Butterfly in Frost

by Sylvia Day

  I’m wearing one of the outfits from my latest style box, a pair of white denim shorts and a strappy tank top with a pretty Asian-inspired pattern. I even put on earrings, a pair of small gold hoops, and went with a smoky eye, which has become my new normal. To my mind, a rock-star artist like Garrett pairs well with sultry eyes.

  Making our way inside the museum, we weave through the crowds as we admire each exhibit. We reach a long, narrow room where the display is suspended above us, held up and protected by a clear barrier. Multicolored glass sculptures of various shapes and sizes, some floral in design, others aquatic, are scattered about, entwined or piled atop one another. Light filters through from above, casting rainbow shards of light against the bare walls.

  Head tilted back, I move slowly so I can take in everything.

  Garrett’s hands catch me around the waist from behind, and he whispers, “We should go see his installation at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Maybe kick off a honeymoon there before traveling to parts unknown.”

  I pause midstep, unsure if I heard him right. I turn to face him. “Did you just propose?”

  His gorgeous eyes twinkle at me. “No. You won’t be confused when I do. Just putting it out there. Giving you some time to warm up to the idea.”

  My gaze narrows. “Maybe I’ll get around to asking the question first.”

  He grins. “A race it is, then.”

  “You two are spending more time looking at each other than you are at the art,” Mike teases, passing by us with Roxy on his arm.

  “Can’t help being drawn to the most beautiful thing in the room.” Garrett catches me by the elbow and leads me through to the next exhibit.

  I lean into him. “How is it that you get hotter and cornier by the day?”

  He winks at me. “Dedication, Doc. And natural talent.”

  As the morning moves on, we visit the Space Needle, taking photos on the clear plexiglass benches on the revamped observation deck, and MoPOP, where we spend most of our time in the Prince exhibition. Then we wander through the outdoor spaces of Seattle Center, where we stumble upon the Polish Festival in progress at the Armory and Mural Amphitheatre.

  Onstage, couples in colorful folkloric costumes dance to lively music. Food booths surround the lawn where attendees sit on picnic blankets and folding chairs, while a special area has been sectioned off to create a beer garden. I spot crafting tables for kids, vendors of T-shirts and gifts, art displays, and more.

  “Let’s grab a drink,” Roxy says, looking at the beer garden.

  We make our way over to the white picket fence that defines the space, finding an empty table shaded by an umbrella advertising a Polish brew. Roxy and I take a seat.

  “I’m grabbing a beer,” Mike tells Roxy. “You want one? Or wine?”

  “Wine sounds good.”

  Garrett looks at me. “Want a water or soda?”

  “Um . . .” I smile. “I think I’ll have a glass of wine, too. A chardonnay if they have it.”

  Roxy claps. “Watch out, Garrett. She’s getting wild now.”

  He smiles. “It’s okay, I can handle her.”

  As the men walk away, Roxy grabs my arm and leans forward. “Okay, Mike’s been telling me to leave it alone, but I have to ask: Were you guys talking marriage back at the Chihuly museum?”

  I shoot her a look. “In an abstract way. Don’t get excited.”

  “Oh my God.” Her eyes tear up. “I’m so happy for you. So happy for you both.”

  “Roxy, what did I just say? We’re not engaged. We’re still doing the same thing we were.”

  “But it’s like a foregone conclusion. And that makes me so happy. When I think about what that man has been through, that he would find someone like you . . . And I think about the guys I tried to set you up with.” She covers her face and gives a watery laugh. “You were so right to wait for Garrett to come along.”

  “Roxy, come on.” I can’t help but laugh, too. “Mike’s going to freak out if he sees you crying.”

  “I know.” She digs into her cross-body bag and pulls out a packet of tissues. “I’m a hopeless romantic—what can I say?”

  “What’s going on?” Mike says, coming back to the table with wine in one hand and a beer in the other. He looks at his wife and the tissues she’s holding. “What’s the matter?”

