Page 86 of Kilt Trip

He huffed in amusement. “I thought you might.”

“I have the pictures from your honeymoon, the ones that are just Mom—”

“Looking for wonder?”

Addie could hear the smile in his voice.

He hadn’t shut down. She nearly tripped on the rocky shore from the mix of excitement and relief.

“Yeah. I’ve been trying to find where they were taken...” If she was going to invest in this relationship, she had to take some responsibility for the way things had been between them. She had to give a little, too. “I needed to reconnect with her or something.”

“I do that, too. The balloon festival, the arch in the desert where we got married. I understand that need to keep her memory alive, to relive those happy moments. Honestly, I’m really glad you’re doing that.”

Addie’s eyes brimmed with tears. They’d both been searching for what they’d lost, all alone.

“I know it’s hard for you to talk about her, but I’ve been filling in the blanks on the stories. Will you tell me about that trip?”

“It’s getting easier to talk about her. Could you text me the pictures? I’d love to see them again.”

“Sure.” Every instinct in Addie told her this was a bad idea. Seeing old photos stirred up the kind of feelings that tipped him over the edge, that made him pull back from her, no different than Post-it Note reminders written in loopy cursive or a rediscovered collection of beach glass.

But she was so hungry for his stories, desperate to know where the last photo was taken, and so damn encouraged by the way he was talking to her that Addie pulled up the pictures in her camera roll, tapped on all four, and sent them.

A scratchiness like a microphone meeting fabric came over the line followed by a completely unnecessary number of frustrated grunts for the task of switching between applications while on a phone call. Addie’s breathing quickened, waiting for that stilted cadence to reenter Brian’s voice, that first sign of withdrawal.

“That damn cannon.” He laughed, and Addie’s heart took flight. He wasn’t shrinking back. “She did this at every castle we visited. Worked her way up to standing on one like a surfboard by the end.”

A grin stretched across Addie’s face. She could picture that so clearly.

“God, we were young,” he said with a huff of amusement. “The one with the lake is Loch Ness. She insisted we rent a canoe even though it was stormy as hell. We paddled out, the wind pelting us with rain, and sat there shivering while she scanned the water for any sign of the monster with her old binoculars.”

Addie’s throat tightened. She knew her mom wouldn’t have forgotten the binoculars on such an important occasion, but the story was even better than she’d imagined. “That sounds just like her.”

“She was sure Nessie was kind and shy, that she must be lonely all on her own and just needed someone to believe in her.”

Addie smiled through her tears and glanced over her shoulder at Logan. Maybe that was all she’d needed, too.

“Honestly, I’m shocked we didn’t get hypothermia.” Brian sniffed. “This one by the river... I got us horribly lost in the Highlands. We fought the entire time. I kept turning and ending up in the wrong lane, and she’d shriek and stab a finger toward the other side of the road.” He let out a loud breath like he was relieving the stress Addie could very much relate to. “I knew our marriage could survive anything after driving in Scotland, but it was dicey there for a minute.”

“I drove up yesterday and thought I was going to kill us.”

Logan had been beyond patient and nurturing. If the Highland roads were some sort of relationship test, he’d passed with flying colors.

“It’s not for the faint of heart.”

Something warm blossomed between them, a shared experience when, for so long, it had been a strained recounting of separate lives. It didn’t undo the past, but the rosy tones of a watercolor picture swirled in Addie’s heart and made her feel less alone.

“Heather,” he said, sounding far away, clearly looking at the last picture, the one where her gaze held so much love. The longing and hurt in his voice, even muffled in the background, pierced Addie’s heart, so all the longing and hurt she still held poured out in tandem. “I miss her so much. Every day.”

“I do, too,” Addie whispered, her throat thick.

This is what they should have done in the first place, shared their pain, grieved together, leaned on each other. Shared their stories and fears. They should have gotten closer, not closed each other out.

“She was so full of life, of hope, always looking for the beauty in every little thing.” His voice turned wistful.

“I loved that most about her.”

“Me, too.”

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