Page 113 of Came the Closest

And I do. Indi had eighteen years with our mother that I didn’t, but at the end of the day, it’s the same loss. The same void that no one, not even someone as instinctually maternal as Hazel, can fill. But maybe the hollowed void isn’t supposed to be filled. Maybe it’s there to remind us that, once upon a time, they were too.

“Keep your head held high, darling,” she murmurs, quoting our mother. I recite the second half with her. “That way you can cry, but the tears won’t fall.”

We don’t say and no one will see. It’s not about keeping our emotions locked up, it’s about not letting them get us down. If I’m going to cry about my late mother, I will do so while I remember the best parts of her, because I’ve spent the better half of my life trying to forget her.

“She’s here, Blue.” My voice rasps, but I continue anyway. “Not physically, maybe. But she’s in the best parts of each of us, and she’s in that locket.” I gesture to the gold necklace resting on my sister’s collarbone. “She’d be proud of you, too, Indi. Might not have said so, but she was. I know it.”

She sucks in a breath and nods. Footsteps echo on the dock behind us, signaling Jordan and Graham’s approach. Graham’s dark hair is damp, and Jordan’s hands are tucked in his pockets.

Neither of them says a word. They lower onto the dock, the four of us lined up on the dock with our faces tipped toward the sun. It feels like our mother is sitting right here with us, laughing at seagulls swooping across the lake, wrapping her slender arms around our shoulders, and murmuring I love you as she kisses the tops of our heads.

That evening, just as the sun begins its descent over glass-like water, I turn into the beach parking lot. It’s mostly empty, and the breeze whispers of summertime’s impending close, but we don’t mind. In a lake town, you hold on until you are forced to let go.

Cheyenne balloons a blanket onto the sand, and Indi pulls two Giorgi’s pizza boxes from the backseat of Tripp’s Bronco. Milo excitedly passes fruit punch Capri Sun pouches around to each of us, and cheese stretches from the pizza slice to his teeth. He laughs when I lean over to break it, making sauce dribble down his chin onto his bare belly. Cheyenne hands him a napkin, but Indi waves it away, saying she has a better idea. It just has to wait until we’re done eating. I kiss a spot of sauce from Cheyenne’s cheek, and Milo follows Indi’s lead when she pretends to gag.

Indi takes Milo’s hand in hers, and they run across the sand until they splash into the August-warm lake water. Milo’s contagious laughter lights up the evening, and Indi lets him dunk her under.

I glance at my wife, and she smiles knowingly. My shirt comes over my head and her Billabong shorts are left in the sand. Hand in hand, I steer her away from the shoreline to the dock jutting out from the beach.

“Colt,” she says breathlessly. “What are you doing?”

Smiling, I say, “Do you trust me?”

Warmth shines in her blue eyes. “Infinitely.”

We take off down the dock, boards sun-warmed beneath our sandy toes. We jump in, hands linked, the lake water soothing our sunburned skin.

Life isn’t perfect. If that were the case, flowers would no longer need rain, eyes would no longer need tears, and night would no longer need day.

But the four of us? Cheyenne, Milo, Indi, and myself?

I will tell anyone who asks about perfection that we came the closest.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Time To Let Go

Sam

May, Following Year

I became a grandfather for the first time on a scorching August day in Los Angeles, so hot the hospital’s HVAC couldn’t keep up. I’m not sure I sat still for thirty minutes during Chelsea’s labor and delivery, but hours later, Jolene Marie Del Ray entered the world with a cry that ensured everyone knew of her arrival. Jordan became a father, Colton and Graham became uncles, and I became a grandfather.

Today, on the fifth of May, I’m becoming a grandfather for the second time.

Instead of a hospital, we will file into the Falls County Courthouse for the final adoption hearing at one o’clock. A day that has been anticipated since Colton and Cheyenne filed their petition to adopt in August. Nine months of waiting and home visits and questioning if today would ever arrive.

Today, Colton is becoming a father, Jordan and Graham are becoming uncles, and I will once again be a grandfather. It’s not conventional; Milo is biologically my children’s half-brother and my stepson.

Our family isn’t known for conventionalism.

I turn onto the sleepy courthouse street and pull in behind Graham’s truck. Hazel lets me open her door, but she sets a hand on my arm before we can start walking. Catkins drift from a tree shading the hood of the Jaguar onto the cracked sidewalk beneath my dress shoes.

“Sam, wait.”

I tear my gaze away from Colton and Milo to meet hers. “Hmm?”

“Breathe.” She gently squeezes my forearm and twines her fingers through mine. “The last thing Colton and Cheyenne need is for you to be wound so tightly that you pass out. The waiting is over, my love.”

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