by Devney Perry
Bridget didn’t like that answer either. “So when?”
“How about this? You go through them all, pick your favorites, then I’ll review them with you in the morning. Maybe we could meet early?”
“I can’t tomorrow. I’ve got client meetings back-to-back starting at eight.”
“Meet you at seven? I’ll bring your favorite coffee.”
She fought a smile. “My favorite coffee is the kind I make here every morning.”
“Exactly. I’ll deliver it personally, all the way from the coffee pot to your office. I’ll even make sure to use our cleanest mug.”
“Go.” She waved me away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You’re the best,” I called as I walked down the hallway to the front door.
My phone was dinging with emails in my pocket and the list of things I needed to do was enormous, but all I could think about on the drive to Molly’s was that letter.
God, I’d been heartbroken. Jamie’s death had destroyed us all.
The trip to Molly’s took longer now than it had years ago. Bozeman had grown too fast for the existing infrastructure, so streets were constantly busy. Even now, with the college kids gone for the summer, the influx of tourists to our popular town made traffic slow.
Finally, I turned off the main roads onto less crowded side streets. Kids rode their bikes, enjoying the summer sunshine. Sprinklers were whirling, keeping yards a lush green, and the sun was streaming through my window.
It all screamed happy. It normally would have made me smile. But my mind wasn’t on this beautiful June day. It was on a day in May, years ago, that had been black as night.
I pulled into the driveway at Molly’s, jumping out and running for the door. Gavin was outside and he waved from his spot on the porch. His phone was pressed to his ear as he sat outside, his computer on his lap.
I waved back then dismissed him. I didn’t bother knocking on the door. I opened it and raced down the entryway. I found Molly at the dining room table, the letter on the wood next to a box of tissues.
“Hey.” Her eyes were red. “You didn’t need to come here.”
I went right to her side, took her hand and pulled her from the chair.
The moment my arms were wrapped around her, the tears came again, soaking the front of my shirt. This was how we’d gotten through those days after Jamie had died. We’d held on to one another, mourning the death of our brother and friend.
“I hate this,” she whispered.
“So do I.”
“I feel like every time I go to the mailbox, I’m going to get blasted back into the past. I already cried these tears. I don’t want to do it again.”
I kissed the top of her hair. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is. I wrote them. And I should have gotten rid of them years ago.”
“No.” Molly shook her head as she went back to her seat. “I’m glad you didn’t. This one . . . I needed to read this one.”
“Why?” I took the chair by her side, toying with the side of the letter.
I didn’t want to open it again. I didn’t want to read it and remember. Because it wasn’t fair that she’d had to relive it and I hadn’t, I slid the paper across the table and opened the folds, reading the words I’d written in agony years ago.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and closed the letter, hoping the emotions would stay on the page and in the past where they belonged.
“I need to tell you something.” Molly blew out a long breath. “Poppy and I were talking the other day. She wondered if Jamie’s death was the reason we split up. She thought if she’d handled it better, we might still be together.”
“Damn it.” I raked a hand through my hair. “I hate that she feels that way. She wasn’t the reason we split up.”
“That’s what I told her too. But ever since, I’ve been thinking. All these letters . . .” She pointed to the paper. “They’ve made me think. For so many years, I’ve tried to pinpoint it.”
“Pinpoint what?”
She paused. “The beginning of the end of us.”
I rocked back in my chair. “You think this was it?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t. But now that I’ve read this letter, yes. I do.”
How could this letter make her think this was what had caused our split? “I’m not following you. We had some good years after this. We had Kali then Max after this.”
“You said it in your letter. Everything changed. After Jamie died, everything changed.”
“His death wasn’t the reason we split up.”
“Then what was? We were different after his death.”
I opened my mouth to answer but shut it when the words didn’t come. What had caused our divorce? What had taken us from a place where all I needed to get through one of the hardest moments of my life was one glance at her?
“I don’t know.”
“It wasn’t just one thing,” she said. “But after this, the bad days started.”
“What bad days?”
“The bad days. We conceived Kali during makeup sex. We’d both been so tired and exhausted. You were spending nearly every second with Poppy, making sure she was . . . well, you know.”
Alive.
My parents had gone back to Alaska after the funeral. They’d each had to work because . . . life went on. Except for Poppy, it hadn’t. She’d spent months nearly comatose.
Poppy had slipped so far into a depression, nothing had helped. Nothing I said would make her smile. Nothing I did made her open up and talk. She didn’t even cry.
Without Jamie, she’d lost her heart. So I’d fought. I’d fought hard for her. I’d called her constantly. When she didn’t answer, I went to check on her. I stayed late at her house, lying next to her on the couch until her brain would shut down and she finally fell asleep. Then I carried her to bed. Day after day. Week after week. I spent every minute of the day fearing for my sister’s life.
Everything else was shut out, Molly especially. She took over a lot at Alcott and covered when I needed to be with Poppy. She made sure my laundry was done and the lawn was mowed. She ran our lives.
