the place feel welcoming. She peeled away a section of newspaper to reveal a pastel rainbow and a bright yellow sun beaming back at her. Her fingers touched the cool ceramic of the mug Luke had given her, and in a moment she was transported to her first morning at the beach house, the day she’d decided to keep her baby. She stashed it on the top shelf, where Max couldn’t reach it, the painted smile disappearing when she closed the cabinet door. It was then that she felt it: she was alone. No one would come to save her with a beautiful, comfortable property, with friendship, with a refuge. It was up to her to create a place in the world for her son.

The following morning Kathryn was summoned by Lucas’s lawyer. Perplexed, she pressed the phone to her ear. “What is this regarding?”

“It’s best if we discuss it in person.”

A swell of unease. “I can come by this afternoon before my son gets out of school.”

Two hours later Kathryn was seated at a refined oak desk where the lawyer penciled a circle around a figure Lucas had designated for Kathryn, and then for Max. “No.” It was the only word that came to her mind. “I don’t want it. I don’t want a penny of Lucas’s money.”

The lawyer’s expression didn’t shift. “These were Mr. Silva’s wishes.”

Kathryn sped to the beach house, punched her code in at the gate. At the end of the driveway she threw the car into park beside Harper’s and darted up the steps. She yanked the kitchen door, and, inside, her eyes adjusted to the light, and she spotted Harper, hunched at the kitchen table, her face in her thin hands, a glass of water before her. “Harp,” Kathryn began. “I had no idea Luke was going to do this. I’ll wire the money to you, every penny—”

Harper dropped her hands. Her face was pale. Streaked with tears. “How long was it going on, the entire time you lived here?” Harper’s voice was that of her mother’s, Nora’s. Icy.

Panic coursed Kathryn’s veins. “It was never like that.”

“I knew there was something going on between you two,” Harper snarled. “Do you want to take my daughter, too?”

“Harper, there was nothing between Luke and me, I swear. You have it all wrong.”

“It’s been like this since we were seventeen. Since you bought that slutty pink bikini to parade around in front of Sam,” Harper spat.

Kathryn’s mind spun. “Sam?”

“The lifeguard. You knew I liked him.” Harper’s voice trembled. “I should’ve known then. And after what you did to Andrew.”

Kathryn gasped. “It wasn’t like that—you’re always accusing me of things, things that aren’t true, Harper. Luke needed you, Emmy needed you, I needed you, but you weren’t consistent with your meds—”

Harper rose with a guttural shriek, snatched the glass from the table, and lobbed it at the wall. Shards of glass and water showered the room. Harper rushed to the cabinets and snatched anything her trembling hands could grasp, which she slung at the wall, ceramic and glass cascading between screams. Kathryn stood, a frozen witness to Harper’s destruction of the memories they’d shared.

“Mama?” Emmy’s voice came from the doorway, and the space filled with silence. Harper looked at her daughter, chest heaving. Harper ran to Emmy and lifted her. Kathryn swallowed, tears choking, then darted across the kitchen, broken glass crunching beneath her sneakers. The screen door slammed at her back, and she vacated 228 Ocean Avenue for the last time.

Andrew

Darkness had settled outside, and Andrew watched the reflection from Kathryn’s bedside lamp in her eyes. He had no words. Kathryn’s story wasn’t what he’d anticipated, and the energy in the room had drained, like the aftermath of a panic attack. This was not the Kathryn he’d encountered at Starbucks, who had grabbed him by the arm, led him, always. With her legs tucked beneath the skirt of her dress, she looked small, defeated. He longed to pull her close, to take it all away from her.

Kathryn’s jaw tightened. “I thought I was doing the right thing by staying with Harper and Lucas. Max was surrounded by people who loved him.”

Andrew grasped what she was saying: her friends had made it easy to stay away from him, from whatever she’d sensed that made her want to run from him. The dulled nostalgia of far-gone happiness gleamed in Kathryn’s eyes, and he grappled with the idea of this couple, Harper and Lucas, whom he’d never met, who inadvertently had so much influence over the course of his life. Kathryn had blossomed in the time after she’d left him, while Andrew had been living in a parallel universe, drowning himself, wallowing in his own weak self-indulgence to the point it had nearly killed him.

Kathryn drew a ragged breath. “But, in the end, Max lost the only people he knew as his family, and he’ll never be the same because of it. He was so little, he didn’t understand, and he became so withdrawn. He grew up at age five. And we never quite connected again—” Her voice broke. Swollen tears spilled down her face, and she pressed her eyes closed. Andrew clutched her hand, and she squeezed as if clinging to him for life. “I can count on one hand the number of times Harper and I have spoken since.”

Andrew read her face: she’d lost both her friends at the same time, both painful and permanent.

“I have no interest in making friends. Acquaintances, sure, but I never let anyone get close to me. I sheltered Max. Too much. I feared running into you, but also I didn’t want to connect with anyone. Didn’t want him to, either. So he went wild when he was a teenager, filled his life with superficial relationships, with drugs and drinking, and it got so much worse when he got the money. And it hurt . I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. But I realized all he’d ever learned from me was how to keep people at a distance. How to be alone.”

She shuddered. A band of silence.

“Max would have been better off if you’d been in his life. If I’d stayed with you, none of this would have happened—he wouldn’t have become the person you met today.” She jabbed a finger into her chest. “I failed him.”

“There’s no way you could’ve known that.” Andrew’s voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

“But it’s true. And I live with that guilt every fucking second.”

Andrew watched sorrow settle over her, her lashes wet with tears, and wondered if she’d ever done this, ever let herself feel this, before. Time had passed, but the weight of her pain and regret was raw, exposed. Tears spilled faster than Kathryn could wipe them away. Andrew nudged closer, draped an arm around her shoulders, pulled her into him, and she curled against his body. That word, the one that governed all of Kathryn’s choices— guilt —settled between them. But what had he done that had led her to abandon him? High-voltage fear buzzed on the other side of that question; would he lose her when he knew, this time permanently?

He never wanted to leave, he wanted to hold her there, in the intimacy of her bedroom, forever. But he couldn’t, and when he told her he had to go, she nodded, resigned. “I’ll walk you out.”

She left the front door open and walked barefoot down the sidewalk to the driveway. Beside his car, Andrew turned to face her. He took her against his body, and Kathryn melted into him, as if his arms were the only thing keeping her from sinking to the ground. In the humid night air, the fire of excitement that had raged between them was gone, replaced by the dull sting of her open wounds, finally laid bare.

Kathryn took a small step back. “Thank you for listening.” She dodged his gaze. “I’m sorry this night was a disaster.”

“Kathryn ...” Andrew pressed his lips to the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her shampoo and what remained of her warm perfume, drawing it, drawing her , into himself. “It was nice to not have to face something alone for once.” The words surprised him, both that he’d spoken them aloud and that they held the truth. Kathryn’s shoulders dropped; then she fell into him once more, squeezed. Andrew kissed her hairline, then released her, stepped back to place a light kiss on the soft skin of each cheek, slow and gentle. When he was finished, he pressed his forehead to hers and said, “Max will come around. Try to get some rest.” She nodded against him, and when she stepped back, her fingers traced down his arm, brushing his hand down to the tip of his pinkie.

Kathryn nudged a shoulder toward her house. “I’m going to try to talk to Emmy first.”

“Can I come by and see you in the morning?”

Kathryn’s small smile answered, and that familiar excitement sparked within Andrew once more. The night had been a catastrophe, but they’d weathered it. It didn’t mark the end of them, whatever this was. He watched her pad to her house and close the door behind her back.