AllFreeNovel
Share Us
19
CALEB
I’ve never minded traveling. Living in a hotel is simple, easier in many ways than living at home. There’s no excess, there are no chores to be done. Your life is stripped bare, and you don’t have to feel bad about how empty it all is because you’re there to do a job, to save your company, and no one can criticize you for that.
But my hotel room in Austin looks out over a parking lot, and I miss the views at home. I don’t wake up excited to see anyone. I miss that too.
For the next three days, as I travel to Houston, then Chicago, then Denver…not a single person makes me laugh. Not a single person has me throwing off my covers in the morning and feeling as if something worthwhile might happen. I’m not going to turn a corner and discover Lucie there in the green dress. I’m not going watch that slow, unwilling smile open wide on her face when I find myself in her path or hear her laughter echoing over the water while I throw a frozen dinner in the microwave.
So what if I miss seeing them? Yes, I thought I wantedcomplete privacy, but is it acrimethat I prefer not being out there alone?
I head to the Denver airport on Friday afternoon. I’m supposed to be in Seattle by seven for drinks with a possible investor.
I open my phone to pull up my boarding pass and then turn around and walk to the ticket counter. “How fast could I get on a flight to San Francisco?” I ask.
This doesn’t mean anything. There’s nothing wrong with a man just wanting to go the fuck home.
IGET BACKto the lake as the sun’s starting to fade. Lucie’s car is in the driveway, but there are no lights on in the house and they’re not at the beach.
My frustration is made worse by the fact that I know I shouldn’t be frustrated, that I shouldn’t care at all. I change into shorts and a t-shirt and head for the path that circles the narrow end of the lake to the north. There’s a little footbridge that lets you cross from one side to the other and Lucie takes the twins up there on occasion. I start jogging in that direction, hoping it’s where she’s taken them now and telling myself to anticipate disappointment when I’d have no right to be disappointed anyway.
Nothing can come of it whether I find her or not.
I hear them before I see them. Sophie is chattering away, and I run faster toward the sound until I come round the bend and find them.
Sophie’s in the middle of telling a story and Henry’s examining a log.
It’s exactly what Idon’twant, and yet this thing in my chest soars when Lucie looks up, when her eyes come alive. As if she missed me as much as I missed her.
“Well, hello there, Monroe family,” I say, coming to a stop.
“My last name is actuallyBoudreau,” corrects Sophie, skipping toward me. “Did you know that if you drop a penny from the top of the Empire State Building, it will kill someone?”
Lucie and I exchange a grin. “I’ve heard that,” I say to Sophie. “I didn’t know if it was true.”
“It’s not,” Henry says quietly to Sophie. “The wind resistance slows it. I told you that.”
“Not if an alien is riding on it!” she says with a scowl before stomping ahead. “You don’t know everything, Henry!”
“How the hell does yourkindergartnerknow about wind resistance?” I ask Lucie.
“My friend, Molly,” she says with a smile. “She’s determined to turn them both into scientists. I think Sophie might be a lost cause.”
The twins are arguing loudly about the potential size of an alien. Lucie is still smiling, and it hits me out of nowhere—this wave of longing.
I wish all of this was mine.
20
LUCIE
“You said no life jackets.”
My daughter has her arms folded, and she’s staring me down, as much as someone who is four feet tall can stare down a grown-up.
I groan. “Sophie—”
“You promised.”
