“You were in your own little world,” said Ariel.
“I must be tired too.” Ariel came to take Artemis from me.
Sebastian let Molly help him to his feet.
“The last few days really took their toll,” he said quietly. “You guys spent so much time with me in the hospital. We all need to sleep for a week.”
“I hope you will,” said Ariel as she walked us outside. Tag led us to his SUV. “I left a U-shaped body pillow in Stone’s cabin for you. It was really useful for me when I was pregnant. I washed the cover, of course, but also the pillow, and I beat the heck out of it until the feathers were fluffy again. I thought it might help you find a comfortable position to sleep in.”
Sebastian looked like he might cry. “Thank you very much. I’m sorry if I’m going to be a big drip for a while.”
Ariel put her arm around him. “You’re fine. Drip away.”
Molly and Sebastian followed Tag, but Ariel stopped me on the porch.
She took my hand. “You should probably know that Serena called yesterday. She sent Artemis a lovely gift and a box of Sadie’s baby things.”
“I see.”
“There will never, ever be a better time for you to reconnect with your family.”
“One crisis at a time, Ari.” I tried to pull away, but even holding a baby, Ari wasn’t that easy to get around.
“Is Serena a crisis to you? Are your children a crisis?”
“Ari—” I couldn’t look at her. “Can’t we just talk about this later?”
“No, baby. Not this time. You know what I see on your face when you look at Sebastian? I see spring. I see hope. I see a man coming back to life. Caring about someone else, even a stranger, can do that for you.”
“I’m not—” I stammered. “We’re not—”
“Caring about Sebastian, putting his wellbeing before your comfort, has pulled you from all the old fears and resentments of the past and forced you to live in the present moment for the first time since I've known you.”
“So what?” I asked tersely. “Will Serena resent me any less for the pain I caused her? Will I seem like less of a monster to the kids just because I’m trying to help a sick friend?”
Ariel gave me a wounded look. “One thing for certain is you won’t know for sure until you reach out andask.”
“It’s too late.”
She gripped me tighter. “But what if it isn’t?”
“Ari. I couldn’t handle it if they rejected me. Not again.”
“But what if they don’t?”
She cupped the side of my face and brushed her thumb over the ripples of scars there. She even—God help me—pushed my eye patch out of the way and laid bare the whole gory reality that was my face and smiled warmly at me.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t look away.
Tears spilled from my good eye, but I didn’t push her away as I once would have.
Tag honked. “Let him go, Ariel. You can interrogate him later.”
I thought I’d lost everything, but it turned out that this—the idea, the possibility that someday my children and I could come together as an extended family—was the chip I’d kept hidden in my pocket.
As long as I held on to that, I still had something.
If I gambled now, if I played my last chip and lost, there really would be nothing holding me in place anymore. Not a single thing would remain of the life I’d had for thirty years.
