Chapter 30 #2
We turn off the trail before we reach the grave.
There are two stones now, set side by side under the old oak that’s been on this property since before my grandfather bought it.
The second stone was Miranda’s idea, six months after her transformation, when she found out Annie had never been laid to rest beside Gabriel.
She asked if we could put a marker here for Annie anyway, so the two of them would have a place together.
I cried in front of Miranda for the first time that night.
The two stones sit side by side now. Gabriel Wolfe, beloved brother, gone too soon. Annie Wolfe, beloved sister, gone too soon.
Ethan’s quiet at my side. He’s been here with me a handful of times, and he knows what we’re doing without me saying it.
“Hi, Uncle Gabriel,” he murmurs, barely there, and then he nods at me and leaves me alone.
“Hi, Gabe.” My voice has gone rough. “Hi, Annie.”
I crouch in front of the stones, reaching down to pull a few weeds from the soft ground at the base of Gabriel’s marker, the same thing I’ve done every visit for all these years.
The earth is cold under my fingers. I leave the bunch of dandelions Ethan gathered on the walk down propped against the base of Annie’s stone where she’d have wanted them.
Annie liked dandelions. She said they were the only flower with the decency to grow where nobody asked for it.
I press my fingers flat to the cool stone for a moment.
“I’ll see you again, brother.” My voice has gone very low. “I don’t know when. But I will. I’m never going to stop missing you, either of you, and I need you to know that. Every day for the rest of my life, I’ll be thinking about you.”
The wind moves through the upper branches of the oak.
“But I’m going to live now, Gabriel. Your nephew has a sister who calls him Dada, and there’s another one coming. I’m going to love them every single day instead of grieving you every single day. You taught me how, watching you with Annie. So I’m keeping the lesson.”
I swallow. “We’re naming him after you. Gabe Wolfe, if it’s a boy.
So by spring you’ll have a namesake running around this property, a fierce little nephew with your name.
Try not to spoil him from wherever you are.
” I pause. “You look after her, Gabe. Keep an eye on Annie, up there or wherever you both are. We’re looking after each other down here. ”
I press my palm flat to the stone a final time, then push to my feet.
Ethan approaches me. His face is solemn. “Dad.”
“Yes, buddy.”
“Will you always miss Uncle Gabriel?”
“Yes,” I say quietly. “He was my best friend.”
He thinks about that a moment. Then he nods, slowly and seriously, taking it in.
“I’ll be like him then.”
“You already are.” I smile.
He slips his hand into mine, and we walk back to the house.
Anna’s asleep by the time Ethan and I get back, curled in her crib upstairs with one of her stuffed wolves tucked under her chin.
Linda’s already gone. Miranda’s on the couch with a book she’s not reading, her bare feet tucked under a throw pillow.
She looks up when we come in, and her smile lights up the whole room.
“There you are.”
Ethan launches himself into her side, and she catches him, kissing the top of his head. “Did you have a good walk?”
“We saw the deer place. Dad pulled the weeds again.”
“Did he?”
“Dad says I remind him of Uncle Gabriel.”
I cross the room, sit on Miranda’s other side, and pull both of them against me. Ethan goes warm and pliable under my arm. He yawns into Miranda’s shoulder, and within ten minutes, he’s asleep.
“I’ll take him up,” I murmur.
I carry my son upstairs and put him to bed. Trusty ChuChu is now sleeping in his sister’s crib in the other room. I tuck the blanket up to his chin and press a kiss to his forehead.
“Sleep, buddy.”
He mumbles something I can’t make out.
I check on Anna across the hall. She’s fast asleep, one cheek pressed flat to the mattress, her tiny mouth open. I kiss two fingers and press them to her warm forehead. Just the sight of her there knocks the breath half out of me, and I head back downstairs.
Miranda’s waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.
Her hair’s down, her sweater slipped off one shoulder. The mating mark above her collarbone catches the lamplight, four soft marks that have lived on her skin for three years and that I’ve kissed more times than I can count.
She lifts one eyebrow at me.
“Both of them are out?”
“Dead asleep, both of them.”
“Are you tired, Wolfe?”
A slow grin pulls at the corner of my mouth. I take the last two steps down to where she stands.
“I’m never tired around you.”
I lift her off the floor in one motion. Her legs lock around my waist on instinct, her arm around my neck, the surprised little sound she makes against my mouth dissolving into a laugh.
“Grayson, the bump—”
“I’ve got you, sweetheart. I always have.”
I carry her up the stairs. The bedroom door clicks shut behind us, the lamp on the nightstand low and warm. Miranda’s still laughing into my throat as I lower her onto the bed, careful of the curve at her middle, careful of all of her, always.
She’s in soft cotton pants and a thin sweater, both of which I’ve helped her in and out of more times than I’d admit to.
I lift the hem of the sweater, and she sits up just enough for me to draw it over her head.
Her bra’s the soft one she’s been wearing more as her body changes, no underwire, and I unhook it one-handed, tossing it onto the chair where it’ll stay till morning.
Her breasts have grown fuller with the pregnancy. The skin’s warmer than it used to be. I lower my mouth to one, and she arches against me with a sigh somewhere between pleasure and contentment.