Page 11 of Came the Closest

“I said it’s a possibility,” Jordan corrects. “And you are not needy, Jolene Marie.”

“Uh-oh,” Graham says, lifting his brows. “He brought out the middle name, too.”

“Tell you what, kiddo,” Dad says, leaning his weight into the handle of a shovel, its nose in the soft earth. “If you help your Uncle Colton get snacks and water for everyone, I’ll give you five dollars towards your goal.”

Jolene’s blue eyes get big. “Really?”

Dad nods. “Really.”

“Oh, my gosh, c’mon, Uncle Coat!” Jolene tugs on my hand impatiently, her sneakers digging into the grass. “We gotta get snacks! And you’re taller than me, so you can reach Daddy’s Oreos from the top shelf!”

This time, Jordan must decide it’s not worth the fight to object because he says nothing. He just points at his eyes, then Jolene’s, before he mouths I love you to her. Jolene does the same, but she says the words slightly under her breath instead of silently, and I realize they’re saying olive juice. Because of course, they are.

My chest aches a little as I let Jolene tug me across the yard. I won’t ever have that—the inside jokes laced with bone deep child/parent affection—because I’m not a father. I’m not cut out for fatherhood, but I think what ifs will always run through my head.

What if I could’ve been a good dad? What if I get to the end of my life and I’m lonely because I don’t have a family of my own?

What if Cheyenne and I had worked out?

I have no business thinking such thoughts, but I’m only a man. I can’t help it. Grieving the loss of a person who’s still alive is perhaps one of the deepest, most incomprehensible griefs of them all.

“Okay, you gotta get the Oreos. I’ll get the water.” Jolene drops my hand once we’ve stepped through the sliding glass door into Dad’s house.

I blink to adjust my eyes, and I frown when I watch Jolene pull herself up onto the counter. “Woah, kid. Let’s use plastic cups, okay?”

Jolene looks at the real glasses she started pulling from the cupboard. “But these are like the cups Aunt Ember uses for her garden party book clubs.”

“Everyone’s all sweaty from working today,” I say, but I don’t miss how she refers to my brother’s fiancée as aunt, “so maybe we should save the garden party theme for after the dock is done. Then Ember can help with it since she’s so good at them.”

“Ooh, then Uncle Graham can make lemonade for it,” she exclaims, stuffing the glasses back in the cupboard. “Good idea! I’ll get the Soda cups from the stack in Grandpa’s office.”

Before I can ask why there’s a stack of, presumably, Solo cups in my dad’s office, Jolene takes off down the hallway. She tosses an, “I’m not running, I’m speedwalking!” over her shoulder, and I laugh to myself as I weave around the island.

I have no idea which cupboard Jordan keeps his Oreos in. I’m not familiar with Dad’s kitchen anymore. I came over today for the solace of the lake, but when I’m in town, I stay at Graham’s. It’s quiet, Graham is also quiet, and I don’t run into reminders of my not-so-idyllic childhood everywhere I turn.

I’ve just opened the fourth cupboard—neat rows of spices on one shelf, pancake mix on the other—when the doorbell echoes from the entryway. My first thought is that it might be Hazel Palmer, my dad’s neighbor and childhood sweetheart turned stranger turned soon-to-be fiancé, but she doesn’t knock. I don’t know the woman well. I just know she softens Dad’s rough edges and that he loves her, so I try to be happy for them.

Easier said than done when the parallels in my life are a little too similar.

“I’ll get it!” Jolene hollers.

“You don’t know who it—” By the time I’ve made it around the corner, Jolene has already flung the front door wide open. I stare at the person standing on the front porch. “Indi?”

“Aunt Indi!” Jolene exclaims, nearly levitating with excitement. Whether from Dad’s promise of money or the reappearance of her aunt after nearly five months, I’m not sure. “You’re back! Grandpa’s gonna get a new boat!”

My sister offers Jolene a light smile, but it doesn’t reach the corners of her pale blue eyes like it should. Her blonde hair rests just below her slender shoulders, held back by sleek-looking black sunglasses, and she wears light gray cotton shorts with a cropped red tank top. My mother’s gold locket still rests on her collarbone, and she has the same determined tilt of her jaw, but it isn’t until she steps slightly to the side that I see him.

The little boy standing slightly behind Indi with a stuffed bear in his arms, pale blond curls around his ears and freckles dotting the bridge of his nose, a brown stain in the material of his tiny blue sweatshirt.

“Yeah,” Indi says softly, resting a hand on the boy’s shoulder, “I’m back.”

Chapter Five

Shark Print Pajamas

Colton

Before Indi says anything more, I know something. I don’t know how, and I don’t know what she’s going to say. I just know that whatever she says is going to change my life forever.

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