Someone to cherish.
Someone who looked at me as if the worst parts of my life did not make me impossible to love.
Adriana’s face slips into my mind, soft and beautiful, and for a moment, I let myself see her.
Then, gently, I move her aside.
I loved my wife with everything I was. That will never change. But she’s gone, and I need to move forward. I don’t want to forget her. I never could. But I don’t want her memory to be the chain that keeps me trapped in this limbo.
She would not want that for me.
“Sir, you cannot lick the dinnerware!” someone shouts from the dining room.
I blink, dragged violently from grief straight into whatever madness Skip has created now.
“It tastes the exact same,” I hear Skip say. “Here, you try. See if you can taste a difference.”
“Sir, I must insist you leave the room.”
“Here, I licked on this side, so you can try the other,” Skip offers. “Wait, taste my fork first.”
“Eli, your man is a nut,” Abby says.
“Yeah,” Eli says, his face turning beet red. “I know he is.”
Despite his words, Eli smiles as he listens to my kitchen staff argue with Skip.
I shake my head, unable to stop the laugh that escapes.
Yes, my arms still crave someone to hold at night. My bed is still too large, and the silence of my rooms still cuts too deep when the day is done.
But for now, I’m here.
Surrounded by noise. By laughter. By chaos.
By people who have somehow become mine.
And for the time being, I’m perfectly content living life with this strange, loud, ridiculous family I call my own.
Chapter Three
Mia
“They can’t do this, Mama. They just can’t.”
I hold my daughter tightly as we settle on the ground beside Hope.
The mare lies in the straw, her body trembling with pain even though Dr. Keller has already given her something to help. Her sides rise and fall too fast. Sweat darkens patches of her coat, and every few seconds, she turns her head like she wants to look at her belly but doesn’t have the strength to do more than breathe through it.
“It’s not fair,” Livy cries, pressing her face into my side. “She was doing so good.”
I close my eyes for half a second.
Because she was.
Yesterday, Hope walked to the pasture fence when Livy called her name. She didn’t flinch when I touched her neck. She even took a piece of apple from my palm, gentle as could be, like maybe she was finally starting to believe hands didn’t always hurt.
And now she’s lying here, too weak to stand.
