Page 43 of October
Now I felt like a house with no lights on. The walls were still there. The shape was familiar. But everything inside was dark and unfamiliar. Uninviting. Empty. I didn't realize I was trembling until I felt the small, steady hand on my arm. I turned. Jimmy looked up at me, his face soft with sleep, but his eyes sharper than any fourteen-year-old's had a right to be.
"We'll be okay, Mom," he said. Just six little words—but they held me up like scaffolding. Like truth.
Just like that... the lights flickered back on. I pulled him close and kissed the top of his head, breathing him in—apple shampoo and courage. "How could we not be, when I have an angel for a son? Go to bed, sweetheart." He gave a sleepy nod and padded off down the hall, dragging his blanket behind him like a knight retreating after battle.
I watched him until he disappeared into his room. Then I stayed by the door, the silence humming all around me, and let myself feel it all. The grief. The relief. The fragile hope blooming in the rubble. Maybe I didn't know exactly who I was without Thomas yet.
But I knew who I was with Jimmy, and for now, that was enough.
******
The doorbell rang just as I was rinsing out the chili pot. I wiped my hands on a towel, already halfway to the door when I peeked through the window, then I froze. It was them. My heartbeat stuttered, then galloped. I yanked the door open so fast it slammed into the wall behind me, but I didn't care.
"Mom!" I all but launched myself into her arms the second the door opened. Her coat was still half-on, and her suitcase bumped into my ankle, but none of it mattered. Her perfume, faint lavender and freshly washed linen hit me like muscle memory. A scent from childhood. A safe space in the storm.
I buried my face into her shoulder, fists clutching the back of her jacket, and for one beautiful, shattering moment... I wasn't a grown woman spiraling through a divorce. I was a little girl who scraped her knee on the driveway and needed her mom to kiss it better.
Safe. Held. Home.
Her arms wrapped around me tightly, no questions asked, just a steady hand at the nape of my neck and a soft, "Oh, sweetheart..." My chest crumpled. I didn't mean to start crying, but I couldn't stop it. The tears came fast, hot, full of everything I'd been keeping sealed up for weeks. The weight of pretending. The ache of being left. The quiet unraveling I didn't want anyone to see.
Then came Dad.
He stepped in beside her, face creased with that familiar no-nonsense concern that could make a person feel both fiercely loved and lightly scolded in a single glance. I turned to him, already reaching. No hesitation. He wasn't the most emotionally expressive man, never had been, but when his arms came around me, they were solid. Certain. Reassuring in a way that felt like the ground returning under my feet.
He didn't say much. Just rubbed a hand up and down my back once and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, like he used to when I had nightmares at age nine. And just like that, I let go.Of the house. Of the pain. Of Thomas. And I held onto the two people who had always loved me in the clearest, quietest way.
They were here. I wasn't alone anymore.
"Hi there, Ladybug," he murmured.
I laughed through the sting in my throat. "Come in, come in." I ushered them inside like I hadn't just fallen apart on the welcome mat.
Mom brushed her windblown hair out of her face and set her purse down carefully, like she didn't want to disturb the air in the room—or maybe me.
"I spoke to Jeanine," she said gently. Her voice was soft but steady—the kind that held a thousand unsaid things. "She called right after we got back from the cruise. Told me you might need us."
That was all it took. My lip trembled, and my breath caught. There was no point trying to act strong. Not here. Not with her.
"I do," I said, and the words cracked on the way out. "I really, really do."
The tears came before I could stop them—hot, sudden, and somehow heavier than any I'd cried before. I stumbled forward, and she caught me instantly, wrapping me up like she'd been waiting for this moment since the second I was born. Her arms felt like home. Like safety. Like something ancient and unconditional.
"I'm getting a divorce," I whispered, and even saying it felt like ripping something out of me.
She didn't flinch. Didn't tense. She just held me tighter, like she could protect me from the weight of the word by sheer will. No questions. No judgment. Just her—calm, warm, solid. A mother's love that didn't require explanations.
Behind us, I heard the scrape of Dad's shoe on the floor, followed by a very deliberate sigh.
"Well," he said in his usual dry tone, "I never liked the bloke."
"Joseph," Mom said, half reprimanding, half smiling.
"What?" he replied, hands already in the air like he was under oath in a courtroom drama. "I'm just saying what we're all thinking. The man's got the emotional depth of a damp sponge. Cold, calculating, zero warmth; he hugs like he's submitting a tax return. No eye contact, minimal effort, and he always looks like he's expecting a receipt afterward."
He shook his head and gave an exaggerated shiver. "Honestly, hugging him was like trying to get affection from a fax machine. I've seen warmer embraces from airport security."
"Joseph," Mom warned again, though this time she was trying not to smile.
