Page 52 of Promise Me This

She shoulders the door open and steps into the room, casting her gaze along the flowered wallpaper and high beams, then on my clothes hanging in the open wardrobe across the room and a particularly messy bed that I’m suddenly embarrassed for her to see.

“Daddy doesn’t make me fix the bed either,” she muses, padding over to it and hopping up. She perches at the edge with her feet dangling and smiles at me.

“Oh, he doesn’t?” I can’t help it; I smile, too. Despite the particularly dark bit of memory lane I was just traveling down, Niamh’s presence diverts my path, and now I’m seeing another, more pleasant recollection. “That’s probably because he doesn’t like making his bed, either.”

Her eyes go big, and her mouth forms a small O, which shows off the gap in her front teeth. “How did you know?”

I shrug, dismissing the mental image of Callum’s messy room in the manor where we both lived. “Lucky guess.”

She shakes her head, completely amazed. Kids are so easily impressed. Peering past me to the desk, she asks, “Whatcha writing?”

I glance at the journal and my smile falters. “I was writing a letter to someone.”

“Your daddy?”

The edges of the spring flowers on its cover begin to blur. “No, not my daddy.”

“Your…mam?” Her voice is soft, hesitant. It draws my gaze back to her even as it turns my heart on its head.

“No, Niamh, not my mom either.”

Her eyebrows, which had been perched high on her forehead, scrunch together in response. “I don’t have a mam.”

I cross my arms over the arched back of the wooden dining-chair-turned-desk-chair and rest my chin on the apex. “I’m sorry.” I may not know children, at least anymore, but I do know grief. Perhaps in this way I have something to offer her. “I know it’s not the same, but you do have Siobh—your granny. I never had grandparents growing up, and I would’ve loved to hang out with a cool grandma every day.”

She giggles, but her gaze falls to the floor. “I don’t really miss her. I don’t know her.”

She doesn’t have a lot of words, at almost five years old, to explain how she feels, but those simple ones crack something open inside me. Turn the air in my lungs to needles that prick me with every breath.

“Hey,” I say, drawing her gaze back to me. It’s misty and wide-open, those golden rings shining in a sea of green. It’s like looking into a warped mirror, where I’m younger and things are different colors, but the feeling is the same. “She really missed out, because I know you, and I think you’re pretty great.”

She grins and wipes at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “You’re pretty great, too.” Her head tilts the way her father’s does sometimes when he’s curious. “Are you somebody’s mam?”

I press my lips together, swallowing the thick sorrow that rises into my throat. There’s pride, too, underneath. Pride that I am, in fact, someone’s mom. But I can’t explain it to Niamh, and I certainly can’t explain it to Callum. Not yet.

It’s what I was trying to tell Poppy. That I had the moment to be honest, to come clean, and I didn’t take it. Because I’m selfish.

Because I’m afraid.

I shake my head, loosening the bolts of worry and tension and sadness. Niamh takes it for an answer and hoists herself off the bed. “The roast is ready. Granny sent me to get you.”

“Oh good,” I reply, rising from the chair. “I’m starving.”

She swings open my door and launches down the stairwell, frightening me with her speed. I bound after her, barely remembering to yank the door shut behind me. She’s already to the bottom floor when I round the landing above it, but I stop in my tracks when I see two sets of eyes trained on me as I take to the last flight.

Niamh disappears into the kitchen, past Siobhan, who stands guarding the doorway with her hands perched on her hips, but all I can see is Callum. He’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, which is heaving with the effort to breathe. A deep, velvety pleasure licks at my spine when I realize my mere presence is making it hard for him to take in air.

His lips part softly, and I draw my own in between my teeth. His hair has this permanent windswept look, showing off the various shades of gold and buttery yellow and even undertones of rich brown. Beneath his glasses, I watch his gaze trace the length of me and come up sparkling with satisfaction. He’s wearing a tight-fitting quarter-zip sweater in a shade of cream that hides no contour, conceals no muscle.

“I’m happy for you two,” Siobhan says, cutting into the tunnel vision I’ve developed for her son. I blush, glancing at her just as she turns to Callum and adds, “I don’t need to know the details, just wanted you to know you’re not sly.” She murmurs something else to him that I can’t quite make out and then turns to the kitchen door, casting a wink in my direction before disappearing inside.

I force my body to move once more, one foot in front of the other bringing me closer to where Callum waits for me by the kitchen door. He’s watching every movement my body makes, and I feel myself preen at his attention, desperate to let that glow warm every part of me. The dream I had last night, which resulted in my messy bedding, returns to the forefront of my mind, replacing the sadness I’d been wallowing in before Niamh marched into my room.

It was the first time I’d dreamed of anything other than the baby and actually remembered it after waking up. In the cool, silvery winter sunlight I woke, the taste of Callum’s tongue lingering on my own. The scent of rain and soap and sweat filled my nostrils, and my breath came in shallow gasps.

Before I know it, I’m in front of him, peering up into the endless fields of evergreen grass that reside in his eyes. A lazy half smile tugs at his lips, and it emphasizes the scar in his chin. I want to lick it so badly I have to bite my tongue or I’m afraid that I might.

“How’d you sleep?” I ask. It’s the first thing that comes to mind. I can feel the heat rising to the tips of my ears, can see his gaze cut straight to the telltale marker of my embarrassment, so I take a moment to focus on anything else. Unfortunately for me, that focus falls straight to his body, which is now so close.

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