Chapter 18 #3
Tessa’s eyes burned. “You do have to go,” she said, choosing honesty because Olive deserved it. “But you can take all your things. You can take your jewelry bag. You can take your sand toys. You can take your books. You can take every single animal friend, and you can take my love with you.”
Olive hiccupped, her breath catching.
“And you keep all our special memories right here…” She pressed her hand over Olive’s heart. “In your vault.”
Her blue eyes flashed, as if she actually understood that.
After a moment, Tessa let go and finished the job of packing, snagging a sturdy shopping bag for the animals.
Olive watched every motion with silent intensity, her eyes tracking the disappearance of her world.
Tessa zipped the suitcase slowly, the sound loud in the quiet room. Then she pressed her forehead gently to Olive’s.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for being my little pal for three weeks.”
Olive’s voice was barely audible. “Tess…mine.”
“Yes, dear one, I’ll always be yours.”
A soft knock came at the bedroom door. Dusty stood there, his gaze taking in Olive’s tear-streaked face and Tessa’s trembling hands.
“Hey,” he said softly. “How are we doing in here?”
Tessa tried to breathe. “We’re…getting there.”
Dusty nodded, stepping in slowly. “Okay. Time to transition.”
She smiled at the therapist word that implied movement instead of…catastrophe.
Dusty knelt near the bed, not reaching for Olive but holding her gaze.
“Olive,” he said, “Mommy is in the kitchen. She’s ready to take you home. Tess is going to walk with you.”
Olive’s eyes snapped to his. For a heartbeat, she looked like she might protest. Then her face closed down and she went quiet. The kind of quiet that Olive could hold for…days.
Dusty rose and lifted the Hello Kitty suitcase in one hand and the shopping bag in the other.
Tessa scooped up Olive’s little body and held her close, following Dusty.
Morgan stood near the kitchen table, hands clutching her car keys like she might snap them in half. When she saw Olive, she stepped forward, then stopped again.
Dusty turned and gave a look to Tessa, silently telling her to hand over the child to her mother.
“Olive, your Mommy is going to hold you now,” Tessa told her.
Olive did not move, speak, or stop staring at Tessa, who felt like a traitor. She kissed the sweet cheek and whispered, “It’s okay, Olive Oyl. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
Morgan stepped forward and took Olive from Tessa’s arms, gently and with no fight.
In Morgan’s arms, her eyes wide and shining, Olive stared over Morgan’s shoulder at Tessa with sheer agony in her sky-blue eyes.
Tessa’s lungs forgot how to work.
Morgan’s voice shook. “Say bye-bye to Miss Tessa.”
Olive did not speak.
Morgan’s face crumpled again. “Oh, God,” she whispered, then caught herself, wiping her cheeks fast like she was embarrassed by her own emotions. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make this harder.”
“You’re fine,” Dusty assured her under his breath.
Morgan nodded, swallowing. “Okay. Okay. Mommy’s got you.”
Olive’s eyes stayed on Tessa like she didn’t believe that promise for one second.
Tessa forced herself to smile. It felt like lifting a weight with broken arms.
“Bye, Double O,” Tessa whispered. She raised her hand in a small wave, hoping Olive would mirror it, but she didn’t.
Dusty picked up another bag with more toys and extra shoes because Olive’s world had expanded in this house and it was hard to compress it back down. “I’ll take these down if you’ve got her.”
Morgan shifted the child on her shoulder and turned to look at Tessa, “Thank you. I…I know it must be weird, but thank you for…being her person.”
Tessa’s smile trembled. “She made it easy,” she said quietly. “She’s magic.”
Morgan nodded, tears slipping again. “I know. That’s what scares me. I don’t want to mess it up.”
They trudged down the stairs in silence and Tessa followed because she couldn’t help herself.
In the driveway, Dusty placed the suitcases in the trunk, then got the car seat from his truck. In a few minutes, Olive was strapped in her seat, and the three of them stood in the blazing sun, silent.
Dusty finally leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice. “Call me, keep meeting me, and follow through with your doctor at the clinic. You don’t have to do this alone.”
Morgan swallowed hard. “I will,” she whispered. “I promise.”
Tessa stepped to the back window to see Olive strapped in her seat, cheeks blotchy, eyes still shining. She stared out the window at Tessa with a longing so clear it felt like a physical force.
