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Chapter Six
Now
The sun wasstarting to set. It wouldn’t be long before one of my kids came down to bring me back into the house.
When I came out here, thirty, sixty minutes ago, no one asked me to stay.
It had been a long day.
We may have laid my Ryleigh to rest nine days ago. We may have barely made it through Christmas and Jonny’s birthday.
But today had been the longest of them all.
Ryleigh loved New Year’s Day. Something about fresh beginnings. So, at the crack of dawn, I got up and tried to experience her day…only this year, without her. I watched the sun rise behind the house. I listened for my grandkids to start rustling around as their parents fought the need to sleep.
As a family, we did breakfast and coffee. The grandkids made snow forts and snow angels, while the big kids poured over picture albums and memories.
So many memories…
I thought about our beginning; how, other than her note, we’d been thrust together by the meddlers in our lives.
Ryleigh may have written the note. She may have allowed her friend to take the note. But she always swore that she didn’t actually think Savannah would give me the note.
Savannah and Ryleigh’s friendship was much more than just friends. The little girl who was often hanging out with Ryleigh? Savannah’s daughter, Sage.
Sage and Savannah were up in the house now. Like Teague Ketterhagen was a brother to me, Savannah was a sister to Ryleigh.
Then there was Jason Thompson.
I shook my head, thinking about him again.
I hadn’t seen him in years, but unfortunately…
He had a younger brother—much younger—who, in small worlds of small worlds, married my niece, Kendall.
As much as I hated the guy that first season, I couldn’t get away from him.
But he’d had a way of pushing Ryleigh and me together.
Not that I’d ever give him the credit.
