Page 68 of Ethan

“You went quiet in there toward the end.”

“I’m fine.”

“You said that earlier too.”

She looked out the window at the dark fields passing by. The stars were out again, thick, and bright, the same sky she’d lain under with him and thought she’d never seen anything so beautiful.

“Being around your family was wonderful,” she said finally. “I love them already.”

“But?”

She was quiet for a moment. “It just makes me think about what I didn’t have. That’s all.” She shook her head. “It’s silly. I’m thirty-five years old.”

“It’s not silly.”

“Watching Ada tonight.” She stopped. “She just loves all of you so effortlessly. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.” Hervoice stayed steady but only just. “I used to wonder what I did wrong. Why I wasn’t worth staying for.”

Ethan reached across the console and took her hand without a word.

She looked down at their hands and then back out the window.

“I don’t think about her much anymore,” she said. “Or I tell myself I don’t.” She sighed. “Tonight, I thought about her a lot.”

He squeezed her hand and she felt the warmth of it move through her.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be.” She turned to look at him. “Tonight was wonderful. I mean that.”

He looked at her for a second before turning back to the road.

“She missed out,” he said. “Whatever her reasons were. She missed out on knowing you and that’s on her.”

Naomi looked back out the window and said nothing. But she held onto his hand the rest of the way home.

He pulled up beside the barn and cut the engine but neither of them moved right away.

“Stay tonight,” he said.

She looked at him. “I was going to suggest the same thing.”

He smiled, just slightly, got out and came around to her side.

Inside the house was quiet and warm. She kicked off her shoes at the door and followed him into the kitchen where he put the kettle on without asking. She sat on one of the stools at the kitchen island and watched him move around the space, comfortable and unhurried, and thought that this was what she’d been missing without knowing it. Not just someone to be with but someone to be quiet with. Someone who put the kettle on and didn’t need to fill every silence.

He set a mug in front of her and leaned on the counter across from her.

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Have you ever thought about finding her? Your mother?”

She wrapped both hands around the mug. “No.”

“Not once?”

“Why would I?” She looked at him steadily. “She knew where I was. She knew where my grandmother lived. She never came.”