Tessa’s heart clenched so hard she thought she might actually collapse. More for support than anything else, she lifted her hand and pressed it to the glass.
Olive did not lift her hand in return.
Tessa gave a tight smile, then a nod to Morgan with a murmured wish for luck. Then she tore up the stairs before anyone heard her sob.
She cried for a while, letting out tears that had been kept in lockdown for years, down to just shudders by the time Dusty came back.
He sat next to her on the sofa, wrapping his arms around her.
“I love her,” Tessa cried, the admission ripping out of her with no filter. “I love her like she was mine. I loved her like I—like I should have loved—”
She broke on that thought, the old ache surging up with new violence.
Dusty’s hands moved slowly on her back, grounding and rhythmic. “Let it out,” he murmured.
Tessa’s sobs intensified. “I made choices,” she gasped. “I made so many choices. I acted like I wanted freedom, like I wanted the big life and the fun and the…the control, and I do, I do, but God, Dusty, I missed something. I missed something so huge.”
He listened, holding her.
“I missed it,” she continued, voice shaking. “I missed the sticky hands and the songs and the routines and the way she checks to make sure I’m still there. I missed the feeling of being someone’s home.”
Dusty’s arms tightened. “Yes,” he said gently. “Olive woke something primal in you. That does not mean your past was wrong. It means your heart has more room than you thought.”
Tessa shook her head, tears soaking his shirt.
“I wish I could do it over,” she moaned. “I wish I could go back and be different. I wish I could take every moment I ran from something serious and shake myself by the shoulders and say, ‘Stop. Stop running.’”
Dusty lifted her face slightly, not forcing her to look at him, but making sure she could hear him.
“You did what you could with what you had,” he said firmly. “Your younger self was making decisions with the information and the fear and the pressure she had at the time. You cannot punish her forever for not being the woman you are now.”
Tessa’s breath hitched. “But it hurts.”
“I know,” he said simply. “It hurts because it mattered.”
Tessa pressed her face back into his chest, shaking. “I am alone,” she whispered, the fear underneath the grief finally surfacing. “I always end up alone.”
“No,” he said, his voice sharp with conviction “Not anymore.”
Tessa pulled back slightly, eyes swollen. “Dusty—”
“I love you,” he said, steady and clear. “I love you, Tessa Wylie. I am not saying it because you are sad. I am saying it because it is true. I want a life with you. A real one.”
Her tears spilled again, slower now, heavier.
Dusty cupped the back of her head gently, anchoring her. “Listen to me,” he said. “We can build a life that honors what you just discovered about yourself. This does not have to be the end of something. This can be the beginning of something.”
Tessa’s voice shook. “How?”
Dusty exhaled slowly, thinking for a minute. “We can foster,” he said. “If you want to. We can take in kids who need routine and safety and parents. You are good at that. You did it without even realizing you were doing it.”
Tessa swallowed hard, imagining it, and the image hurt and soothed at the same time.
“We can get dogs,” Dusty continued, a faint smile in his voice. “We can get a ridiculous number of dogs if that makes you happy. We can have a house that is loud and messy and full of life. We can do that together.”
Tessa’s throat tightened as she caught the image he was describing. “We can babysit Atlas. And maybe Lacey and Roman will have kids. I’ll be Grandma Tess.”
“In short shorts,” he teased. “We can do that, Tess. We’ll have that generation to grandparent whether they want us or not.”
Tessa clung to him, letting his vision settle into the empty space Olive had left behind.
“But I still wish…” Tessa whispered, voice cracking. “I still wish I could undo it. I still wish I could have had…more time. I still wish Olive could have stayed one more week. I still wish…” She huffed out a breath. “Well, I don’t wish for a better man in my life. There isn’t one.”
He smiled at the compliment, and held her while she cried a little more, but the sobs were quieter now, less frantic, like the storm had moved from hurricane to steady rain.
She pressed her forehead against his chest, breathing him in.
“I hate this,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said.
“I love her,” Tessa whispered.
“I know,” he said again.
“And I love you,” she admitted, the words quiet but clear.
Dusty’s arms tightened. “Good,” he murmured. “Because I am not going anywhere.”
For now, that was enough.
She let herself lean into the future he had painted—not as a replacement for the past she wished she could change, but as a promise that her life still had chapters left to write.