  “Allergies, that’s all. I’m cracking jokes about Teagan getting drunk.”

  I pull out the seat next to me for Garrett, and he sinks lithely into it, setting down our drinks in front of us. His hand goes to my thigh, warming my bare skin.

  “Save me,” I tell him.

  He grins. “I’m working on it.”

  I had only the one glass of wine, but a year of abstinence has turned me into a lightweight. I feel a bit giddy, and laughter comes readily. Roxy, Mike, and Garrett all had two drinks, but I’m pretty sure they’re much more sober than I am.

  Garrett has an indulgent smile on his face as we continue wending our way through Seattle Center, his hand in mine. We stop and buy ice cream from a cart, then continue on, turning a corner to find ourselves facing the International Fountain. As we approach, music and children’s laughter compete with the sound of splashing water.

  Set within an expansive lawn, the fountain itself is a silver dome centered in a giant bowl. Visitors sit around the lip and lower, too, on the angled sides. Children and adults alike frolic amid the streams of water, some fully dressed, others in swimsuits.

  “I love this place,” Roxy says, her eyes shielded behind cat-eyed sunglasses. “It always feels like it’s filled with joy.”

  She leads us to the edge and takes a seat, her legs stretched down toward the fountain. Mike joins her.

  Tense, I look at Garrett. “You okay?”

  He nods, the playing children reflected in his mirrored shades. “I’m good.”

  Offering his hand for balance, he waits for me to take a seat before joining me. We sit side by side, eating our ice cream. The instrumental music playing is unfamiliar to me, which makes it possible for me to listen to it. Garrett listens to music a lot when he’s working, and I’m slowly getting used to it again. There are still moments when a song reminds me of a place or event that hurts me to recall, but I’m making progress there, too.

  Day by day, I’m peeling back layers and tackling new challenges.

  “David!”

  My whole body stiffens at the sound of a woman calling that name. I look at Garrett, making sure he’s all right. He reaches over and grips my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

  My gaze returns to the fountain, searching. I see a redhead brandishing a towel, chasing a ginger-haired boy about five years of age who has no interest in leaving. Licking my mint chocolate chip ice cream, I follow the little drama as it plays out.

  Despite the crowd, I’m not doing too badly when another boy appears from where he was hidden on the other side of the fountain. This one is older, maybe seven or eight. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, square-jawed. He laughs while chasing a little girl in a pink leotard with attached tutu. They’re both soaked and barefoot.

  Melting ice cream runs down my fingers as I stare. The little boy is tall for his age and thin. His lashes are thick and spiked with water, his tongue darting out to lick around his mouth. Aside from the eyes, he looks so much like Garrett that my brain can hardly process it.

  Heart pounding, I push to my feet.

  “Doc?”

  Garrett’s voice sounds far away, making it easy to ignore. I start down the slanted side of the bowl.

  Roxy laughs behind me. “I think she’s going in!”

  Mike says something in answer.

  “Teagan.” Garrett’s voice has an edge now.

  “Do you see him?” I ask as I move away. “Do you see him?”

  “Teagan!”

  I reach the bottom. The wind blows a spray of water at me, wetting me from head to toe. Children run all around me, darting forward and back as they play tag with the shooting water. The little
ballerina runs by, and the dark-haired boy is hot on her heels.

  “Excuse me,” I call out, but he runs off, having no clue I’m talking to him.

  Garrett grabs my arm, pulling me back when I start forward. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Do you see him? He looks like David.”

  His jaw tightens. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Not yet.”

  He grabs my upper arms and gives me a little shake. My ice cream falls to splatter in the water at my feet. “That’s not David.”

  “I know that. You haven’t even looked at him.” Turning my head, I see the boy again and point. “See? He looks just like you, with my eyes. He’s the right age.”

  Roxy joins us. “Is everything all right?”

  “We have to go,” Garrett says tightly. “Teagan’s tired.”

  “I’m not tired,” I argue. “I just want to talk to him for a minute.”

