Page 78 of Colt
Fourteen days of dinners and conversations and careful, tentative touches that made my skin hum. He’d been gone for a day and a half in the middle of it—a quick run to Portland—and I hadn’t expected to care as much as I did. When he came back, I stood in Betty’s doorway and watched the boys throw themselves at him, and understood something I hadn’t been ready to say out loud: I’d been waiting too.
And memories. Small ones, slipping through the cracks in my mind like water through rock.
The first came when Colt was helping Knox with his bike chain, his hands covered in grease, his brow furrowed in concentration. Something about the image triggered a flash: those same hands, younger and less weathered, holding a wrench while a much younger version of me watched from a porch step.
“You’re staring, Lil.”
“Maybe I like the view.”
He grinned up at me, grease on his cheek. “Come down here and say that.”
The memory was gone as fast as it came, leaving me breathless and aching for more.
The second came when Colt brought me flowers—daisies, like always—and when his fingers brushed mine as I took them, I felt the echo of a hundred other flower exchanges.“First anniversary. First of many.”A cheap motel room that had felt like paradise. The scratch of his stubble against my neck.
I’d gasped, and Colt had frozen, his eyes searching my face.
“Another memory?”
I’d nodded, not trusting my voice.
“What did you see?”
“Us. Happy.” I’d pressed the flowers to my chest. “Really, really happy.”
?
By the end of the first week, I’d stopped counting the memories.
They came without warning—triggered by a smell, a sound, the particular angle of light through a window. Most were small: a shared meal, a quiet moment on a porch, the weight of his arm around my shoulders. But each one settled into place like a puzzle piece, building a picture of the life I’d lost.
And alongside those remembered moments, new ones were forming.
Colt brought coffee to my door every morning. Then he’d show up again after school, just in time to help with homework or take the boys to practice. He asked Betty if there was anything she needed done around the house, then did it before she could argue.
“You don’t have to do all this,” I told him one evening, watching him sand down the railing he’d just repaired.
“I know.” He didn’t look up from his work. “I want to.”
“Why?”
That made him pause. He set down the sandpaper and finally met my eyes.
“Because for seven years, you did everything alone. Raised our sons, built a life, held it all together without any help.” His voice was rough. “I can’t get those years back. But I can make damn sure you never need for anything again.”
“Colt…”
“You don’t have to say anything.” He picked up the sandpaper again. “Just let me be useful.”
I watched him work in the fading light, and for the first time, I didn’t try to separate the man in front of me from the man in my fragmented memories. They were the same person. The husband who’d worshiped me years ago and the man who showed up every day to prove he still did.
?
On Friday night, we had our third real date.
Not dinner with the boys, or an evening on Betty’s porch. Just the two of us, at a little jazz club Indira had recommended.
Colt had dressed up—button-down shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his cut left behind for the evening. He looked almost nervous as we settled into a corner booth, the music soft and smoky around us.
