Am I scared shitless of being stuck in another situation like the festival? Absolutely. I don’t know that I ever will get over these feelings. But do I want to let these people who don’t matter keep me away from my family and the love of my life? Because I’m afraid that’s what he is. The one I’ll never get over.
The man who only ever wanted someone to stay for him.
I spent my adult life craving a family. I looked for a man who could give me one. Chased stability and peace above all else. And when I received my diagnosis, my dream was destroyed; not just because I couldn’t have children, but mostly because deep down, I knew it meant I’d never have the family I’d always yearned for.
Except I do have a family. One that’s chaotic and rough, but one that’s also filled with so much love.
I glance at my phone, the call now gone to voicemail, then to the scrapbook. There was happiness there. There always was.
I leave the picture books on the floor. I don’t have time to pick them all up.
Within five minutes, I’m back in my car.
Chapter 42
I’m exhausted by the time I cross the sign welcoming me to Cape Weston. If the drive to New York was a blur of trees and overpass graffiti, this one was spent worrying over everything I got wrong, all through the night. My brain was fried halfway through Massachusetts.
I don’t make a conscious decision on where to go first. It’s as if my body takes over, and around the last stretch of dawn, I turn into my sister’s driveway. As much as I want to get to Eli, I need to know things with Keira will be okay first. After I read Ruth’s card, her words stuck with me, but mostly because they applied to Keira, too. So many people around her left, and she’s stayed strong and present for everyone through it all. Her own sister shouldn’t have done it, and while I can’t change the past, I can make sure she knows I’m here now.
The smell of brine and petrichor that’s omnipresent in town doesn’t hit me as hard as it did at the beginning of summer, but it still feels like a warm embrace across my skin. It feelsright. I’ve only been gone a week, but it feels longer when I come across the toys scattered across the lawn, and even more so when my sister’s face appears in the doorway.
“Cassie?” Keira asks, not as abruptly as I’d expected, but more as if in shock.
“Auntie Cass!” a high-pitched voice calls before my legs are wrapped in a bear hug.
“Hey, Xav,” I say, my chest squeezing at all the love poured into a single touch, especially from this one who was harder to reach. The time it takes for Keira to tell him to go back inside is another indicator of her stupor.
When we’re alone, she keeps her gaze on the ground as she asks, “What is this? I thought I was clear I don’t want any of this on-and-off thing.”
I swallow. This was never going to be easy.
“I know. And I don’t, either.”
She glances up.
“I’m so sorry, Keir. For leaving again. For everything, actually. I… You’re the last person I want to hurt.”
“But you did.” She crosses her arms. “Again.”
“I know.” I won’t make excuses for it, either. She knows why I left, but that was never enough of a justification for her.
“So what? You’ve come back to tell me this?”
“I’ve come back to stay.”
“Pardon me?”
“I’m done running, Keir."
If I wasn’t sure before, the moment the words slip out of my lips, I know they’re true. Iwantto be here, not because of the place, but because Keira and the kids and Eli are home.
Her nostrils flare. “For good?”
“For good.”
She stares for a few seconds while blinking fast, her lips pinched tight, then glances behind me. “You can’t be here.”
“What?”
