Because they had lost a piece of themselves, a vital organ in the body of their family. “No, you’re right. We’ll never be like we were.”
“And there will always be a next thing, really. Eventually, there will be. Right?”
Nick sighed and rubbed the aching place on his chest. Where he’d been shot. Where he was scarred. Where his heart beat. Where his grief throbbed.
“I suppose you’re right. Not for a long, long time, I hope. But eventually, probably. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Papa. That’s just life. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it sucks. Your problem is you think you can make it never suck.”
Nick laughed, impressed at his girl’s sassy wisdom. “You’re something special, cara mia.”
She lifted her mug. “I’m just sayin’.”
~oOo~
Carina and Nick finished their hot chocolate and went up to bed together. He kissed his little girl good night and peeked in on Ren, who was sprawled across his bed, the light of his saltwater aquarium bathing the room in aqua-tinted glow. Snuggles was sleeping beside Ren’s bed; he lifted his head and thumped a welcoming tail but didn’t rise.
He’d stopped checking on Lia on his way to bed when he’d started allowing Alex to spend the night. One time seeing the two of them wound as sleeping lovers in his daughter’s bed was enough for him. But Lia was out tonight, anyway. With Alex.
It felt good, to help that boy. It felt right. A move for the future—Alex’s, and maybe Lia’s, and maybe more.
He walked by Elisa’s closed door and set his hand on it, a habit he’d formed since Christmas. A part of her remained in that room, in this house. In some ways, almost all of her was here. She’d been born here. She’d died here. This place was packed to the rafters with memories of his wonderful girl with the magnificent, fragile heart.
When he’d bid Elisa good night, Nick went into the room he shared with his wife.
Not quite three months had passed since they’d buried their firstborn, and Beverly was not quite back to herself. But she was healing. Small steps, but almost daily, brought her more and more into the light.
None of them would be the same again, they’d all bear a deep scar forever, but they each grieved in their own way. Grief had brought Ren to a settling of his sense of himself, and he asserted that sense more clearly. Carina had settled, too, picking her battles more carefully. Lia had stood up taller than ever, taking care of her family where they had need. She’d also fallen wholeheartedly into love and had found solace in Alex’s devotion.
For all his surviving children, losing their sister had made them take stock in some way, see their world a new way. All three had seemed to find their way in grief rather than become more lost, and for that Nick was deeply grateful.
Beverly was bringing Elisa with her through every step of her grief, and her progress was slower, but it was progress. She would find her way, too. She’d gone back into therapy, this time with Nick’s encouragement rather than the stubborn, selfish resistance he’d first put up all those years ago.
For himself, he’d been so focused on revenge and victory that he wasn’t sure where he was in his grieving. He’d been sad, certainly. Desperately so, at times. But mostly he’d been bitterly angry, and violently determined to make the men who’d killed his daughter pay. They all had. It was done.
Maybe he hadn’t truly grieved yet. Maybe now it would come.
If it did, he would turn to his wife and join her. They could help each other through it, as they’d stood together through everything else.
Beverly was sleeping, so he eased quietly into his closet and stripped to his underwear there. When he came out, she’d lifted onto an elbow and was waiting for him.
“Did I wake you?”
“Not really. I was only dozing. I missed you. Come to bed.”
He slipped between the sheets and into his wife’s arms. When he rolled them and put her on her back, settling over her and brushing his hand under her nightgown to caress her lush body, she smiled up at him, and he saw the shine of her sun. She had brought all the light to his life, and it eased his heart to see her begin to find it for herself again.
He wasn’t a god. Only a man. A man who’d lost much, but who had this.