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“I’m not. I was just doing some research. Trying to find out who might be the source Rick claims to have.”
“Ugh,” she groans, looking at the screen. “Mr. Fein’s face is the last thing I want to see right now.” She’s about to turn away when she squints, leaning closer to the screen. “Wait, I know that guy next to him. Or I recognize him at least.”
“Him?” I say, pointing to the man to his right. He’s tall, much taller than Rick with a broad chest and thick arms. He has a baseball hat on. “How do you know him?”
She stares at it a little longer. “That’s—that’s Steve’s roommate, my neighbor.”
“What?” I slowly sink down in my chair, reading the caption on the picture. “I didn’t know Steve lived with someone.”
Happy Birthday to my little bro. You might have outgrown me, but you’ll always be the baby.
“Yeah, that’s Steve’s roommate. I’ve never officially met him. I don’t even know his name, but I’ve seen him in my building, going into that apartment. He moved in with Steve less than a year ago. He’s super reclusive, always has a hat on pulled down.”
“Wait… Your neighbor is Rick’s little brother?” I say it out loud, realizing the connection between him and Steve. “But why would they come after you?” I scroll down, reading the comments left by a few people, one in particular catching my eye, one that makes everything make sense.
Can’t believe little Kenny Fein grew up to be so fine.
There it is, right in front of me. Ken F. Ken Fein. They weren’t doing this to come after Daphne… they were coming after me.
21
DAPHNE
“Your wife was having an affair?”
“She was.”
“I’m so sorry.” I plant my palms against Weston’s chest, his hands on either side of my neck, his thumbs brushing against my jaw.
“Nothing for you to be sorry about. It was my fault; I don’t blame her at all. In her defense, she tried to get me to choose her instead of work. She begged me to be more present, to be a better husband.”
“But she didn’t leave?”
He shakes his head. “She got sick pretty quickly after I found out about it. Truthfully, I don’t know for sure if it was just her attempt to get my attention but somewhere along the way she fell in love with him or started to at least. Sometimes I wonder if I should have let her go, then she could have spent her final months happy, with the man she loved. I’ve always heard that mourning someone who is still alive is the hardest kind of grief you can deal with, but it’s not. Losing someone to death slowly while they fall out of love with you is.”
It breaks my heart hearing this. I had no idea he experienced this kind of pain. It’s hard enough losing your spouse but losing them before they're even gone is something I can’t imagine. “You can’t think like that. If she wanted to go, she would have. I’m sure she wanted to be with you and Daisy. Maybe it was her way of getting your attention, as painful as it was, but I’m sure she loved you.”
He looks down at me, kissing the tip of my nose softly. “I worried I wouldn’t know how to be a father on my own. I also worried I would grow to resent Daisy because every time I looked at her, I saw Mira, but actually the exact opposite happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“I grew to resent Mira… for leaving the two of us, for not getting to see Daisy grow up, for missing out on so many memories with her. I know it’s irrational and probably emotionally immature because she didn’t choose death, but it was how I coped. I felt sorry for Daisy for not having a mother, for not having that bond that other young women have.”
My heart aches for him. “Death and loss make us irrational. It’s total bullshit that people expect us to grieve or cope in any one specific way. It makes me sad for Daisy too. The bond I had with my mom was everything which made losing her all that much harder. I did have a conversation with Daisy the night I babysat her. I meant to tell you and honestly it slipped my mind. She asked me where my parents were and I said I lived alone. That’s when she told me her mom had died. I wasn’t sure what to say, what you’d told her about death, but I told her that my mom had died too. I tried to get her to talk about her mom, but she said…” I hesitate, turning away because I don’t want to make things worse.
“She said what?” He turns my face back toward him.
“She said she didn’t remember her mom.”
He nods. “I know she doesn’t. She was just two when her mother died. I think that’s why seeing you with her, the way she responds to you, the way you look at her, I know you love her and it just made me realize that what you and I have, it is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. The fact that Daisy feels so open with you and comfortable, she isn’t like that with anyone else besides me and my parents. I’ve struggled lately with how busy I’ve been, how I’ve been absent from Daisy’s day-to-day, but I won’t live like that. I worried that I would do the same thing to you. I convinced myself that you made the right choice running away because I already ruined Mira’s life and you deserve far better than what I could give you.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Is that how you feel now?”
“No. You and Daisy are my world.” He presses his forehead to mine for a brief moment, taking in a breath. “I regret that I couldn’t see what I had with Mira when I had it, but it taught me how valuable and short life can be. I don’t want to live for work. I want to spend as much time as I can with you, Daisy, and hopefully our family. I know that asking you to step in to Daisy’s life in that capacity is a lot, but I won’t live with regrets any longer.”
I look up at him and I feel what he’s saying. I feel the love that we have between us growing and burning with every passing minute it feels like. “What are you going to do about Mr. Fein, his brother, and Steve?”
“Do you really want to know or do you want me to just handle it and let you know when you can go back to work?” He doesn’t smile and I know he’s not joking.
