Chapter 19
Claire
My mother had been dead for a week. A whole week I had existed without her.
It felt surreal. It felt ten different kinds of wrong.
The days passed in a blur, but the nights dragged.
They were full of sleeplessness or nightmares that had me waking up either crying out for Mama or drenched in a cold sweat.
But Beau was there to take care of me every time.
He had been my rock through all of it. Anything that needed to be done, he did it. There wasn’t much to plan for the funeral—Mama had planned the whole thing already—but Beau made it happen.
It wasn’t just the tasks he handled or the way he made sure I ate and bathed, though. It was how he sat beside me in silence, never asking for anything, just letting me fall apart and quietly holding the pieces while also being there for my family when I couldn’t.
Tonight, though, it was just the three of us siblings and Gran. We needed the time alone, especially since Mama’s funeral was tomorrow morning.
Even though it was the end of June, we had a fire going because Mama loved them. The low crackling of sticks burning filled our living room as we all sat together, telling stories about her. It was bittersweet—the kind that was more bitter.
I knew I was struggling more than my other siblings, not that grief was a competition by any means, but Emmett and Savannah didn’t wake up crying every night. They could eat. They didn’t need help with the simplest tasks. And I wasn’t even sure if Tess knew—or cared.
Savannah said she called and broke the news to her voicemail, and I called a few days later and told her about the funeral. Nothing but crickets. I should have been livid with her, but at this point, it was just an expectation that she wouldn’t answer or engage with us.
Gran was sitting in the rocking chair she always occupied when she came over, crocheting.
She didn’t like to have idle hands. “I remember the day your daddy brought Charlotte here to meet me,” she said, smiling down at the pastel yellow yarn—Mama’s favorite color.
“Ben said she was nervous, but you’d never know it.
She nearly chattered my ear clean off. They were so young and so in love.
” A tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek.
“I know she’s happy to be back with him. ”
That was the only thing getting me through this, knowing they were together wherever souls went after they left our bodies. In our last conversation, she told me she couldn’t wait to be with Dad again and that she wasn’t afraid to go because she knew he was there waiting for her.
She died three hours later.
Savannah giggled, nursing a glass of wine on the other end of the couch from me. Pretty sure wine was Savannah’s version of Beau and was the only thing getting her through this. “Remember when she brought a goat to show and tell for you?” she asked, looking over at me.
I let out an amused huff. “Yeah, he shit on the floor and got animals banned from the school premises.”
“Or the time she had to come bail you and Delilah out?” Emmett said to Savannah, smirking.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she murmured into her glass.
I snorted. “I do. You were caught egging some poor guy’s car with Miss Louise.”
“And when she got y’all in the car, she said, ‘Next time, make sure you don’t get caught,’” Emmett continued.
“It was Delilah’s fault,” Savannah said—her go-to line growing up. She always blamed either me or Delilah.
I was about to say something when there was a knock on the door. I frowned, looking at everyone. They shrugged their shoulders. “It might be Beau,” I said, getting up, although he normally didn’t knock anymore.
When I opened the door, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. “Oh my God,” I blurted.
“Who is it?” Savannah asked, frowning.
I turned, blinking quickly at them, my jaw hanging open. I backed out of the doorway. “It’s Tess,” I rasped, hardly able to believe it. Tess and a kid.
“What?” Emmett barked, flying out of his chair. He stopped short in the doorway. “Tessie?” he croaked, his eyes taking on a subtle glassiness. Tess was Emmett’s weak spot without a doubt, always had been.
“Hi, Em,” she said weakly, giving him a timid smile.
The dark auburn hair she shared with me was dyed black and pin-straight. Her clothes didn’t fit right, and she was thin, so thin it was concerning.
She looked…God, she looked fucking terrible.
Her eyes were the worst. They used to be warm, vibrant, inquisitive.
Once as vibrant blue as a cloudless summer sky, but now they were transparent like glass.
Just as fragile and empty. The same kind of empty Emmett came home with after his deployments.
She had dark circles under them, the kind you only got from months—years—of exhaustion.
And the boy. The boy was skinny too, and just as tired-looking. He was small, maybe three or four, with bright red, curly hair and brown eyes. But aside from that, he looked just like her.
“Who’s this?” I whispered, staring at him.
Tess took his hand in hers. “This is Luke,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “My son.”
