Page 200 of Reeves

"I told him to ask you."

I exhale through my nose. "I'll call him."

"He's proud of you, Reeves. He doesn't know how to say it, but he is."

I let that sit for a second. Ridge and I don't operate that way. We never have.

He took the news about Benjy the way he takes everything, which is quietly, then thoroughly. Two days after I told them, Ridge showed up in Bay St. Louis with a savings bond and a ride-on Range Rover toy. Cain called it the most Ridge thing that had ever happened.

Keller was the one who got me the most. He had an actual tear roll down his face, which none of us will ever mention again.

I think becoming a father himself taught him that love doesn't only break you. It builds you, too. When I told him about Benjy, he understood that in a way the rest of us couldn't yet.

He also pointed out, with complete seriousness, that his daughter had held the title of oldest Stone cousin for four months. He hasn’t fully accepted it.

None of us saw me being first. Least of all me.

"The Magnolia renters settled in okay?" I ask.

"Marta says the dishwasher makes a noise. I told her that dishwasher has always made that noise, and it's essentially a feature at this point."

“I would never have the patience to deal with managing a rental. You never cease to amaze me.”

She pauses. "It's strange, renting it. I drive past sometimes when I go to Mom’s and Dad’s and see their porch light on. It’s weird not seeing Benjy’s toys in the front yard.”

"Does that bother you?"

She considers this honestly. That's one of my favorite things about her. She never reaches for the comfortable answer.

"No," she says finally. “This is the way things are supposed to evolve. I bought that house for Benjy and me when we needed it. We don't need it the same way anymore."

I press my mouth to her hair.

She needed a place that was hers and Benjy’s. Built by her hands and her income and her stubborn refusal to let anyone else carry what she could carry herself.

I spent those same six years making sure I never had anything worth carrying.

Different choices. Same fear underneath them.

She faced hers. I outran mine until I couldn't anymore.

"Mrs. Walker called me in tears again today," she says, like she's been holding it since she got home. "I ended up referring her to a therapist. Her situation guts me. I wish I could help her.”

“You’re a pediatric occupational therapist, not a post-partum therapist. You are helping her.”

"I know." She exhales. "It only took me three years to figure out that sometimes the moms need more help than the babies."

I press my mouth to her hair and don't say anything, becauseshe doesn't need me to fix it. She needs thirty seconds to put it down.

She puts it down.

"Benjy wants the second shelf in his room moved up six inches," she says. "The rocket collection doesn't fit."

"I can do that Saturday."

"He also wants a loft."

"A loft?”