Chapter 26 #3
She doesn’t say she understands. She doesn’t offer some half-baked comfort about everything happening for a reason. It’s quiet after that. Just the crunch of the tires and Hank snoring somewhere in the back.
Then she asks, gently, “What was her name? Your wife?”
I swallow. “Julia.”
Wren nods. I can feel her looking at me still through my peripheral, even though I haven’t glanced her way.
“I think people forget that grief doesn’t come with some sort of finish line or something,” she says quietly.
“They think it’s this thing you survive, like a storm.
Like once it’s passed, you’re supposed to stand back up and start mowing the lawn or answering emails or dating again.
But it’s not like that. It’s more like…” She pauses, pursing her lips in thought.
“It’s more like learning to live with a missing limb.
You find ways to compensate, but you never stop reaching for something that isn’t there. ”
She turns back toward the window and shrugs, her reflection faint in the glass. “I don’t think that makes you broken. I think it means you loved someone well. And yeah, maybe it wrecked you, but it also taught you what love is supposed to feel like. Most people don’t get that far.”
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kiss her more than I do right now.
Which is saying something, considering I’ve spent most nights since our wedding re-living that kiss like it was the only good dream I’ve ever had.
Her fingers light on my shoulder and that goddamn slit in her dress—white satin parting at her thigh like it was designed to ruin me.
My hand on her waist as we swayed on the balcony.
The feel of her mouth opening against mine.
I haven’t stopped thinking about that kiss. Or wanting another.
And now—with her curled up beside me like this, her voice low and her words sharp in that way that soft things sometimes are—it’s not just want.
It’s a need. I shift slightly in my seat, the center of my jeans tightening in a way that makes me mentally chant shit shit shit and try to think about literally anything else.
Taxes. Horse vaccinations. The last time Hank puked in the truck bed.
Before I can get too deep into damage control, she speaks again.
“What was she like?” Wren asks.
I blink, glancing sideways. “Julia?”
She nods while looking at me, tucking one leg up beneath her and resting her cheek on her knee.
Her hair slips forward, catching the dim winter light that spills across the car.
She looks…thoughtful. Not small, not fragile.
Just like she’s letting her guard down in a way most people don’t get to see her do.
“Tell me about her,” she says.
And fuck if that doesn’t knock the wind right out of me. No one ever asks me to do that. They ask when she died. They ask if I’ve moved on. They ask if I still have her things in the house.
But not about this. Not about who she was.
I swallow, the steering wheel cold beneath my fingers despite the heat radiating from it. I glance at Wren again, and she doesn’t move.
She waits.
I blow out a breath, slow and unsteady. Watch it fog the windshield for a second before the defroster wipes it away.
“Trying to describe Julia…” I shake my head, my voice catching just a little. “It’s like trying to explain the sun to someone who’s never felt it on their skin. You can say it’s warm, or bright, or life-giving—but none of that really means anything until you’ve stood in it.”
Wren doesn’t say anything, just shifts her head slightly on her knee, her eyes still fixed on me. Listening like it matters. Like Julia matters. Like I do.
“She was…big,” I say. “Her personality, I mean. Loud and bold and full of life in a way that just made everyone else around her feel brighter, too. You’d meet her and immediately feel like you’d known her forever.
People were drawn to her. Not because she was trying to impress anyone—she didn’t give a shit about that—but because she made you feel like the most interesting person in the room. Even if you weren’t.”
My throat’s tight again, but I keep going.
“She had this laugh,” I say, smiling despite myself. “Loud as hell. You could always tell where Julia was in a crowd because of that damn laugh. It carried. Made everything feel lighter. Better.”
Wren’s watching me like she’s memorizing every word, like she’s collecting pieces of a woman she never got to meet.
“She carried Skittles everywhere—always had a packet in her bag—but she only ate the yellow ones. The rest she’d hand out to whoever was around her.
And I don’t know, I guess that kind of was her.
Always sharing. Always giving. She’d give you the last piece of gum or the shirt off her back, no hesitation. She just…loved people like that.”
I pause, jaw flexing. The ache’s back in my chest, deep and familiar, but it feels different right now. Not debilitating. Just…there.
“She was smart, too,” I say, my voice dropping a little.
“Crazy smart. Like, she could’ve done anything.
