Page 33 of The Contractor's Rose
Rose didn’t say anything. Just nodded once, slow and understanding, before settling deeper into her chair like she knew I needed space to say it all.
So I did.
“I built this place a year after Vanessa died,” I said quietly, my voice heavier now. “The house we raised our daughter in … it turned into a prison after we lost her. For both of us. Teagan and I couldn’t breathe in it without choking on the memories. Our bedroom. The kitchen counter where she’d make Teagan eat her breakfast each morning, and where she’d leave me a thermos of black coffee with one piece of peppermint candy on top.” I gave a light laugh at the slight head tilt of confusion Rose gave. "She always said no one wanted to speak to someone with coffee breath.”
I rubbed a hand down my face.
“Vanessa’s parents tried to help. They came and packed things away, trying to make it easier. But it didn’t matter. Every corner of that place was haunted. Teagan and I were close before the accident. But after? It was like I became everything she resented in the world. She raged and rebelled, as I am sure you remember from the last year of high school.”
I looked over at Rose again. She hadn’t moved—just listened. Still and soft in the best kind of way.
“Then, one day, I saw the listing for this land. Your parents had just put it on the market. And I jumped. I needed a distraction. Something to do with my hands. Something that made sense.”
I swallowed hard.
“I also thought … maybe if I gave Teagan control over the design, the furniture, the finishes—maybe she’d like me again. Maybe she’d see I was trying. That I wanted us to be better. Which, saying out loud, sounds like I was trying to buy my daughter’s affection, which is fucked up. But I was out of options.” I took a breath and looked around the house again. “Clearly, it didn’t work. She just sent me a photo of a staged house from a past remodel and said it was fine. So here we are.”
Rose got up without a word and walked over to me. She climbed gently into my lap, arms winding behind my neck,and rested her head on my shoulder, leaving little space between her lips and the exposed skin above my collar.
The scent of her shampoo—vanilla with a hint of lemon, maybe—settled into me like peace. My arms found her waist on instinct.
“Teagan does love you,” she whispered against my skin. “Maybe not in the way she used to. But it’s still there.”
Her fingers found the nape of my neck and began to toy with the hairs there. Soft, calming strokes. I closed my eyes.
She pulled back just enough to look at me, one hand on my shoulder, the other pressed to the center of my chest.
“I know enough about the accident,” she said softly, “to know it wasn’t your fault.”
My breath caught. I didn’t speak. I just stared into those big brown eyes that were full of warmth, comfort, and understanding.
How did she know? How could she see this guilt that never loosened its grip?
I looked away, jaw clenched. She couldn’t know what I knew. What Iremembered. I was sure she’d heard bits and pieces from her parents, but not the full details.
Not the parts that kept me awake so many years later, on multiple occasions.
Ithadbeen my fault. All of it.
I’d been working late. Again. On some job I couldn’t even name now. Some house. Some family. Not mine. Not the one that mattered.
I’d been too busy to mow the lawn. To replace the fence post that had cracked the month before, when Teagan and her friends kicked a soccer ball too hard while practicing for their upcoming game. A game I was too busy to attend.
I was also too busy, too distracted, to replace the tires onVanessa’s car like I’d promised I would—the ones I’d been warned about. The ones I knew needed to be dealt with.
The ones the emergency crew said blew out on a curve that night in the rain.
She didn’t die because of bad luck. She died because I kept thinking there’d be time to fix it all later.
I hadn’t fixed a damn thing.
Rose brushed her thumb over my chest, over my heart, and it took everything in me not to fall apart under her touch.
She didn’t speak right away.
She just stayed there, holding me together while everything inside me cracked open a little more.
NINETEEN
