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Me: Lol! Bye!
Setting my phone down, I look at Fin attached to my boob. She’s acting like she’s distracted, her head whipping around in every direction, legs kicking. “You know, that hurts.” I touch her cheek. “Are you done yet?”
Naturally, she doesn’t say anything but instead pulls away and sits up. Taking my phone from my hand, she stares at the picture on the lock screen. The one of me and Noah holding Mara right before she got sick. It was at our fourth of July barbeque we had every year here at his parents’ house. I stare at it myself, her distinct blue eyes, those curls, everything about her was precious, just like my memories.
Fin smiles at the picture and points to it.
I hold her close to my chest. “That’s your sister, Mara.”
She nods, still smiling and then scoots down off my lap, finding interest in Noah’s mom’s collection of succulents near the window. After she inspects each one of them, I take her downstairs to find Noah’s mom already making breakfast. The rest of the kids are still sleeping, but I have a feeling they won’t be for long when they smell pancakes.
“You’re up early,” she says, greeting me with a cup of coffee.
Forcing a smile, I set Fin down and then make my way toward the kitchen island where the coffee is sitting. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Grace twists to face me and smiles at Fin who walks over to her and holds her hands up. I swear Fin never has to walk anywhere or do anything for herself. She always has someone carrying her.
“Did Noah come back?” she asks, sweeping Fin’s curls away from her face to kiss her temple when she lays her head on her shoulder. I smile. Here she has my baby on her hip and she’s still busying herself with stirring pancake mix. Grace is like the Martha Stewart of the Beckett family. She can cook anything, handles every single task with poise and I doubt she and Ren have ever fought. If they have, I bet he says “yes ma’am” and tucks his tail between his legs.
I hold the warm cup of coffee between my palms. “No.”
Fin spots their cat, Lucy, and wiggles in Grace’s arms to get down. She sets her on her feet and then continues to stir the pancake mix. When she’s finished, she adds a dash of cinnamon to the bowl. “He’ll come back when he’s ready.”
I rest my elbows on the counter, sighing. “I don’t know. Ever since Mara got sick, I started writing in a journal to get my thoughts down.”
“That’s a great way to heal,” she adds, always so encouraging.
“Yeah, well, I threw it at him when we got in a fight last night.”
Grace looks up at me, her eyes mirroring her son’s. There’s no judgment in her face; she’s simply listening. Something my mom never does. “What did he say?”
Shrugging, I take a sip from my coffee and then set it down. “Nothing. I turned and left, and he never came back up to the house. I snuck back down before I put the kids to bed last night, but he was gone.”
“He’ll come back, honey. I know my son and this is what he does. He runs away to keep from saying anything he doesn’t mean, and then he returns.”
“I know he does that, but how is that helping our marriage? Everything has just been so crazy since we moved and now with him quitting his job at the dealership, he seems even more stressed out. I know he’s struggling since Mara. We all are, but forgetting her isn’t the answer.”
“No, it’s not, but he’s always been like this. He’s using the situation with his brother as a crutch. A way to deflect his anger.”
I raise an eyebrow, fearing I might say something I’m not supposed to. “You know about that?”
She nods. “Yeah, Nick told me, and Noah, I could tell by his anger it had nothing to do with Nick and his cheating but more so the anger inside him.”
“Is Nick coming to the wedding?” Since their argument, I haven’t heard from Nick, and neither has Noah that I know of.
“No. He said he couldn’t make it, but we all know that’s just a lie for ‘I don’t want to face my family after I cheated on my wife.’” Grace sighs. “I’m so disappointed in him. Xianna is such a sweetheart and she doesn’t deserve everything he puts her through.”
“I feel so bad for Xianna.”
Grace breathes in deeply. “Me too, darlin’. But it’s nothing compared to what you and Noah have gone through. I don’t mean to discount Xianna’s feelings at all, but you’re both entitled to what you’re feeling.”
I don’t want to get into the whole Nick situation again but she’s absolutely right. Noah using it as another thing to be angry about when the real problem is we haven’t dealt with the death of our daughter. “I don’t think it’s healthy to forget what happened just because it hurts. We need to deal with it together.”
Grace pushes the bowl away and grabs my hands in between hers. “And you will.” She squeezes them, my eyes drifting to hers. “You will deal with it when you’re ready. There’s nothing that says you have to deal with it right away or even five years from now. In your own time, you will come to terms with losing her. You can’t force him into it. One day it will hit him, and he’ll know he needs to deal with it.”
I’m crying. I always am lately, but when Grace starts too, I wonder how she’s dealt with it all. Mara was her first granddaughter, and they spent a lot of time together in her garden over her short seven years. “How have you been with it all?”
“I’ve got my garden,” she says with a tearful smile. “It’s where I feel close to her.”