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But it wasn’t home yet. Not quite. Sometimes she needed a little room to breathe. Then she would take a drive or walk through the city or come to the beach to gather her thoughts.
It was January, too cold for most people to be at the beach. She found parking easily, locked her car, and tightened her scarf as she headed for the sand.
She tucked her face into her scarf and started down the deserted beach. It was a favorite spot for the Murphys, the one where Ronan brought Chief torun and where the family played frisbee in the summer.
Alexa had only been around for a couple beach days before it got too cold, and she smiled as she remembered Elise and Declan bickering over their heated frisbee games, Elise making fun of Declan when he had to wade into the water to get the frisbee after Chief snatched it out of the air.
Julia had sat on the sand with John Thomas, acting as referee on questionable plays, waving off Ronan when he asked if she wanted him to relieve her with the baby. That’s where she and Alexa had really bonded, sitting in the sand and laughing about the Murphy brothers and their fierce competition.
The friendship had been solidified during the long nights they spent in the house’s communal living room, Julia nursing the baby when she didn’t have enough breast milk frozen for Ronan to do the feeding, Alexa unable to sleep for the turning of her mind over everything that had happened in recent months, everything still to come.
She thought of Leland Walker, probably already sworn into office, celebrating what would surely be the beginning of a long and illustrious politicalcareer — unless Alexa and the Murphys could figure out a way to stop him.
It was hard to imagine. The Walkers were ensconced behind the privilege of their money and power, immune to the consequences that held the rest of the world accountable. She wanted to believe in justice, wanted to return to the person she’d been before she’d discovered Leland had been the one to hit Samantha’s parents’ car the night she and Alexa had been driving home from the graduation party.
But that was impossible. She’d seen behind the curtain now, not just with her case, but with all of the crimes committed by Leland, every one of which had been bought and paid for by his father. Even the press shrank away from the story, as evidenced by the radio silence when she and Julia had leaked details of the questionable investigations and dropped charges in Leland Walker’s past.
No one had said it, but they’d all known it was true since the moment Leland was announced as the winner of his senatorial race: they were stuck, and Leland’s win would only make things harder.
Where did that leave her? Going back to her “real life"? Trying to find another job as a lawyer would be difficult with any reputable firm. The inquiry into her conduct with Nick had resulted onlyin censure — thank god they hadn’t taken her legal license — but it would be difficult to find a good firm willing to take her on with the censure on her record. She would have to figure out her long-term career plans eventually, but right now she couldn’t fathom moving forward like nothing had happened, like she didn’t know that Leland Walker had done all the things he’d done.
The problem was, she didn’t have an alternative. All the evidence she’d compiled against the Walkers hadn’t made a bit of difference.
She stopped walking and turned to face the sea. The sky was steely, thick bands of clouds hugging the horizon and blocking out the sun. Waves rushed angrily onto the sand, whitecaps dotting the water beyond the breakers.
She could imagine the house, filled with noise and laughter and probably a fair share of arguing. A fire would be crackling in the hearth, warming the living room where they all gathered to watch football or reality TV. Julia would probably be in the kitchen, not because no one was willing to cook, but because she was better at it than anyone else, and she said she enjoyed it.
Nick and Elise would help. Ronan would try and Julia would politely suggest he check on the baby orbring up another roll of paper towels from the storage room where they kept extra food and supplies, anything to keep him away from the food, which was definitely not his forte.
She smiled thinking about them, but there was a lingering sadness in her chest too. It wasn’t their fault. They couldn’t have been more generous, more welcoming, but after years of being mostly alone, of powering through her recovery with no one but her parents by her side, it was hard to get used to the noise and chaos of such a big, boisterous family.
And then there was the baby. She adored John Thomas with her whole heart, could hardly breathe every time Julia or Ronan put the baby in her arms. But as much as she hated to admit it, it hurt to look at him, to hold him, to smell his baby smell and rub her cheek against the fuzzy dark hair that covered his tiny head.
She would never have that. She would never give it to Nick.
It wasn’t a new realization, but it had been more painful than she’d expected to come face-to-face with it every day. Her sadness made her feel small and ugly. If anyone deserved such happiness, such joy, it was Ronan and Julia. She had no right to lether own loss taint her feelings about their happiness.
But she was only human, and as much as she’d always prided herself on self-control, discipline of thought and deed, she couldn’t break free of the melancholy that came with being in such close proximity to the thing she hadn’t even realized she’d wanted until she found out she couldn’t have it.
Her phone buzzed in her coat and she pulled it out, the cold a shock to her bare fingers.
Coming home soon, beautiful?
She took a deep breath, trying to shake the feeling that Nick knew where she was, knew she was sad. He saw her in ways she hadn’t always been able to see herself, saw through to all the things she’d buried under her determination to take back her life. It didn’t matter that she would never give birth, never have a child with Nick’s thick hair or her blue eyes.
She had Nick. They had each other.
She would keep telling herself it would be enough.
2
Nick turned down the radio and focused his eyes back on the road. Declan always played the music too loud in the car. It drove Nick crazy, especially when he was thinking, which admittedly was all the time these days.
Declan reached over and turned it back up.
“Asshole!” Nick said, turning it back down. “Driver gets control of the radio, remember?”
It was an old rule, one set by their dad, Thomas Murphy, a former officer with Boston Police Department.
