Chapter 33
“No. Nope. Ugh, definitely not.”
I step back from the rack of dresses in my closet. What does one wear to a not-really-first-date anyway? And why am I stressing out about a not-really-first-date with a guy I’ve already slept with, someone I’ve known for years?
I jump when my phone rings from where I left it in the bathroom.
“Hi,” I answer Claire’s call, expecting to hear Lucas on the other end.
“Everything’s fine,” she begins, “but we’re coming home a little early. He just fell asleep, so hopefully he won’t hear me when I tell you he said his stomach hurts because he’s a little homesick.”
My face falls into a pout.
I sigh. “I’m sorry, Claire—”
“No, no don’t be. And don’t tell Lucas, but I’m exhausted.” She laughs. “Anyway, I’ll probably will drop him off in an hour and a half or so. Thankfully there’s no traffic this way.”
I turn my head when I hear the backdoor open and bite my lip. “I’ll be here.”
Sighing, I head downstairs. Riley is at his computer—still on my dining room table—furiously typing away, so focused he doesn’t even look up when I walk across the living room and around the table to stand behind him.
“What are you working on?”
Riley types so quickly I don’t have a second to read anything on the screen even though he’s using a larger font.
He saves the document, closing it and turning around. “A big thing,” he says. “A surprise.”
I raise an eyebrow in question.
“Not for tonight’s date, don’t worry.”
I frown.
“What’s wrong?” Riley asks, tilting his head at me. “Oh. You’re standing me up.”
“Not because I want to,” I quickly respond. “I’m sorry. Lucas is coming home early.” I flinch when I break the news to him.
“Why are you sorry?”
“I…we can’t go out now.”
Riley opens his mouth to respond but pulls his lip between his teeth when his phone sitting on the table rings, Caroline’s name running across the screen. “I need to take this.”
He’s quick to rise, heading through the kitchen and out to the backyard, leaving me looking back and forth between the chair he just sat in and the direction he ran off to.
I sigh, and since I don’t have the stress of worrying about what I’m going to wear tonight, I busy myself instead with the copious amounts of laundry and ironing I’m behind on for the next hour until I hear the sweetest giggle coming from the front of the house.
At first, I imagined Lucas might trudge right in and barely acknowledge me. After all, it’s only been a few days.
But the way he so tightly squeezes me makes me realize that even a few days can be far too long.
“I missed you.” I try not to cry, even though the flood of relief flowing through me threatens to pour out of my eyes .
Lucas leans back, but still keeps his arms around my waist. “Did I get bigger?”
“So much bigger.” I run my hand over his light brown hair.
I gently peel back Lucas's arms only so I can help Claire who carries his bag up the path. “Turns out we didn’t need the second first aid kit. Or third,” she jokes.
“You never know with this one.” I take the bag. “Come in, sit down for a bit. Do you want something to drink?”
“Oh, I should get home.”
Lucas looks around. “Where’s Riley?”
Where’s Riley?
My eyes fall to him and it’s this question at this moment—the moment Lucas comes home after a few days away—that lets me know we’re going to be alright.
Forget Silas.
Forget anyone who might look at Riley and me—at us with Lucas—and dare to think there could be something even remotely wrong with it.
But there’s one person who deserves to know before anyone else does.
“He’s outback,” I say, but then shout when Lucas sprints through the house, “but he might still be on the phone!”
Claire chuckles. “To think I thought he was tired.”
“It’s only a sure thing when he’s snoring,” I tell her with a small smile before I set the bag down. “Thank you, for taking him. I know he was looking forward to this.”
“So was I,” Claire says somberly and I can’t help but reach out and take her hand, giving it a squeeze.
I clear my throat. “Can I force you to stay for a little bit? I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Watching Claire’s face, I see the strokes of confusion that paint it and I almost want to take back my offer, but then she reaches behind her and closes the door and follows me into the kitchen.
“Lemonade? ”
“Water would be fine. Thank you.”
I fill a clean glass with filtered water and set it on the table, where I expect to find Claire. But she’s at the sink, looking out at the backyard—at Lucas and Riley.
“He loved that boy,” she says softly. It’s impossible to ignore the sweet sadness and longing that laces her voice.
“I know he would’ve been so happy Lucas went with you. Nate always—”
“I meant Riley.” Claire clarifies. “Of course Nate loved Lucas. But I meant, he loved Riley too. Differently, of course.”
My breath hitches in the back of my throat and I have to sit down.
“Are you alright?” Claire asks. She picks up the glass of water and puts it in front of me. “Harper?”
I guzzle the cool water down, and it's only when I place the glass on the table I realize my hand is shaking. I quickly move to bring it down to my lap, but Claire grasps it, holding it on the table.
“Harper, what’s going on?”
My eyes drift over to the fridge, to the photos. There it is.
Everything I wanted—Nate and Lucas and the home.
And more—Riley.
I clear my throat, trying to banish the emotion that has balled up deep within it. “I’m…I wanted you to know before anyone else…I’m seeing someone. Maybe it’s too soon, maybe you think I should wait but… I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain that to you or anyone. I wish I could, so maybe you might think it makes sense and—”
“Harper,” Claire speaks over my blabbering. “Are you happy?”
