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Pregnant and alone and wondering what the hell I was going to do with a tiny little person in my tiny little apartment. Those were the moments I missed Ian most. Missed his calm and steady presence, the way he listened, the way we balanced each other out.
Throat working on a tight swallow, I gripped that mug and closed my eyes and remembered crying as I put together Sage’s crib because I couldn’t figure out the directions.
Ian would be better at this, I thought at the time, pressing the heels of my hand into my eye sockets and trying to calm my breathing. And it took everything in me not to see if he had the same number. If he used his old email address. The thing that stopped me was how sure I was in what he’d do if he knew the position I was in.
If he saw me like this. With swollen ankles and a big belly and a tendency to skip important parts of the assembly directions.
He’d wrap himself in knots to take care of me, and sometimes being a good friend to someone was knowing when not to let them do that. It was knowing that I could do this myself, even if it was hard.
Well … the crib I didn’t do myself. An eight-month-pregnant woman riding the hormonal roller coaster had limits. My super, a kind man in his sixties, came over the next day with his red metal toolbox and finished it for me. When Sage outgrew it, I gave it to him so that his granddaughter had a place to sleep when she visited.
Blinking out of the memory, I set the London mug back down in the sink and fished out my own from the cupboard.
I got Sage ready for school and out the door; the bus driver had only forgotten her once since we moved. As I watched the yellow vehicle drive away, I curled my arms around my middle and walked slowly back to the house.
The black siding was sharp and clean against the backdrop of the trees, with solid wood posts holding up the generous front porch and the same warm-stain-color shutters framing all the windows. The big barn tucked back behind the house was in the same color scheme, and I wondered what he stored in there. The door remained closed all week, and I’d never seen him coming and going.
It was a home fit for a growing family, for spreading out and enjoying the best part of living in the Pacific Northwest. Beautiful scenery and space to breathe, the crisp, fragrant air something I’d forgotten about living on a tiny island crammed with millions of people. But I breathed it in now, and along with it, filled my lungs with a healthy dose of guilt and frustration that we seemed to have wedged Ian out of this beautiful new place.
“One more day,” I said as I walked back into the house. “I give you one more day, Ian Wilder, and then I’m hunting you down.”
That one day came and went—complete with a math homework breakdown from Sage, and zero words for me—with only the briefest sighting of him climbing into his work truck the next morning. I stood in the window facing out to the driveway, with my robe wrapped around me. He caught my eye and gave a little wave, and folded his big body into the truck.
White shirt today. My eyes narrowed as he drove away.
Busy, my ass. The man was avoiding us.
Once Sage was on the bus, I took a shower and slicked my hair into a low bun because sometimes doing a blow-dry was just more effort than I was willing to make. A coat of mascara and a dab of cream blush was all I managed for makeup, and I dressed in my work uniform (a stunning rotation of black leggings and black joggers and black cotton shorts paired with a slogan T-shirt or cotton tank). When I glanced into my closet, I realized with a grimace that I probably couldn’t judge Ian’s lack of variety in his clothing choices.
I reached for a soft blue v-neck shirt and tugged it on over my leggings and pretended to write until lunchtime. All I had to show for those hours were some scribbled notes, a few balled-up pieces of paper, and a blank document. With a groan, I stood from the kitchen table and stretched my arms over my head. A dull ache in my shoulders meant I had been sitting in a bad position, so I took a few minutes to do the stretches for my neck and back that I knew would help.
When I finished those, I ate a quick bowl of cereal and snatched the keys to the car he left behind on the days he was using the work truck. Sheila’s cabin was quiet when I drove past, and my eyes narrowed when I realized that none of his family had stopped by that first week either.
This was getting curiouser and curiouser.
When I approached the main shop, my shoulders sank when no big white truck was in sight even though the lights were on, and I could hear the loud buzz of machinery. I thought about not going in for a moment, but maybe whoever was working would know whether he was coming back soon.
I let out a slow breath as I got out of the car and knocked gently before walking in. The space was huge, the entire back wall filled with wood stacked on shelves in varying shapes and sizes. There were huge saws and dangerous-looking equipment along the other wall, and the hum of something loud filled the building.
At a table, with safety goggles on and headphones covering his ears, was Ian. He hadn’t seen me, and I stood back to watch as he used an innocuous-looking piece of equipment to shave a pattern into a huge piece of wood as it spun at a dizzying speed. Wood flew everywhere, coating the front of the work apron he wore and the arms of his long-sleeved shirt.
The pattern emerged slowly, something beautiful and curved, and it was so easy to move my gaze from the piece he was working on to the focused expression on his face.
“Almost done,” he said, and I almost jumped because he hadn’t so much as blinked when I walked in, let alone given away that he’d seen me.
I hadn’t practiced what I was going to say to him if I’d actually found him, so I sifted through all my thoughts while he finished up what he was doing. I could ease into it. Small talk first. Maybe ask him how his week had been going. What he was working on. How he got into doing this work in the first place.
Then the hum of the machine wound down, and he eased the piece off the machine. Maybe the leg of a chair? Ian set it down and then pulled the apron off, wiping the sawdust off his shirt before tugging the safety glasses off his face.
At the sight of me, he looked … guarded.
Ian Wilder had never looked guarded with me in his entire life. He was guarded with everyone else but never me. I didn’t quite know what to do with that.
“What’s up? Everyone okay?”
Ease into it, Harlow. Small talk. Questions.
“Why are you avoiding us?”