In return, I came home from Poppy’s house miserable. I snapped at Molly, taking out my frustrations about Jamie’s death on the one person I loved the most.
“What did we fight about that night?” I asked. “I can’t remember.”
She grinned. “The price of Swedish aspen.”
“That’s right. For the Bexter project. God, he was an asshole.”
“He sure was. That was the first and only time a client made me cry.”
Alan Bexter was a guy who’d moved to Bozeman on a whim, a trust-fund kid who’d thought paying full price was beneath him. It was a big project and worth it for Alcott to tackle, even after giving the guy a discount. I’d made a verbal agreement with Alan for a reduced price on the trees he’d wanted to line his driveway.
I’d been in the middle of that project when Jamie was murdered.
By the time we’d wrapped it up, weeks had passed. Molly was doing all the billing for Alcott and she’d sent Bexter his final invoice. All fifty-six Swedish aspen had been itemized at full price.
Bexter had called Molly, ripping her up one side and down the other. Then he’d called me, giving me an ass-chewing before recommending I fire my bookkeeper. The idiot hadn’t put two and two together to realize he’d been talking about my wife.
“I swear I told you about the price change,” I said.
“And I swear you didn’t.” The truth was a mystery. Not that it mattered now.
“Damn, that was one hell of a fight.”
She grinned. “I don’t remember who started throwing the food first.”
“You.” I chuckled. “I was shocked when you threw those noodles in my face.”
“Oh, lord.” She dropped her face into her hands. “Not my finest moment.”
“No.” I reached out and took her hands away, keep
ing hold of one. “It was perfect. That was the first time I’d laughed in weeks.”
That food fight had reminded me of Jamie. He would have done that, started a food fight to defuse a situation. Maybe that was why I’d joined right in, tossing a bowl of Caesar salad in her face at the same time she’d swatted at me with the loaf of French bread.
We’d collapsed together in the kitchen, laughing hysterically, Bexter and his towering trees forgotten. Then we’d made love on the floor, surrounded by our discarded clothes and uneaten dinner.
That was the night we’d made our Kali.
“Things were better after that.” We’d talked all night, and we’d started doing things together again, rather than dividing things up. And we’d gotten real with Poppy.
We flew my parents down to see her again. They’d been calling every day, but on the phone, they hadn’t seen how bad things had gotten. Then we all sat her down and told her how worried we were. Poppy felt awful. She felt guilty. Mom and Dad asked her to move home to Alaska and she thought about it.
But then we told them we were pregnant. It was early, but we were too excited not to share the news.
“It was Kali,” Molly said. “I think she would have gone to Alaska with your parents if not for Kali. She wanted to be a good aunt. It gave her something to smile about.”
“It was the turning point.”
So how had things gotten so bad again? How had we found ourselves in more fights? More arguments?
We both stared at the letter again, the quiet settling around us like a heavy cloak. Was she onto something? Had Jamie’s death been the beginning of our end?
I refused to believe it. I wouldn’t pin this on him.
That funeral had been one of the hardest days in my life. But I made it through. I stood at the podium at the church so full of people there was barely room to stand in the aisles, and I talked about Jamie. I told a room crowded with his friends and family how the two of us had bonded over our shared love of cold beer and greasy cheeseburgers. I talked about the time we’d gone skiing together and had to be rescued by the ski patrol, because we’d convinced one another that the out-of-bounds markers had been put up wrong.
I talked about how he’d been a goof on the outside—how his ability to lighten a room had been unparalleled—and that on the inside, he’d had a heart of gold. That he’d loved nothing more than making the women in his life smile. His mother. And his wife.
I stood in front of hundreds but spoke to only one.
To Molly.
Because, like I’d known in that letter, the only way I could make it through that day was by keeping my eyes on her.
Jamie’s death wasn’t what had started our downward spiral. I refused to believe it.
“I’m not blaming Jamie for the end of our marriage.”
“Finn,” Molly said gently. “That’s not what I’m saying. We broke. Things got hard and we didn’t stick together. And I know this seems strange, but I needed this letter. I needed a reason.”
A reason why we’d ended.
“He wasn’t the reason,” I said firmly.
She closed her eyes. “That’s not what I’m saying. I loved Jamie. I miss Jamie. But you can’t tell me things didn’t change.”
No, I couldn’t.
“We need to figure out who’s sending these letters.” I stood from the chair, pacing the length of the table as I changed topics.
“Did you talk to your mom?”
I nodded. “It’s not her or Dad.”
I’d gone over last week and sat down with them both. Then I’d begged them for the truth. My parents didn’t lie to me, so when they said it wasn’t them, I believed them.
It hadn’t been easy to tell them about the letters. Or Poppy, for that matter. I didn’t want to explain why I’d written them, let alone kept them. But my desire to stop the letters from coming to Molly’s mailbox was more than the desire to hide my vulnerability where she was concerned.
Thankfully, my family hadn’t prodded. They’d let me get away with a vague explanation and then promised they weren’t involved.