  “You can’t talk to that boy!” he snaps. “You’re a stranger to him. You’ll freak him out. You’ll freak his parents out. We have to go.”

  “Garrett, you don’t—”

  Shoving his sunglasses on top of his head, his tearful gaze meets mine. “He’s not our son, Teagan. He’s not our David. David’s dead.”

  Those two words pierce through my chest. Garrett’s ravaged expression is painful to look at. His face blurs as hot tears spill down my cheeks.

  “I know he’s dead!” I yell at him, sobbing, as another chilling mist of water douses us both. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  I’ve held back tears for so long. Now that they’re freed, I can’t stop them. “I know that’s not him. I know . . . God, am I crazy?”

  “Come here.” Garrett pulls me into his arms, holding me unbearably close.

  As my tears soak into his T-shirt, his body shakes against mine.

  16

  GARRETT

  I stand on the threshold of one of three bedrooms on the daylight basement level of Teagan’s home. Just the sight of the room is so painful, I can’t enter it.

  Here is David’s bed, perfectly made. Here is his bookshelf and toy box. His clothes hang in the closet. Framed photos I recognize from our former life are scattered around the room: our wedding photo, a photo taken moments after David’s birth, birthday pictures, school pictures, vacation photos.

  Why have I never come down here before now?

  Shutting the door, I look at the second living room on this lower floor. Like the upstairs, it’s perfectly retro and completely sterile. Only the one bedroom holds any of the woman I love in it.

  The sound of a soft, tentative knock on the front door drifts down the stairs. I take the steps two at a time up to the main floor, wanting to answer it before the doorbell can ring and wake Teagan. Pulling the door open, I’m not at all surprised to see Roxanne.

  “Hi,” she greets me quietly. “How are you doing? Is Teagan okay?”

  All the light I’m used to seeing in Roxy is gone. I sigh. We’ll have to repair this relationship, too. Grief is like a shattered mirror, the central break spreading cracks throughout.

  “She’s sleeping.” I wave my hand toward the kitchen. “I’m about to have a drink. Want to join me?”

  “Sure.” She comes in and looks around, as if she expects the place to look different.

  I head to the kitchen. “I grabbed scotch from my place, but she’s got a bottle of wine in the fridge.”

  Roxy huffs a humorless laugh. “I gave her that bottle when she moved in. Think it’s still good?”

  “We can find out.” The product of an Australian winery, the bottle has a screw-on cap. I open it, sniff, then pour some into a glass and take a sip. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

  She accepts the glass I pour her, taking a decent swallow while I pour a hefty slug of scotch for myself. I join her at the table.

  Her gaze settles on me. “I’m really confused.”

  “I bet.” I take a long drink, feeling the alcohol go down in a burst of heat.

  “Is Teagan your wife?”

  “She was. We divorced a few months after we lost David.”

  “Oh.” She wraps her hands around her wineglass. “I suppose that happens a lot after the death of a child.”

  “That’s a myth.” I hear the bite in my voice and regret it instantly. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  I continue, my tone softer, “Only sixteen percent of couples divorce, and usually it’s not because of the loss; it’s because things weren’t right anyway, and the child was the glue holding the marriage together.” I take another drink. “At least that’s how it was for us.”

  Roxy also takes another drink, then plays with the stem of her glass. “She seemed surprised when you two first ran into each other.”

  “Yeah, well, I was even more surprised when you introduced her to me and she didn’t correct you. Pissed me the fuck off, actually. It felt like she’d completely erased our entire life together, just wiped it out of existence.” I take another drink, rolling the liquor around in my mouth before swallowing. “After I was done yelling at my therapist about it, he explained something called ‘complicated grief.’”

  “I just read about that the other day.”

  I nod. “Once I understood that she not only hadn’t moved on but was still in the weeds with it, I knew she needed me as much as I needed her.”

  “I had no idea,” she says quietly.

  “I was afraid to tell you.”

