To Have and To Fold (Love Stories in Sheet Cake Sweet #5)

Prologue

Tank

almost twenty years ago

The chaos greets me before I walk through the door leading from the garage to the house.

I pause on the threshold. Listening, but also preparing myself to enter the fray.

I love coming home, but it takes a complete switching of gears to go from work—which, in this case, was getting a chance to be on hand for the Super Bowl as a commentator—to home.

Which is, in this case, Michelle single-handedly wrangling four wild Graham children.

“Get down from there this instant, Patrick Timothy Graham! Or else I’ll … I’ll … I’ll make you sleep outside for the rest of the week!”

I wince, recognizing this as one of those parenting statements you make when you’re at the end of your rope and nonsense starts flying out of your mouth. The downside to this is that we always do our best to keep our word. And I suspect Pat knows and is fully taking advantage of this.

There’s a thud. Then: “Promise? I know where Dad keeps the tents.”

Yup. If he didn’t plan this, he’s milking it for all he can.

I hustle inside, dropping my bags by the laundry room before sweeping Michelle up in my arms. Just in time too, because by the look of it, she was about to lose it.

Whatever it is. We’re always on the verge of losing the elusive it, but I’m not sure we ever actually had it to begin with. I’m pretty sure it was lost after kid number two or three. Certainly by the time Harper was born.

“Teddy.”

Michelle sighs and practically dissolves into my embrace.

Her nose burrows into my neck, and wisps of hair that have escaped from a messy ponytail tickle my collarbone.

I love all of it and have even grown to like her nickname for me, which started as a way of teasing me about my full name, Theodore.

For years, no one has called me anything but Tank.

Only Michelle gets to call me Teddy and live.

“I’m home now, and I’ve got you, darlin’. You’re doing great.”

“I’m not,” she says on a laugh that sounds close to a sob.

“What was Pat climbing on this time?”

“He was on top of the fridge.”

Of course he was. If Pat makes it out of childhood with all his limbs intact, it’ll be a miracle.

“Dad!”

Pat is the first one to decide this hug has gone on long enough—and he was probably closest since he was the one in the kitchen causing trouble for his mama.

He launches himself at my legs, his cry rallying the rest of the crew, and soon, I’m laughing and trying to keep myself steady as James, Collin, and a toddling baby Harper attach to me like barnacles.

Michelle steps away, smiling, leaving me to my fate.

Home.

While I loved playing football—the noise of the crowd, the rush of making a great tackle, the elation of a win—nothing makes me feel warm, happy, and whole like this.

Our little family might be overwhelming at times with the fighting and the broken furniture and the unceasing noise of it all, but I wouldn’t trade a thing. When Michelle and I are together, the chaos is manageable. Mostly.

But right now, what she needs is a break. And maybe, by the look of her wild dark hair and the stains on her shirt, a shower.

“Go on,” I tell her, pressing a quick kiss to her lips that makes the boys all groan with disgust. Harper echoes the sound, though I’m not sure she’s old enough to know why. “Take a few hours for yourself and let me handle this.”

“But you just got home,” she protests.

“I’m good. I can tell you need a break.” I don’t need to tell her a third time, and she disappears into our bedroom, mouthing thank you and giving me a wink that promises we’ll have our time later.

I lift Harper up on my shoulder, making her squeal with delight. Ignoring the pain as she tugs fistfuls of my hair in her grabby hands, I say, “Now, what’s this I hear about the boys camping out in the backyard tonight?”

I’m not sure what wakes me, but when I come to, it’s that one specific memory in my mind, as gauzy and thin as a dream. Or maybe I was dreaming. Can you dream in memories? Who knows.

I’m never sure. But almost every night, I sleep to dream of the days lost. Of Michelle, as though she’s still here. Of a chaos that still felt manageable because we were in it together.

And then I have to wake up fully, existing in my new reality. Alone. Unmanageable.

Thanks to blackout curtains, I don’t know what time it is. Days, nights, hours—time in general seems to have turned into a gray, formless nothing.

My eyes pop open fully at the sound of raised voices, then a clatter and a loud Shhhh.

I reach across the bed. Habit. The sheets on her side of the bed are rumpled from my restless sleep, but they’re cold. They’ve been cold.

She’s gone.

I don’t need to remind myself even though my brain keeps insisting on doing so. The weight of losing my wife sits heavy on me, a constant cement block of pressure bearing down on my ribs, threatening to crack me in half.

My phone is no help. Dead. Guess I didn’t plug it in last night. Or … this afternoon? Sitting up, I drag a hand over my face and swallow. My mouth feels chalky, my lips cracked as I click on the bedside lamp.

Squinting at the sudden influx of light, I notice a glass of water I don’t remember putting on my bedside table. Full almost to the brim. I take a long swallow of the lukewarm water, spilling a little down my rumpled T-shirt, before I set it back down.

Then I notice the note next to it. Love you Daddy, it reads in my daughter’s messy seven-year-old scrawl.

The block of concrete presses harder on my chest as I smell something. Burnt toast?

School. The kids must be getting ready for school.

I need to get out there. Get out of bed, get out of this funk.

They need me.

But as I stand on creaky knees, realizing I slept in a pair of jeans, my hands start to shake. Because if her absence is hard in this room we shared for so many years, it’s harder out there.

She’s everywhere. In the faces of my children, their voices, the mannerisms and phrases they picked up from her.

I never knew absence could be as tangible as a living presence.

With a shuddering sigh, I lean my face against the door.

“You can’t miss the bus again,” James says from the next room, voice mimicking my own when I’m trying to get them moving. “Let’s go.”

“But—” That’s Pat. Of course. My youngest son came standard with a Must Push Back setting.

“We got this. Come on, Patty. You too, Harper.” Collin’s voice is smooth and light, but I know my middle son well enough to hear the strain he’s trying to hide.

“Don’t pull my braid.”

I step back at the sound of Harper’s voice. It’s closer, as though she’s standing near my door.

“The bus!” Pat clearly has gotten over his small rebellion.

There’s a sudden flurry of movement and chaos, followed by the slamming of the front door.

They’re gone.

I step out of my room and down the short hallway to the kitchen. I expect the mess four children leave behind after getting ready for school.

But the counters are spotless. The sink, empty. James. I simultaneously want to thank him and rebuke him for taking on something more than my job.

But if I’m not doing it …

The only sign my children were here is a blackened piece of toast on the edge of the table with a perfect bite mark. Pat.

I don’t know why, but before I get back into bed, I stick the piece of toast in my nightstand drawer, a relic of one more morning I missed.

Then, I allow myself to sink back down into the darkness, cloaked in a thick layer of self-loathing to accompany the relentless grief.

But at least in sleep, I can still dream.