Page 187 of The Home Game

“Love you too, kiddo,” Antoni said, eyes watering as he pressed a kiss to Eli’s head.

“River, you want to come shoot pucks?” Matty asked.

She giggled. “No. I want to draw.”

“Okay, let’s take your paper and crayons down with us then,” Matty said, reaching for Reese. “And, c’mon, little man. We’re going to hang out in the basement. I’ll bring your toys down. I know how much you like making a mess for me to pick up.”

After a few moments of noise and chaos as Matty got the kids wrangled, they went downstairs.

The first floor was suddenly eerily quiet.

Antoni felt strange and listless as he wandered into the living room, automatically straightening toppled-over cushions, and tossing toys into the storage trunk below the window that overlooked the backyard.

He glanced out at the dreary skies, darkening into dusk already. He twitched the curtain closed to hide the steady rain coming down, then turned back to face the living room.

There were a few books lying on the floor and he walked over to put them away. Maybe he’d find something to read and go soak in the bath or something.

A big built-in bookcase lined one entire wall of the room and the upper shelves were mostly filled with Antoni’s books and the ones that had belonged to Bethany and Corey that he hadn’t had the heart to donate or sell.

The lower shelves held books for the kids and there were some sentimental and pretty knickknacks scattered throughout.

River had probably pulled some books down and forgotten to put them away. Antoni bent to pick up the books and froze.

Oh.

No. They weren’t children’s books. They were hardbound photo books.

Bethany had been both sentimental and practical, so she’d scoffed at the idea of scrapbooking. Instead, she’d uploaded the family photos to a website that arranged them all nicely, printed them as a hardcover book, then shipped them to her.

Antoni had placed them on the low shelves where the kids could access them if they ever wanted to look through them, but he hadn’t been able to stomach it since they moved in.

He probably shouldn’t avoid them but he hadn’t felt ready to rehash the happy memories when everything felt so chaotic and uncertain with the custody fight.

Antoni’s eyes watered as he stared at the book from last year.

God, it was from before Reese was born.

Antoni sank onto the nearby couch and opened the book at random, sniffling a little as he stared at the photo of Bethany, Corey, Alexis, Eli, and River trick-or-treating last October.

Antoni’s heart clenched as he remembered taking the photo, laughing when River kept grimacing at the camera in that weird way kids did when they were learning to smile and pose for a camera and got awkward about it.

He flipped the page and there was a photo of him and Bethany with their arms slung over each other’s shoulders, Antoni tipsy at the Halloween party they’d gone to after the kids were safely in bed at his parents’ house, the photo a little out of focus because Corey had been buzzed too.

Bethany had, of course, been pregnant with Reese at the time, so she’d been their designated driver.

Then every page turned blurry and Antoni blinked as he flipped through them, taking in Thanksgiving and Christmas, watching Bethany’s stomach round out as her pregnancy progressed.

And then Antoni couldn’t see the pages at all, his eyes welling with tears that he couldn’t stop. He let out a strange, hitching breath and a sob escaped him.

And then another.

The tears flowed freely then, his chest heaving with strained breaths as the emotion he’d held in for the past six months finally broke through.

It felt like water from a crumbling dam, rushing through him, sweeping everything in its path away.

I miss you so fucking much, he thought. I love your kids, I love the family Matty and I have now but why did I have to lose you to get it?

That was the feeling that had been lingering inside him since April.

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