Page 67 of Tragic (Lark Cove 3)

“No big deal.”

I wouldn’t admit how good her apology felt. Because that would mean admitting how much it had hurt when she’d left.

“I’ve held all this in for a long time,” she said quietly. “My parents don’t even know about the infertility stuff. When I was married, they kept asking me when we’d give them grandchildren. My mom was so eager, she learned how to knit because she wanted lots of time to practice making baby blankets. I didn’t have it in me to break their hearts, not when mine was broken too.”

“Understandable.”

“Maybe.” She shook her head. “But I should tell them. I will tell them. Maybe. Eventually.”

I wish I had some advice to give when it came to relationships with parents, but mine was so fucked up, it was better to keep my mouth shut.

Never in a million years would I have thought I’d go more than two days without talking to my mom. She’d once been my best friend. When I was having a rough day, she was the first person I thought to call. When I had good news to share, she was the person I wanted to take out to dinner and celebrate. She was the person I’d wanted to make proud.

But as it was, I hadn’t spoken to Mom in three years. Anger had kept me away. And fear.

I was terrified to look at her face and see only disappointment for how I’d handled things.

Handled was too generous a term. I hadn’t handled anything.

I’d run away.

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Piper asked rhetorically. “I’ve come to terms, or I am coming to terms, with everything. I’m lucky that Thea and Logan have three beautiful kids who I can spoil rot

ten as Aunt Piper. And I hope Owen settles down one day too and has some children I can love, even if it’s from a distance.”

“What about adoption?”

She shrugged. “I could look into it, but I don’t know if they’d approve a single parent. And is that really fair to the kid? To live a life without a father?”

“I was raised by a single mom.”

“Oh, yeah? Did you ever feel like you were missing something?”

“As a little kid? No. She was my everything. But as I got older, I became the man of the house. It would have been nice to have had a few years as just a teenager.”

It would have been nice to have someone to lean on as an adult through the hard times.

Once I’d hit twenty-five, something in my relationship with Mom had changed. In a way, I’d become the parent. I’d fixed things around the house that were broken and made sure the oil in her car was changed regularly. I’d added her grocery list to my own and delivered food to her house on Sundays. I’d even started balancing her checkbook because it was the one task she’d always griped about in my youth.

Mom seemed glad to let me take the wheel. I didn’t blame her. She’d put in so many long hours for so many long years, it was probably nice to have someone else drive for a change.

But when the world turned black and the numbness settled in, she hadn’t been there to pull me through.

She’d made the wrong choice. She’d crushed me.

So I’d come here to suffer alone.

Then I’d gotten a neighbor.

“I’m here.” Kaine knocked on the camper door with three hard thuds.

“Coming!” I hopped on one leg as I pulled my foot into a tennis shoe. “One sec!”

“Take your time,” he called back.

I bounced over to the couch, sitting to tie up the laces. My fingers fumbled with excitement. Kaine was here to take me on a hike this afternoon and then I was cooking us dinner.

In the two weeks since my confession on Kaine’s front porch, we’d settled into an odd sort of friendship. Well, odd for me. I’d never been friends with a man who I’d had sex with after the sex had stopped.