Page 145 of Never Alone
I touched her elbow.
"He's going to be fine, Tessa. Take a breath."
She nodded and took a breath.
The front door opened before we got to the steps.
Jamie was in the doorway with Noah behind her. She was half blocking the doorway and Noah, because she hadn't known whether Tessa or he wanted to be seen first. Noah was a head shorter than Jamie's hip, and he was already trying to come around her.
Then he saw Tessa.
And his face did that thing.
He ducked under Jamie's arm, came down the steps at a run, and threw himself at Tessa's middle.
She caught him with both arms and went down on one knee on the walk and held him against her chest the way she'd held him at the door of the apartment the night the fire happened. The bag had landed somewhere I hadn't watched. She had her face in his hair, her eyes shut, and her shoulders were doing something I didn't have a word for.
I stayed back and let it happen.
The house was full inside.
Aunt Jenna in the armchair by the window. Quinn coming through from the kitchen with a tray of mugs. Carol on the couch. Sean at the mantle with both hands in his pockets.
I stopped in the doorway.
I had not asked anyone to come. Sam already had.
"Cole." Aunt Jenna was up off the chair and across the room before I'd set my keys down. She caught my good arm—the one not in the sling—and held on. She didn't hug me. She didn't even try.
"Aunt Jenna."
"You're an idiot." Her hand tightened on my arm where she'd caught it. Her voice came out even, the way it always did when she was furious and trying not to show it.
"I know."
"You scared me." She looked up at me. Her eyes were wet, and she wasn't going to let any of it fall. "Don't do that again."
"I know."
I meant it. I'd have said it again. And again.
She let go. She held the air between us a beat longer, like she had more to say and had decided not to say it. Then she looked past me.
Tessa had come in behind me with Noah's hand in hers. I watched Aunt Jenna take her in. The tired face. The boy half-hidden against her leg. The way she was holding still, like she wasn't yet sure she was allowed to be in this house.
Her face went all the way soft.
"Honey."
Tessa was crying again. I had watched her trying to stop on the drive back, and now she had stopped. Aunt Jenna crossed to her and folded Tessa against her shoulder the way she folded everyone she loved, and Noah, who had not let go of his mother's hand, was now in the small space between the two of them with his head against his mother's hip.
Sean was watching from the mantle.
He nodded at me when I caught his eye. Once.
I crossed the room to him. The ribs reminded me of what they thought of crossing rooms. Sean watched me make the walk without moving. No offered hand. No step forward. No fuss. He was letting me come.
"Sean."