“It’s not Poppy. It’s not your parents. It can’t be the kids.” Molly sighed. “So we’re back to square one.”
I nodded. “Who else could it be? Who else would have found them in my closet?”
“Cole?”
“I don’t think he’s ever been in my bedroom.” I ran a hand over my face. “I’m out of guesses.”
“I might need to start staking out my mailbox.”
I stopped pacing. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“I was joking.”
“Why?” I went back to the table, sitting by her side. “The kids go to Alaska next week with my parents. They’ll be gone for two weeks, so I don’t need to be sneaking around. Let’s stake out the mailbox.”
My desperation was showing, but I didn’t care. I knew what was coming. If Molly did too, she’d be as anxious as I was to stop it.
“Let’s start with Cole,” she said. “Then we can evolve to night-vision goggles and watch in shifts.”
“Deal.”
Molly stood and went into the kitchen for a glass of water. “Sorry to pull you from work.”
“It’s no problem.”
She gave me a skeptical look. “Finn. It’s summer. I know how busy you are. I’m good. I appreciate you coming over so we could talk. But you don’t need to stay. And while the kids are gone, you can forget my yard.”
Was she kicking me out? “You don’t want me over here?”
“No, it’s not that. But you’ve been here a lot. I’m sure you’re swamped.”
“I am.”
“Then take the time. Get caught up when you don’t have to do extra laundry or cook or run the kids around.”
“I don’t know how you do it all,” I admitted. “How you work at the restaurant and manage to keep everything so clean.” I stood up and leaned against the counter. “My place is a wreck most of the time, and I feel like laundry piles up while I’m asleep.”
She giggled. “Welcome to the life of a mom.”
“I don’t say it enough. Thanks for all you do. I know you do most of the laundry for the kids so I don’t have to. I know you make sure they’ve got their stuff for school. I appreciate it.”
“Thanks.” Her cheeks flushed before she shrugged it off. “They’re my kids.”
It was more than that. Even after the divorce, when I’d been an asshole to her, she’d always done her best so I wouldn’t struggle on the nights when I had the kids alone. It had taken me a lot of years to develop a better routine. To figure out how to do dinnertime, bath time and bedtime without one or both kids having a meltdown. Or without wanting to pull my hair out.
Everything suffered for a while, my business and sanity mostly. For years, it had been a shit show. But I’d gained respect for Molly. I’d always thought things were easier for her because she’d been staying at home while I worked. She’d never complained.
I had no idea how hard it was.
“I took you for granted.”
She blinked up at me. “What?”
“You. I took you for granted. I’m sorry for that.”
“Oh, um . . . thank you.”
“I should have said it sooner.”
She dropped her gaze to her water glass, blinking quickly.
My phone rang in my pocket, breaking the moment. There was more to talk about with Molly. I still needed to get to the bottom of why she didn’t come to Alcott and my house. If she’d resented me when she’d stayed at home with the kids.
But she was right. I was fucking busy and needed to get back to work.
“I’m planning on coming over tonight to work on the yard.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” I said. “I want to spend time with the kids before they leave. And you.”
She nodded, following me to the door. I waved at her as I opened it, but she stopped me. “Finn?”
“Yeah?
” I turned over my shoulder.
“Do you think we would have made it if Jamie hadn’t been killed?”
My shoulders fell. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. Do you?”
“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. “But it doesn’t matter now.”
“No, I guess not.”
We were broken.
Because everything had changed.
Nine
Molly
“So, are you still . . .” Randall’s eyebrows shot up as he trailed off.
“Being foolish?” I asked and he nodded. The kids were in Alaska and Finn hadn’t spent a night in his own bed all week. “Yes.”
His frown made me feel worse than the time I’d gotten a speeding ticket in high school with my mom sitting in the passenger seat.
Randall was as close to a grandparent as I’d ever had. Mom’s parents lived on the East Coast, both too old to travel. I hadn’t been close to them as a child and wasn’t as an adult. They’d never even met my kids.
My father’s parents had lived in Bozeman, but they’d both passed when I was young. My father was twelve years older than my mother. In a lot of ways, he’d been more like a grandparent than a father. He’d spoiled me with treats behind her back. He’d let me stay up past my bedtime when she was away. I couldn’t remember a time when he’d punished me. But we weren’t close either. He was a retired professor at Montana State. He’d always been more interested in spending time with his grad students than with his daughter.
I think Mom had wanted a child and had given Dad an ultimatum. He never argued with Mom. He did what she wanted then disappeared to his library before she could ask for something else.
I saw him every couple of months when Mom would force him to visit the kids, but I’d given up on building a close father-daughter relationship with him years ago. I didn’t interest Dad, and we didn’t have anything in common.
It made me wonder how life would have been if Randall had been a parent. Or my parent. Maybe I would have had someone’s shoulder to cry on during the divorce. Instead, I’d kept my tears hidden, not wanting to burden Poppy with them. She’d been swamped trying to get the restaurant open, and given how close she was to both Finn and me, both of us had fought hard not to make her choose a side.