life. If she said something mocking, it would kill him. If she said anything sarcastic at all, he’d walk away and never return.
Even Ashleigh had tried to talk with him about it a few times, but he just pressed his lips together. Cracked a joke about something completely irrelevant. Turned her attention to something else. Fact was, Jake wasn’t just a brother. He was half of Chip’s heart. And even on the best of days, there was never a moment he didn’t feel like half his heart was missing.
He swallowed as he looked up at the stars.
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice drifted quietly to his ears. Soft. Undemanding.
And suddenly she was at his side looking up at the stars too.
“I really am, Chip.”
Chip felt his jaw clench as her soft hand wrapped around his. It was a fleeting touch, a momentary squeeze of his calloused palm before her hand dropped back to her side. She said more in that gesture than words could express.
Something about her tender touch, the stillness of the evening, the revealed secrets and sorrows under the milky moon made his throat sting. “Jake was a good man. And a great brother.”
He heard the small intake of her breath, practically felt her groping for the helpful response that didn’t exist.
“I didn’t know.”
He raised a brow, one side of his mouth hinting at a smile. “I can’t imagine how you could,” he repeated softly.
Both of their eyes crinkled in the start of a smile as they looked at each other. The soft start of a first shared joke, but their smiles couldn’t bear the heaviness of the moment, and their expressions faded.
They watched the headlights of a car rolling by.
Quietly stood side by side until the brake lights turned off and the couple walked inside.
“Anna has been a trouper this past year.” Bree’s words came so lightly they seemed to dance on the breeze. “She’s been through it all . . . even”—her voice cracked slightly before she composed herself—“even the marrow transplant that led to GVHD. But the phone call I just had with Daria . . .” There was a second’s hesitation before she inserted hastily, “I mean, the doctors haven’t said there’s no hope. Daria’s trying to stay upbeat. But, but . . .”
Her words seemed to fail, and her fingers flew to her lips.
He watched the moonlight shine dimly upon her profile, her lips pressed tightly against each other, her left hand clenched at her side. She looked like every muscle in her body was taut, as though any moment the scream she was holding so deep inside was going to break open and pour out into the night air. He knew that look. He lived that look, breathed that look, had watched that look on every member of his family at one time. Sometimes still saw that look in his reflection in the mirror.
And he’d seen firsthand what it looked like when a person finally let go.
Without hesitation, Chip wrapped one arm around her shoulders, squeezing, helping her to keep it in for that moment—if that was what she wanted.
Grief was a cruel jack-in-the-box. Sometimes it popped out at the least desirable moments: at the codes department, just when you’re stepping in for a building permit. In front of your mother, just when you see her dry-eyed for the first time in months, just when she’s thinking of something else for once.
But of course, there was never a time, really, that Jake wasn’t in the back of their minds. Standing there in the corner as they talked about recipes for egg salads and his niece’s latest achievements. Jake was always there. Over time, Chip had accepted and integrated that fact into his life. This world wasn’t all he had grown up to think it was. Nothing was stable. Not the years of playing make-believe in the backyard with his brothers, the barbecues and fireflies, the comfort of warm duvets on soft beds. Not his family, friends, money, possessions, intellect, status, abilities. None of it was secure. None of it could he stand upon and know it would hold his weight.
Because someday, some awful day, the ground would shift beneath his feet. The ground had shifted beneath his feet.
As he’d learned four years ago, the world was good, but it wasn’t wholly good.
The world was beautiful, but it was also worse than his worst nightmare.