Page 218 of Wild Then Wed
The books are still stacked beside the rocking chair.Goodnight Moon, Corduroy, The Runaway Bunny, The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar—the classics. I remember picking them out with Julia. I looked forward to it more than I let on—reading to her belly at night, my hand resting there, pretending Violet could hear me. Maybe she could. I don’t know. But I’d sit there and read like it mattered, like she was already here, already listening. And for a while, that made it real for me.
I sit down on the edge of the rocking chair, my hand dragging across the arm of it. The cushion lets out a tiny squeak under my weight, and that sound—god—that sound cracks something open in me I didn’t even realize was still sealed.
And then I do the thing I haven’t let myself do for years.
I weep.
I cry in a way that’s not quiet or pretty or graceful. My chest tightens, and I lean forward, elbows to knees, because I physically can’t hold it together. My face is hot, and I can’t tell where the tears stop and the snot starts, and I don’t even care.
I press my hand over my mouth to keep the sound down, but it still slips out. That deep, broken thing I’ve buried under work and silence and half-assed sleep. It doesn’t care about time or logic. It just wants out.
I think about Violet. About what she would’ve looked like. Would she have had Julia’s dark curls? My eyes? Would she haveNora’s need to narrate every moment out loud? Or would she have been quiet, curious, and thoughtful?
Would she have loved the cows and goats and pigs like her mom? Climbed up in bed with us in the mornings, her hair all tangled and her body all warm and sleepy? Would she have fallen asleep on the couch in front of the fire with some cartoon still playing while her chest rises and falls under a throw blanket?
I think about how we were supposed to be a family. And how now, all I have are ghosts.
And the grief…it’s not clean cut. It’s not something I can fold up and put away once it’s “time.” It lingers. Shifts. It became part of the way I move through the world.
It’s missing her and loving who’s still here. It’s the door that stayed closed and the one I finally opened. It’s the life I imagined and the one I’ve got.
And I’m still learning how to live inside both.
I wipe my face with the heel of my hand, but the tears keep coming, and I let them.
For once, I fucking let them.
Chapter 38
WREN
I wake up to the sound of sniffling.
At first, I think I’m imagining it. It’s faint, barely there, almost like it’s being muffled. But then I blink and I realize the spot next to me is empty.
I sit up, groggy, my hair plastered to one side of my cheek, the sheets still warm where Sawyer had been. It’s still dark outside, but there’s a thin line of blue-gray light pushing its way over the horizon, just enough to cast soft shadows across the room.
I listen again.
There it is. A broken inhale. Another quiet sniff.
I pull my hair up into a ponytail without thinking, the elastic scraping against my wrist as I climb out of bed. I don’t bother with slippers or a robe—I just follow the sound.
I pad into the hallway and that’s when I see it.
The door.
The one that’s always been closed. The one I’ve walked past a hundred times. It’s open now.
Just slightly, just enough.
I take a few slow steps toward it, my heart beating louder with each one. And when I reach the threshold, I stop.
There’s lavender walls. Butterflies. A crib in the corner with a pale pink blanket draped over the side, soft and untouched. There’s a butterfly mobile hanging above it, delicate wings caught mid-flight. A stack of board books on a night stand. A pale wooden rocking chair with another hand-knit blanket tossed over the back. A tiny lamp shaped like a bunny. A canvas with the wordsYou Are So Lovedin gold script on the wall.
It’s a nursery.Hernursery.
And Sawyer’s in the middle of it.
