For the first time since the breakup, I slept. Not well. Not long.
But I slept.
Chapter 21
Callie
The first morning without Clay, Maisie came into the kitchen in her ladybug pajamas and climbed onto her stool and looked at the empty counter where the eggs should have been.
"Is Clay coming to make the eggs?"
"Not today, baby."
She stared at me. I poured her cereal. She stared at the cereal like I'd served her a betrayal.
"Is he coming after school?"
"He's busy at the ranch."
"When's my riding lesson?"
"Maybe next week."
"But he promised we'd work on my posting. Hepromised, Mommy."
I stood at the counter with my hands around my tea and my chest caving in and smiled at my daughter and said something about schedules and ranch work, and none of the words meant anything, and she knew it.
The next morning, she asked three times. The morning after that, twice. By Thursday, it was once — a quiet "Is Clay coming?" delivered to her plate instead of to me at dinner, like she already knew the answer and was giving me the chance to prove her wrong.
I didn't.
By Friday, she stopped asking.
She came home from school and took off her boots and lined them up by the door — the spot where Clay's boots used to sit, the space that was empty now — and walked past me to her room and closed the door. Not a slam. Five-year-olds who are angry slam doors. Five-year-olds who are grieving close them.
I stood in the hallway and listened to the silence on the other side of her door and recognized it. The Dallas-weekend quiet. The version of Maisie that got smaller and stiller and pulled her limbs in tight, the version that appeared after forty-eight hours with Preston and took days to unfold.
Except Preston hadn't caused this.
I had.
The Blackwoods didn't stop.
I came home the first Monday to a casserole on the porch. Louisa's handwriting on the note — neat, even, the penmanship of a woman who wrote letters instead of texts.Thought you could use a night off cooking. Love, Lou.No mention of Clay. No pressure. Just a glass dish wrapped in foil and a note that smelled like the Lodge kitchen.
I brought it inside. Served it to Maisie. It was pot roast — tender, perfect, the kind that takes four hours and requires a woman who considers feeding people an act of war. Maisie ate two helpings without speaking.
The next day, Maggie texted. Not about the case. Not about Clay. Just:Hey. Thinking about you. Need anything?No pressure. No agenda. Just Maggie, checking in the way Maggiedid everything — direct, warm, impossible to misread. I stared at it for a long time before I typedI'm okayand she sent back a single red heart and left it there.
I was standing in the school pickup line the day after that when Sophia appeared beside me. She had a book for Maisie —The One and Only Ivan, wrapped in tissue paper. "I saw it and thought of her." She handed it to me and then pulled me into a hug that lasted two seconds longer than casual. Her hand pressed between my shoulder blades and held. I stood very still and blinked at the sky over her shoulder and didn't cry. Barely.
Then Bev brought a muffin to the office. Homemade. Blueberry. She set it on my desk without a word and went back to hers. When I looked up, she was watching me with the focused patience of a woman who'd set a timer on something and was waiting for it to go off.
They weren't pressuring me. They weren't guilting me. They weren't showing up with arguments or interventions or the kind of confrontation that would have given me something to push against.
They were just there. Still. Present. The family I'd tried to give back, refusing the return —sorry, this belongs to you, we're not accepting it.
I'd pushed Clay away to protect Maisie from losing people. And these people were refusing to be lost.
