Page 19 of Just (Fake) Married
“Hi, Uncle Ethan,” she said, rolling her eyes. I was great for making women roll their eyes at me today. “I’m only twelve.”
“Who are you?” That from the blonde boy standing behind Taylor.
“Luke,” Carter scolded. “This is your Uncle Ethan, visiting from Seattle.”
Before I could say anything, Luke took off at high speed for the kitchen at the back of the house.
Carter’s youngest, Zoe, who’d been just a baby when Lilly died, came around Taylor’s long legs to show me the oversized stuffed pillow pet she carried that reminded me of the alpacas I’d seen earlier.
“This is George,” she said. I reached out and shook one of George’s four legs.
“Nice to meet you, George. I’m Uncle Ethan.”
“He can’t talk,” Zoe informed me.
There was a crash in the kitchen, and Luke came running back into the room with a cookie in each hand.
“What broke?” Carter asked his son.
“Nothing,” Luke said, and took a bite of the cookie. “The stool fell over.”
There they were, my nieces and nephew. I’d seen pictures, of course. Posts on social media. FaceTime during holidays, but it wasn’t the same.
I should have come home sooner.
“Are you here because Pop-pop died?” Zoe asked me.
All I could do was nod.
She leaned against her dad’s leg and Carter rustled her messy blond curls. She looked up at him with so much hero worship, it almost made me emotional.
My father would never have been able to do what Carter did when Lilly died.
Carter had stopped everything else in his life to just be a dad. Raising three kids on his own, responsible for every decision. I still don’t know how he handled it all. Along with his own grief.
I felt the stab of regret that I had not been around more to help. I should have put my sense of guilt aside and been morepresent. I wondered if every doctor felt this kind of responsibility when someone in their family died young. I could have checked in more. Reached out more. Set them up with more and more consultations. Made a nuisance of myself with my colleagues.
Anything to save my brother’s beloved wife and the amazing mother of his children.
A squabble broke out between Luke and Zoe over the remaining cookie in Luke’s hand. Zoe leaned over to take a bite out of it and Luke yanked it back, causing a sound in Zoe like a tea kettle about to blow.
“Taylor,” Carter said. “Take your brother and sister into the kitchen and ask Mrs. Walker if there are any more cookies.”
The oldest corralled the two younger kids back to the kitchen.
In the silence left behind, I took off my boots out of habit.
Memories of my mother hollering:You track cow shit into this house, boys, and it will be the last thing you do still haunted me to this day.
“What are those things?” Carter asked, staring down at my boots.
“Hiking boots,” I said. They were the sturdiest foot apparel I had in my closet at home.
Carter and Tag of course wore old cowboy boots, so worn in they could probably sleep in them.
“You do a lot of hiking in ‘em?” Tag asked.
“No,” I said. “But every citizen of Seattle gets a pair when they move in.”