I don’t hesitate. I nod.
“Nate would want you to be happy …” Claire’s voice cracks. “He loved you too much to ever want you to settle for anything less than that.”
Through my tears, I see the soft smile on her face. But I can also tell there’s sadness there too. And I can’t help but feel her pain along with the happiness. Because it feels like I’m really closing a chapter for her.
With my free hand, I pull a napkin from the holder in the middle of the table and wipe my face. “You don’t think it’s too soon?”
Claire’s eyes drift back to the fridge. “Nate’s father died almost twenty years ago. And sometimes, it’s as fresh as day one. Other times, missing him is a comfort. I…I never was lucky enough to find someone. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t because it was wrong. I just…never found the right one who could love a widow who won’t ever stop loving her husband.”
But Riley understands this, of this I’m sure. And, in the big picture, nothing has been quick and easy. It’s been long, and sometimes painful. It’s been ugly at times. But the beauty of it? The best bits came quick and without warning, like nearby lightening with no thunder—something fast and seemingly impossible. But in our new world, the one neither of us ever could’ve imagined living in without Nate, we are what the other needs.
I take a shaky breath. “There’s more, I…”
Maybe this is where I take things too far. Maybe this is where I deliver hurt to Claire, make her think that there was hidden betrayal in my marriage.
But when I hear Lucas and Riley cackle in laughter from the backyard and both of our heads turn at the sound, I don’t want to keep it to myself. I opened the topic with Claire out of respect. But I want to close it fully.
“It’s Riley.”
Claire turns back to face me. “I had a feeling,” she whispers, reaching across the table and pulling a napkin from the holder, handing it to me.
I stare at the napkin. “I need you to believe me that it only happened after Nate died. I’d never…” I shake my head at the thought. “I’d never be unfaithful—”
I grow too scared to keep talking when Claire breaks the hold of our hands and stands. For a minute, I’m certain she’ll march out of the house and this will be the last time I see her. But instead, she moves across the kitchen to the refrigerator and stares at the photos lining the door. I’m too scared to move, each breath I take is packed with anxiety as I anticipate a tongue lashing, something along the lines of how could you, Harper ?
I bounce in my seat until she turns around. But Claire doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t come to me. She goes to the window above the sink and looks out at the backyard, at Riley and Lucas for a solid minute before she turns to me with tears in her eyes.
“He loved that boy,” she repeats her earlier statement, and I squeeze my eyes shut as tears hit me too.
It’s a futile effort, because I push the chair away from the table where I place my elbows, dropping my face into my hands to catch my sobs. I’m crying so hard, I don’t even realize Claire comes over to me until she’s freeing my face from my palms.
“Harper.” She says my name the way I always imagined a mother should. “I want you to listen to me. I told you Nate would want you to be happy. I meant that. And he would want you to be looked after, to be cared for. He’d want someone to look after Lucas like he’s their own.”
I sob harder when Claire strokes my hair, “I don’t think there is someone in this world Nate trusted to do that more than Riley, sweetheart.”
These words I know are true in my heart.
“You’re the most amazing mother to my grandson, Harper,” Claire whispers. “Nothing in this world will ever change that. Nothing you do will change how I look at you, how I’ve always looked at you. You don’t need my blessing to do the one thing I know in my son’s heart he’d want for you.”
Claire gives me one more squeeze and pulls back.
“I’m sorry,” I blubber, wiping my face with the back of my hand, not bothering to reach for another tissue. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Do you hear them? After Nate and you, there’s no one else who can love Lucas like that. Only Riley . ”
Claire places a photo in front of me on the table, one I didn’t see her remove from the fridge earlier. It’s the three of us on the happiest day of my life—me, Lucas, and Riley.
We’re younger, neither of us more than Lucas, of course, who is no more than eight pounds and red faced, his head donning a tiny, cotton hospital hat. I’m puffy and red, strapped to the hospital bed with the curtain draped over it as doctors sewed me up. And Riley? It’s only now—investigating the picture this closely—I realize he’s crying through his smile.
“Just promise me.” Claire clears her throat, pulling me from my memory. “That there will always be room for me even if your family looks different now.”
I wrap my arms around her. “You are family, Claire. Nothing will ever change that.”
We continue hugging and crying. With my head leaning against Claire’s shoulder, I keep staring at the photo and replaying her words.
…Even if your family looks different now .
It looks different, of course, far from the family I dreamed of as a little girl who never felt like she had her own. But while we lost Nate, we never lost the love he had for us.
Claire and I spend another few minutes together before she readies herself to leave, pulling me in for one last hug. It’s strong in the way only a mother’s hug can be—unwavering no matter what.
When I return to the kitchen, I pick up the photo from the table and take it into the living room, pulling a frame off one of the bookshelves that holds a shot of me and Lucas fishing many summers ago. I remove it with no remorse or sadness because it’s one of many memories I have I don’t need to see framed.
But the photo in my hand, it’s important, and not because it might be the only photo I have of the three of us—Lucas, Riley, and me.
It just happens to be the one where the story of us as a family began long before we ever knew it.