Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sawyer
AFTER WE GET back from the hospital, I pace the house like it’s haunted. Maybe it is. Or maybe it’s just me, still full of ghosts I haven’t buried properly.
Michael. Tommy. My parents.
All the lives I couldn’t save.
And now… Hannah.
She’s not mine. Not by blood. Not by obligation. But that girl has imprinted herself into some tender, broken place inside me, and I can’t seem to close the door around it. I told Hannah she wouldn’t be alone. I meant it then. I still do. I just don’t yet know what that means.
I sit on the edge of the bed, pull up Michael’s note on my phone. His words still echo in my chest: “I don’t know what our future looks like. But I know you’re the only one I want in it.”
He believed in me.
He trusted me with his heart, his hope.
And I couldn’t save him.
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, trying to block out the wave of doubt building behind my ribs.
What if I fail her like I failed him?
What if I promise Hannah safety, promise her a home, and I can’t follow through? What if I lose her too?
I don’t know how to mother a grieving child when I’m still grieving myself. My love feels rusted, unreliable. Like a door that doesn’t close all the way in the rain.
She deserves more than that.
She deserves someone whole.
But whole is not a word I can claim. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Still, when I looked into her eyes at the hospital… I saw something I haven’t seen in a long time.
Trust.
Tiny. Fragile. But real.
And I can’t forget the way her hand curled around mine. As if I was something steady in her storm.
I’ve wanted to feel needed again. I just didn’t expect that need to come wrapped in a pink hospital gown and eyes too old for her age.
*
THE DREAM wakes me.
I lie still, staring into the darkness, heart pounding like I’m in the middle of that climb up Smith Mountain. Sweat slicks my skin. It takes a moment to remember where I am.
I’m not in New York.
I’m here.
At the lake.
I blink up at the ceiling, sunlight still hours away. I glance at the clock—4:02 a.m.
There’s no going back to sleep.
I get up, pad to the bathroom, splash cool water on my face. Then I make my way downstairs to the kitchen and start a pot of coffee.
When it’s done, I pour a cup and carry it out onto the deck. The sky is still deep blue-black, the lake barely visible in the low light. It lies quiet and undisturbed, like a held breath.
A light mist floats across the surface, thin and curling, lifting slowly as the sky hints at dawn.
It’s peaceful out here, softer than the silence I knew in New York. That silence felt like abandonment. This one feels like invitation.
I take a sip of coffee, the warmth grounding me, and I breathe deeply.
The fog is clearing.
On the lake.
And maybe, inside me too.
Can I really change Hannah’s life?
And mine?
Am I capable now of doing something that bold, something that hopeful?
I try to picture it.
Her here. With me.
Waking up in the guest room. Sitting at this table. Laughing. Asking questions.
The old me could have done it. The one who believed she could fix what was broken if she worked hard enough. But I’m not sure that woman still exists.
Or maybe…maybe she does.
Maybe she’s been buried.
Waiting.
Not that long ago, I didn’t want to see another day. I’d lost so much—my patients, my career, the man I loved. A pandemic out of nowhere stripped away all the scaffolding I’d built my life on. But somehow, here I am.
And now there is this unexpected widening in my chest. A soft shift. A slow opening.
A child who needs someone.
A man who once knew me better than anyone.
A life I never imagined, suddenly within reach.
It doesn’t look like the future I planned.
But maybe, just maybe, I’m becoming someone who can step into it anyway. Scarred, unsure. But standing. Still standing.