Page 36 of Lost Then Found
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I’m not saying it is.” Truth is, I have no idea what the hell she was thinking. But I know Lark—or I used to—and she wouldn’t have done this unless she thought she had to. “I’m gonna hear her out.”
Wren scoffs, mouth twisting. “She lied to you. Stole twelve fucking years from you. And now what? You’re just gonna roll over?”
Something in me snaps. Quiet, controlled—but sharp.
“That’s enough.” My voice comes out low, steady, and sharp enough to slice through the tension. “Yeah, we’ve got things to figure out. A hell of a lot. But she’s still Hudson’s mom. Still Lark. And if anyone’s got something to say about her, they’d better rethink saying it around me.”
Wren sits back, lets out a cold little laugh, arms crossing tight over her chest.
Then Mom speaks—calm, steady, in that voice that means she’s already decided where she stands. “Boone’s right.”
She looks at Wren, then Sage. Doesn’t flinch.
“We don’t know everything yet. But here’s what I do know—Lark and Hudson are family. That doesn’t change. And if either of them feels anything less than welcome here?” Her gaze flicks between my sisters likea shot fired. “Then we’ve got a problem.”
Sage raises her hands. “I didn’t even say anything.”
Mom doesn’t even blink. Just stares Wren down until she finally mutters, “Whatever,” under her breath.
Mom nods once, satisfied. “Lark’s been a part of this family since she was a kid. That doesn’t stop now.” She turns to me. “You should invite them for dinner. After you talk to her. Let her decide if she’s ready.”
I nod, slow and stiff, blinking hard like that’ll clear the pressure building behind my eyes. Feels like I haven’t taken a full breath since I walked through that front door. Since everything split wide open and now I’m just supposed to carry on like normal. Like I’m not sitting here trying to wrap my head around the fact I’ve got a twelve-year-old son I didn’t even know existed.
And layered right on top of that—like it’s nothing—is the reality that I’m still trying to adjust to being home. Whatever home means now.
Everything here feels different. Familiar, sure. But not the same. The kitchen smells like it always did—coffee and dust and something warm from the oven—but I can’t stop scanning corners, clocking exits, tuning into sounds I shouldn’t be reacting to. The scrape of a chair leg on the tile, the low creak of a cabinet door—it all pulls my shoulders tight, gets my pulse jumping like I’m still overseas.
So no, this conversation isn’t just hard. It’s brutal. They’re looking at me like I’m supposed to have answers, like I didn’t just step off a plane and fall straight into the middle of a life I missed too much of.
Twelve years gone. A family that kept going without me. A kid that looks like me and doesn’t even know what that means.
It’s a lot. Hell of a lot.
And I’m doing everything I can not to come apart at this table.
Mom reaches over, rests a hand on my shoulder, gives it a quiet squeeze like she can sense how close I am to unraveling. “You okay?”
I lean back, stare at the ceiling like maybe there’s an answer written up there. “I don’t know.”
Because I don’t. How the hell do you go from waking up in the morningthinking you’ve got a handle on your life—only to find out it’s been built around a child-shaped hole you never saw coming?
But underneath the shock, beneath all the what-ifs and should’ves and the ache in my chest, there’s this pull. Something deep and solid.
I want to know him. Everything.
I want to take him fishing—same way Dad used to take us. Show him how to cast a line, gut a trout, clean his hands with river water and grit. Teach him how to throw a proper punch, how to shift gears in an old truck, how to fix a busted fence when the wire snaps clean through. I want to stand in a field and toss a ball back and forth until it’s too dark to see. Get him on a horse, take him up through the hills, show him the corners of this land that carry our name.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I want to be his dad more than I want to be angry with Lark. And maybe that counts for something.
Maybe it’s not just about Hudson. Maybe it’s my way back to her, too.
Maybe this is how I stop walking around Lark like she’s a damn live wire, waiting to shock the hell out of me. Maybe this is how we stop resenting each other—her for staying, me for leaving, both of us carrying damage we never talked about.
Maybe we figure out how to raise our son without blowing the whole thing to pieces.
Even if we never find our way back to being…whatever we were, maybe we can still be solid. Civil. Show Hudson what it looks like when two people give a damn—even if it’s complicated.
But even thinking it feels like a lie. Because a part of me—a big, stupid, all-consuming part of me—will always love Lark.