Sometimes it scared the shit out of me, how fast her brain worked.
She’d remember every little detail from a conversation you had six months ago.
She could read you in five seconds flat, and she didn’t miss a damn thing. ”
Wren’s still looking at me. Her expression hasn’t changed, but something about the way her mouth curves at the corners makes me feel like I’ve just handed her a secret.
“She was a night owl,” I add, quieter now.
“Always stayed up too late, even when she had early rotations. Said the world was quieter at night, easier to think in. We used to sit on the kitchen floor in our apartment and eat cereal at midnight. And she’d talk—about everything.
Her patients. Her parents. Her siblings.
The weird dreams she had the night before.
I swear she had a story for every damn thing. ”
I huff out a laugh. “She kept this tiny notebook in her purse where she’d write down quotes she overheard. From strangers. Professors. Me. I never knew if I should be flattered or afraid.”
Wren smiles, her head still resting on her knee. She’s quiet for a second, and then she says gently, “She sounds incredible.”
I nod, try to say something, but the words catch in my throat. I swallow hard and manage, “She was.”
There’s a pause. A soft kind of stillness.
“You look happy when you talk about her,” Wren says.
I blink, a little thrown. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
And she’s right. I hadn’t noticed it until she said it. But there’s no crushing weight on my chest, no sharp edge behind my ribs. Just this slow warmth spreading through me, like a form of sunlight that I haven’t felt in a long time.
Wren tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, her eyes following the snow outside.
“Sometimes people treat grief like it’s a wound that’s supposed to close.
But I don’t think it works that way. I think when you love someone, really love someone, it leaves a mark.
And maybe it’s not supposed to fade. Maybe it’s supposed to stay with you, to remind you it was ever there in the first place. ”
She just sits there, not needing anything from me. Just offering that—that simple truth.
She’s quiet for a long minute, her gaze still on the snow blurring past the window. Then she turns, slow and careful, like she’s not sure if she should ask but can’t not.
“What about your daughter?” she says gently. “What was her name?”
I clear my throat, my grip tightening just slightly on the wheel. “Violet.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh. Oh my god. That’s why you didn’t want those flowers at the wedding.” She exhales, like it all just clicked into place. “That makes sense now.”
I just nod. Stiff. Quiet. I don’t trust my voice.
“How old was she?” she asks.
That’s the part that always hits hardest—the part I still haven’t figured out how to say without it slicing me open.
“She wasn’t born yet,” I say, jaw tight. “Julia was still pregnant. When they…”
I don’t finish. Can’t. My throat burns like I’ve swallowed glass. I pray to God Wren doesn’t ask how they died, because I still see it. Still wake up gasping for air, heart pounding, that night replaying like a fucking film reel I never asked to see in the first place.
But she doesn’t ask. She doesn’t push.
Instead, she just says softly, “Violet is a beautiful name.”
I breathe out slowly. “I picked it.”
She glances over at me, one brow raised. “You did?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Surprised?”
“A little,” she says, lips tugging into a crooked smile. “You strike me more as a…Bertha kind of guy.”
I laugh, and it comes out louder than I expect. “What the hell? Bertha? Okay, I’m offended.”
She laughs but gives a shameless shrug. “I don’t know. Something…sturdy.”
“You’re a menace,” I mutter, but I’m smiling now. It feels easier somehow. Lighter.
She snickers and rests her head against the window again. “Why Violet?”
I think about it for a beat. “Because Julia wanted something bold. Something that stood out. She kept throwing out names like Phoenix and Andromeda and I just—I don’t know.
I kept picturing this quiet little girl with dark hair and big eyes who’d sit in the grass and pick wildflowers.
The kid who’d bring home stray animals and give them ridiculous names like Sir Barkington the Third or something. ”
Wren lets out a soft laugh beside me.
“I thought Violet sounded strong and soft at the same time,” I say. “Like a name that a girl could grow up into without it ever growing out of her.”
I pause. My chest aches in that deep, hollow way it does when I think about her.
“If I tell you something,” she says, side-eyeing me, “you have to promise not to laugh.”
I glance over, one corner of my mouth lifting. “I can’t promise that.”
She smacks my arm, just enough to make me chuckle, and I can see the ghost of a smile on her face, too.
“Okay, okay,” I say, raising a hand. “I won’t laugh.”