“I know.” I wet my lips. “So did I.”
He nodded once, a quiet thing that felt like a promise. He reached for my hand, slow enough that I could decide, and when our fingers laced together, a small shiver ran through me. Not from nerves, but from anticipation. It felt like I was exhaling. It felt like standing on ground that would hold my weight.
Olive lifted her drawing then and waved it like a flag. “Mommy, Uncle Seth, look. The flowers are taller today.”
We walked over to her, still holding hands. In her picture, the sunflowers had faces and long eyelashes. The stick figures beneath them were smiling. She had drawn three, the same three she always drew now, and my eyes stung at the edges because she had placed us close, our hands connected in a line of purple wax.
“It is perfect,” I told her. “Everything about it.”
She beamed and asked if the flowers wanted a story. When I told her they did, she began to narrate an adventure about a seed that was afraid to sprout until the sun told it a joke. Halfway through, she forgot the punch line and dissolved into giggles.
I sank to the blanket, settling my hand against the warmth of the fabric, and watched my daughter tell a story to the earth. Seth lowered himself beside me and stretched his legs out, close enough that our knees touched. The small contact was nothing to anyone else. To me, it felt like a declaration.
Silence settled again, softer than any quiet I could remember. Olive finished her story. The cicadas bowed out and birds claimed the soundtrack, little chirps stitched into the heat.
I leaned back on my hands and let my head tip toward him. “The adjuster,” I said, not because I wanted to talk about logistics, but because real life lived under all the sweetness. “You said a month. Maybe two.”
He nodded. “That is what he told me. I wish I could fix it faster.”
“You are already fixing a lot,” I said. I meant the porch boards he had sanded smooth last week, and the broken drawer he had repaired, and the strange emptiness under my sternum that did not ache anymore. “Olive and I are not in a hurry. We are where we need to be.”
He looked at me for a long second, and I watched the words land behind his eyes. He did not say anything grand. He justsqueezed my hand and looked toward the sky, as if he could see our future forming in the clouds above.
By the early afternoon, we were sticky from the heat. Olive decided that all three of us needed popsicles. She sprinted to the porch and returned with a triumphant armful like a parade marshal. We ate them sitting cross-legged on the blanket. Cherry stained Olive’s mouth. A line of melted sugar ran down my wrist, and Seth caught it with a napkin before it reached my elbow, a quiet kindness I felt all the way to my heart.
“After lunch, I’m taking Olive to the library,” I said. “We promised Miss June we would return the butterfly books.”
“I can fix the latch on your back window while you are gone,” he answered. “It sticks.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I heard the unspoken truth in those two words.
He brushed a single red smear from the corner of my mouth with the pad of his thumb. His eyes lifted to mine. Everything in me went warm and steady.
This was not a grand-gesture morning. It was a stacking of small, ordinary moments that made something strong. A hand offered. A laugh shared. A plan that fits. I could feel the shape of our days after this one, not mapped in ink, but real enough that I could trace it with my fingertip and believe.
Olive climbed into my lap and rested her head under my chin. “Can we read outside later?” she asked, words already thick with afternoon sleepiness.
“We can read anywhere you want,” I told her.
Seth stood and offered me his hand. I took it and rose, careful not to jostle her. He bent to gather the crayon tin and the blanket. We moved toward the porch together, slowly, and for the first time in years, I was just in the moment. I let the morning be sweet. I let the future be possible.
Inside, the kettle waited to be filled. I set Olive down for her nap, smoothed her hair back, and watched her lashes settle against her cheeks. When I turned from the doorway, Seth was there. He did not touch me. He did not need to. Everything important had already been said in the quiet.
“I will be here when you get back from the library,” he said.
“I know,” I answered, and the relief in those two words felt like standing on solid ground at last.
Chapter 44
Seth
The smell of garlic bread and basil filled the kitchen, steady and grounding, but my nerves still prickled under my skin. Hosting dinner hadn’t seemed like such a big deal when I invited Madison and Olive earlier in the week. Now, with the table set and the food warming in the oven, it felt like something heavier. Something that mattered.
I wasn’t just feeding them. I was inviting them into my space.
The sound of Olive’s laughter reached me before the knock. I wiped my palms on a dish towel, opened the door, and there they were. Madison in a soft blue sundress, her hair pulled back, cheeks touched pink from the summer heat. Olive skipped in beside her, clutching Bunny by the ears.
“Smells good in here,” Madison said with a small smile.
