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“How often do you go see her?”
Although he spoke quietly in the bathroom, the question sounded as if he shouted at her.
“Not that often. I’ve been there four or five times since Mother’s Day. I tell her about Amelie. How she’s doing. I like to think she can hear me and would like to know.”
“I’m sorry I said what I did. It was insensitive of me.”
She nodded. Her bottom lip wobbled for a second, but she steeled her spine so no tears would fall. She had promised herself she would never cry in front of Corey. Over the past two months—the way they drifted apart more every day—it was hard to hold herself to that promise.
His finger tilted her chin up until they were looking eye to eye.
“I wish I knew Melanie like you did. I wish I saw her like you did. Maybe…” He swallowed.
Maybe, what? His eyes looked shattered with pain.
His fingers left her chin and brushed up until he was cupping her cheek. “Maybe we should all go and I can learn to know her better with Amelie.”
This time she swallowed hard. Did he mean that? Who was he doing it for? Her or Amelie? Did it matter? It was the first real talk they’d had in over two months.
“I’d like that.”
His hand left her cheek and curled around her neck, pulling her closer until his forehead was pressing against hers and his hot breath was doing what the tea couldn’t. Soothing her nerves.
“What happened between us? Why do I feel this wide bridge between us…ready to snap and break?”
Her hands reached up and clung to his waist as if holding on for dear life. Feeling what he felt, that bridge precariously hanging on, teetering on the edge of collapsing.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.”
Perhaps neither did he because instead of words, his lips spoke for him. He kissed her tenderly, like a soft feather brushing her skin with a lovely caress. Oh, they had kissed here and there. Brief pecks of hello or good night. Nothing like this, though. Nothing that told her he still cared, that he would cherish and love her if only she gave him the chance.
She would give him the chance. All the chances if he would only give her his heart. Wholeheartedly. With complete abandon. Like the times they had made love, baring their souls to each other.
“After her party, we’ll talk. We’ll set things straight between us. I don’t want to lose you.”
He always said that. He didn’t want to lose her.
She wished for once he’d say he loved her. It would make it all feel better. Because as they got Amelie ready for her party, she felt out of place. Like she didn’t belong. As if she had never belonged from the beginning.
She was a means to an end for him.
Yeah, he didn’t want to lose her.
Because she took care of his little girl, and he didn’t want to lose that. He’d be at square one with daycare and so many other worries where she helped make his life easier.
* * *
He heldAmelie on his hip while he held Genevieve’s hand as they walked through the cemetery. It wasn’t as dark and gloomy as he figured it would be. Maybe he watched too many horror movies expecting one thing and getting another. Hell, the last time he’d been in a cemetery had been his mother’s funeral and he didn’t stay the entire time. He hadn’t been able to handle it.
Too many emotions. Too many memories. Too many drugs hyping his system making him want to crawl in the hole and join his mother.
When they finally stopped at a sparse area with no headstones, only small stone plaques in the ground, he frowned. How sad and lonely.
Genevieve let go of his hand to lay the flowers near the plaque. He felt her loss as if she had not only let go of his hand but vanished from his life. But that was silly. She stood next to him and wasn’t going anywhere. Not if he could help it. He’d do whatever he had to do to keep her in his life.
His gaze glided from Genevieve as she bent low toward the lone plaque in the ground and placed the pretty pink flowers next to it. He knew she was the only one who visited Melanie, who cared. If not for her, her grave would be even lonelier and more pitiful than it already was.
“It’s a beautiful summer day. A bit hot, but the breeze is lovely. Of course, it’s Amelie’s birthday. Our—your—little stinker is one today. How time flies.”
