Page 46 of Sterling Stone

Here’s hoping he can protect his heart.

By May, I’m almost angry that the postcards continue. Like a little tease that she’s out there, experiencing the world and wants to be anywhere other than Sterling Falls.

Trudy’s dropped hints about Taxi’s whereabouts, but I never give in to her teasing nature.

If Taxi wanted me to call her or respond to her notes, she’d share her number or reach out in another manner.

Instead, she’s still as fleeting as a dandelion seed in the wind.

And I’m the fool who now has an Instagram account.

While I’m happy for her, I resolve that her postcards are nothing more than friendly mail.

18

August

One year, one month, and thirteen days

since last seeing Taxi.

[Stone]

For years, I’ve grumbled internally about wanting days of silence. Peace and quiet and space to myself.

And yet, as I stand inside the house I’d slowly, but surely, restored, the silence is almost deafening. The stone fireplace mocks me. The pictures of my family on the mantel say, you got what you wished for.

Vale and Hudson have moved out.

Today is his first day of middle school. Typically, I’d drive him on the first day of a new school year, make a show of my sheriff’s truck, a subtle warning not to mess with my nephew. Now, he’s living in Rogue River, the next town over.

Vale and Cort are probably taking him to the new-to-Hudson school.

He’s twelve years old, and that means another dozen years of raising a child that wasn’t biologically mine yet tied to me through biology.

With my hands on my hips, wearing my crisp, dull-brown uniform, I stare around the living room like I’ve never seen this space before. The sandstone-colored walls. The sky-blue chairs. The deep brown leather couch. Vale made a mark on every inch of this home while respecting that we shared this place.

Now, I live here alone.

Is this what my father feared? Had his loneliness for my mother driven him to push away the seven children surrounding him, willing to love him, wanting his love in return?

My siblings didn’t move out because I was a curmudgeonly older brother. They left because that was the nature of growing up. Because moving out, falling in love, and starting their own families was how the cycle should work.

It’d only taken Vale most of her life for it to happen. And she took Hudson with her. Of course, she did. It’s as it should be.

But standing here, the silence is nearly too much. No thundering footsteps from Hudson, rushing across the upstairs hallway and clomping down the staircase. No Vale hollering for him to hurry up. No grumbled good morning.

“Have a good day,” I mutter to the empty room before swiping a hand down my face.

What the fuck?

I should be over this shit. Cort and I have an unspoken agreement. We tolerate one another. We don’t mention the past. We don’t talk much here in the present. But he did come to me to ask for a future with my sister.

They don’t need my permission. Vale is a grown-ass woman, and I am not her father. Still, I appreciated the gesture.

Jesus, Cort will be on his second marriage, and I’ve never had a first.

I’m long over the reasons why I don’t have Bailey, but the general concept of not having a partner in life is still a bitter pill to swallow some days. Like today, when I’m standing here alone, knowing I’ll come home to the same silence at the end of the day. The same empty nest.