Part of him did, but part of him really didn’t. “Listen. Kate and the kids are getting in today, tomorrow you do the interviews, and, hey, you can miss that fashion show on Saturday. Go then.”
“It’s not the same. The date…”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I’m superstitious.”
Eli snorted. “If you’re going to believe in something you can’t see, touch, or understand, I have a much better option for you.”
“No, thanks.”
Leaning in, Eli forced Jonah to look up and lock eyes. “She would not want you to miss the interviews.”
“Don’t.” Jonah’s voice was sharp, his posture stiffening. “You don’t get to tell me what Mom would or wouldn’t want. I knew her as well as you did. You had a life before her—I never knew one day without her.”
Eli pressed his lips together, his hands clenching into fists against his knees. He wanted to argue. He wanted to shake Jonah and make him see what he saw—that Melissa wouldn’t want him stuck, wouldn’t want his grief to dictate his future.
But he also knew what it felt like to be told how to grieve. It wouldn’t help.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored the alarm reminding him to leave for the airport.
He looked back at Jonah, at the storm brewing behind his eyes. He didn’t want to leave. Not now. Not when his son was unraveling in front of him.
“That’s your Kate reminder,” Jonah said. “Go pick them up.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“Go, Dad. I’m fine. I want to be alone anyway. I’m fine. You don’t want them all to pile into an Uber.”
Eli stood slowly, hesitating before he reached out, gripping Jonah’s shoulder. A firm, steady squeeze. “This isn’t over,” he said, voice low. “We’ll talk more.”
Jonah didn’t look up, but after a long pause, he gave the barest nod.
“Kate can help you,” Eli added. “She’ll blow in here and want to cook dinner and?—”
“I’ll just disappoint her, too.”
No one was going to get through to him right now. Maybe together, he and Kate would, later tonight.
Eli exhaled and turned for the door, his chest tight. As he stepped back into the hallway, he felt the weight of the unfinished business settle deep in his bones.
* * *
The momenthe saw Kate’s smile, Eli’s heart lifted from the dark place it had been since he left Jonah. The woman walking next to her as they exited the small airport security area smiled at him, too, and he instantly recognized Jo Ellen Wylie.
He likely wouldn’t have known her on the street, since she was thirty years older than the last time he saw her. However, standing next to Kate, it was like those years disappeared and he was looking at “Aunt Jo Ellen” once again.
Now, instead of her long, dark hair, she had soft waves of silver, still thick enough to fall to her shoulders. While her face was etched with the lines and age expected on a woman closer to eighty than seventy, she carried herself with an effortless grace he remembered well.
She didn’t need help walking, but he could see her sort of lean into Kate, as if she liked knowing her daughter was next to her.
He recognized Kate’s kids from the many pictures she’d shown him last month. Matt, a lanky teenage boy with a mop of dark hair, loped behind them, reminding Eli of when he was fifteen and the growth and changes in his own body surprised him daily.
And seventeen-year-old Emma strode next to him with confidence, her shiny strawberry blond hair swinging from a long ponytail as she elbowed her younger brother to tell him to pay attention to where he was going.
His gaze shifted back to Kate, who hustled a little faster as if she couldn’t wait to reach him, mirroring exactly what he was feeling.
Five feet apart, they hesitated for a split second, then both laughed softly as they came together for a hug.
