And I do remember. I still have to ride with the windows cracked in the car.
“Maybe she wanted to be different,” he goes on. “Someone who laughed with her kids. Played games with us and wanted a man to hold her with love.”
An image of her on her back as she propped me up on her feet so I could fly flashes in my head. She smiled. I laughed.
“That’s what everyone wants, isn’t it?” Noah asks. “To not be alone?”
He doesn’t have any memories of her. Only a year younger than me, but too young. Cancer crept up in March, and it worked quickly. She died in prison a couple of weeks ago.
Maybe he’s right. If she’d never had that first taste, maybe she would’ve been different.
“I just want to remember her as she should’ve been.” His voice falls to a whisper. “I’m too tired at this point to hate her anymore. When it’s over and done, maybe all she wants is to not be alone now. To know that we think of her sometimes.”
Tears fill my eyes, and I don’t want to fucking do this, but I can’t stop it. I cough to cover the emotion choking me up, because fucking Noah. Goddamn him.
She’s dead, and I’m wrapped warm every night in a family I love. Why should I hate her?
“Ah, fuck it.” I dry my eyes and gather up the food and sippy cup. “Leave me half of the ashes. I’ll spread them on the mountain.”
I don’t look at him as I leave the shit and grab my kid, getting out of the tent before I embarrass myself further.
Holding Griff close to me, I draw in some deep breaths, slowly letting it go. Fucking Noah.
My dad stands at the edge of the water, and I head over, turning the kid around, so he can see the waterfall. The first time we brought his mom here, she sat on a beach towel right about here.
Dad glances over, smiling at Griff. “I can’t tell who he looks more like.”
I look down at my son. His hair is darker than Tiernan’s, but much lighter than mine. He has my eyes, though.
“As long as he’s loved, I don’t care,” I tell him.
“That he is.” He reels the line back into the spool. “If you want to have a few more, I won’t balk,” he says. “It’s nice to have a kid running around again. I can be better with him than I was with you two.”
I gaze out at the scene, thinking about my childhood. I never once resented my father, growing up. It never crossed my mind that he wasn’t striving to do his best.
Until he had her. Then I resented him for a while.
But I drop my eyes, too happy to care anymore. We were lost and broken, each in our own way, and she needed us as much as we needed her. We’d die for her.
“We’re not robbing banks or drunks,” I finally reply. “Noah and I turned out okay.”
And then I turn to him. “You want to have a few more, I wouldn’t mind a sister.”
He chuckles, and I cast a glance at the blue tent, knowing who he has tucked inside, even though she continues to try to conceal what we all know has been going on for years now. She’s thirty-seven and has no kids. Maybe she wants one.
He sighs, reeling in his line and changing the subject. “You got a handle on the Robinson order?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry.” I shoot my eyes left again, seeing Mirai exit his tent, see us, and quickly dive into her own, as if we’re all stupid.
It’s amusing, though.
“She’s wearing your shirt,” I tell him. “Better go get it.”
He shoots me a smile. “I will.”
Tiernan walks out of our tent as he heads off, and I look over my shoulder at her, smiling.
She’s dressed in my favorite brown bikini and waving a swim diaper at me.
I head over, letting her take the kid and change him as I dive into the tent to get into my trunks and grab his life jacket.
We get him suited up and carry him into the pond.
“Ohhhhhh.” She smiles excitedly at Griffin as he splashes his arms in legs in the water. “It’s cold, isn’t it?”
We wade out, holding him and playing, the waterfall grabbing his attention as he coos.
“Can you say ‘waterfall’?” she asks him.
His eyes light up, looking at her and talking in baby talk.
We slip behind the falls, water drenching our heads and laughing as he sucks in air, a little shocked.
Tiernan looks around, both of us taking in the new artwork on the walls. “You scared me so much the last time we were here,” she says.
I hold Griffin by the jacket, letting his arms and legs wade freely.
“You scare easily,” I joke.
“I don’t. You were intense.”
“Were?” I ask, feigning insult.
She knows I’m intense where it counts now.
We drift in deeper, spinning the baby around in the water.
“I should’ve brought you here then,” I tell her. “Or stayed with you in here that day.”
“What makes you think I wouldn’t have run?”
“Because I made your thighs quiver.”
She snorts. “You didn’t.”
“That wasn’t you moaning on top of the car that first night we met?”
“I told you to stop!”
“I’m sorry,” I say sweetly. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of all your panting.”
“Shut up.”
I hold the kid with one hand and pull her in with the other. “Wanna try your luck again?”
Her eyebrows shoot up at my challenge.
“I can leave Griffin with Noah for a while again tonight.” I stare down into her eyes, her body pressing into mine, riling me up again. “And maybe meet you in here at ten? You can show me how good you are at hating everything I do.”
She bites her bottom lip, looking at my mouth, and I still see her that day—backing away from me and nervous, but God, I just wanted to stay here with her.
But she giggles and twists out of my hold, grabbing our son and moving back toward the falls to exit the tunnel.
“It’ll be really dark in here at ten,” she warns.
Really dark.
I move toward her, looking at her just like I did that day so long ago. “I’ll find you.”
“If you can…” she taunts.
And then she disappears with Griff through the falls, and I smile at all the nights ahead of us.
The End