A feather could’ve knocked me over. My baby sister had a baby. She had a baby and didn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t decide whether to be heartbroken or furious. Mama would’ve been ecstatic to have known she had a grandson, to have seen her youngest daughter one last time.
It honestly made me want to scream at her to leave. But the anger was replaced by a heavy dose of guilt. Mama would’ve welcomed them home with open arms, taken care of them, so I would do the same.
“Well, get in here,” Emmett insisted, already ahead of me.
“Oh my Lord in heaven!” Gran wept when they stepped through the door, tossing her crocheting to the floor. She got up and made her way over to us slowly. “Our little Tessie is home! And with a baby of her own!”
Tess’s chin quivered as she reached for her. “Hi, Gran,” she whimpered, hugging her tightly. The boy, Luke, just stared at us with wide, blinking eyes while looking around hesitantly.
I looked over at Savannah, who was still sitting on the floor, her jaw hanging open. “What the fuck? A kid?” she mouthed at me. I shrugged a shoulder, not knowing what to say.
“You’re nothin’ but skin and bones, sweet pea. Let me make you somethin’ to eat. Are you two hungry? I’m gonna make y’all somethin’,” Gran said, rushing off to the kitchen.
Luke clung to Tess’s leg, likely freaked out with all these new people. He seemed shy, like she was when she was real little. I should’ve said something to him, introduced myself, but I was too stunned to do any of it.
Tess looked so grown up since the last time I’d seen her, since we all had seen her last. She was a woman now, and apparently a mother.
I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t stop staring at her, struggling to connect this stranger in front of me to the young girl whose hair I did for her senior prom, whose diapers I changed as a baby.
Tess looked at Savannah. “Hi, Savvy,” she said timidly, swallowing hard.
Her grip tightened on her wine glass, but my sister didn’t bother to get up from the floor. “What are you doing here, Tess?”
Tess blinked quickly as if she hadn’t expected to be interrogated. “I-I’m here for Mama’s funeral. I had to come.”
“You couldn’t have come a week earlier to say goodbye? Or three years ago, when she was diagnosed? Or any other time for that matter?”
Tess’s jaw tensed, nostrils flaring like she was fighting the urge to cry. “I couldn’t get away.” The words were nothing more than a shaky whisper.
“And what’s so important that you couldn’t leave to say goodbye to our dying mother? To introduce her to her grandson? To be a member of this family for the last eight years?”
“Cut it out, Savannah, she just walked through the door,” Emmett snapped. “Give her a break.”
She let out a sound of disgust and got up. “All she’s ever gotten is a break,” she said as she walked past Tess. She stomped up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door shut, Tess, Luke, and Emmett all flinching at the harsh sound.
Emmett brushed it off quickly and squatted on the ground in front of Luke. “Hi there, I’m Emmett,” he said, giving him one of his rare smiles. “What’s your name?”
“Wuke,” he murmured, the L sounding more like a W. He leaned into Tess’s side, hiding half his face. His voice was easily the most adorable thing I had ever heard. So innocent and pure, it had me coming to Emmett’s side to talk to Luke, too.
“I’m Claire,” I said, giving him a soft smile. “I’m your mom’s big sister.”
“And I’m her big brother,” Emmett added. There was a glimmer in his eyes that he only got when looking at Tess, and I knew then this boy had his Uncle Emmett wrapped around his little finger already.
“I don’t have brothers or sisters,” he said with a little lisp. “It’s just me and Mommy now.”
I looked up at Tess, and her eyes darted from mine quickly. Too quickly. She was hiding something, and I was going to find out what.
Gran came back into the living room with two grilled cheeses. “Come eat, you two,” she said, setting the plates down on the table before going back to get two glasses of milk.
“Thanks, Gran,” Tess said, and guided Luke over to the dining table, helping him up into the chair.
“Thanks, Gran,” Luke mimicked her, and my heart shattered into bits. How fucking cute was that? And, apparently, I wasn’t the only one; Gran started crying over it.
“You’re welcome, honey,” she said tearfully, patting his head.
We sat at the table with them, and it was honestly a little awkward. Here was my sister, the girl I used to treat as my literal baby doll when she came home from the hospital, and I had no idea who she was. She was as much a stranger to me as Luke was.
Luke scarfed his sandwich down like he didn’t know when his next meal would be, and Tess picked at hers. Something about it was so…strange. I glanced over at Emmett, and I could tell by the way he was watching them that he had noticed it, too.