  We both turn our heads at the sound of Teagan’s voice. She stands on the threshold of the kitchen, looking pale and puffy-eyed. I’d helped her into an oversize T-shirt after getting her out of the ice cream–stained clothes she’d been wearing. She looks small and lost, the smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose visible against her pale skin.

  I stand and go to her, brushing the hair back from her face. She sobbed the whole way home, racking, violent cries that ripped my heart out.

  “I’m okay,” she tells me, her hands circling my wrists. Her makeup has smeared, surrounding her eyes with dark smudges.

  She’s so beautiful. I’ve been sketching her face for years in notebooks, on napkins, on junk mail. I could draw the oval of her face, the rise of her cheekbones, and the almond shape of her eyes while blindfolded.

  “I’m sorry about what happened at the fountain, Garrett.”

  My lips brush her forehead. “Don’t apologize.”

  “I don’t know what got into me.” She gives an awkward shrug. “I want to sit down.”

  I pull a chair out for her, then go to the kitchen to get her a glass of juice.

  Roxy bites her lower lip, clearly not knowing what to say or do.

  “I needed you to be my friend, Roxy,” Teagan explains quietly. “So many of our friends disappeared after we lost David, and the ones who stuck around never looked at us the same. It gets to be too much. The pitying looks. People treating you like you’re going to snap at any minute. The way no one laughs. It’s hard to carry that extra load when you’re already feeling crushed.”

  Roxy is crying when I come back to the table and set the glass of orange juice in front of Teagan.

  “I can’t be mad at you,” Roxy says, wiping her face with her hands. “Not after the way I freaked out when Garrett talked about David. It just makes me so sad thinking of you living with that all on your own. And I’m sure I must’ve said hurtful things without even realizing it.”

  I rip a paper towel off the roll and take it to her.

  She looks up at me. “Thank you. You two really are back together, though, right? That’s for real?”

  My attention turns to Teagan. She’s been opening like a flower over the past few weeks, but now she’s once again subdued. Still, there’s a new steadiness in her gaze. I find myself holding out hope that she’s turned a corner. And if she hasn’t, well . . . We’ll get there. I know that for a certainty, and that’s enough.

  “It’s all been real, Roxy,” she replies e
arnestly. “There are some things you didn’t know, but everything you do know is absolutely the truth.”

  Teagan’s gaze finds mine for an instant of connection before she looks back at her friend. “We’ve changed enough to make it work this time, I think. I didn’t expect it. When Garrett wrote to me, asking if I was willing to try starting from scratch, I said yes only because I felt I owed David that much. We were so broken when we divorced . . . we’d fallen out of love somewhere along the way.”

  “I still loved you,” I counter, standing by the island because I can’t sit down. It’s hard enough just trying to stand still. “I agreed to the divorce because I wanted you to be happier. You’d already gone through hell with Kyler when we met. I didn’t want you feeling like you’d escaped one bad marriage only to get stuck in another.”

  She frowns. “When you didn’t put up a fight, I figured you were done.”

  Roxy glances from Teagan to me and back again. She looks embarrassed but fascinated, and I don’t care that she’s witnessing this overdue discussion. Because she’s here, sticking by Teagan, giving support.

  “We’d been fighting enough.” I ran a hand over my jaw, remembering those dark, painful days. “After I got my head on straight, I realized that if you weren’t happy, the answer wasn’t letting you go. The answer was to try harder.”

  Teagan stares at me for a long minute.

  “I’m going to go.” Roxy stands. “Mike and I would really love it if you both came over for dinner tomorrow. He told me to tell you it’s been too long since he made pizza.”

  A tear slides down Teagan’s cheek. “We wouldn’t miss Mike’s pizza.”

  “Great.” Roxy heads to the sink, but I intercept the glass from her.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  She cups my face in her hands and presses a kiss to my cheek. “Call me if you need anything.”

  Teagan and I watch her leave; then I go to the sink and wash the glass, setting it in the drain basket. I jump when Teagan’s arms circle me from behind, then relax into the embrace. Her cheek presses against my back. I wrap my arms over hers.