Chapter Two
Present Day
“Ruby. Jax. It’s time to wake up, guys,” I said gently as I flipped on the light switch, just like I had done every school day for the last three months. And like most days, neither one of the kids budged. They slept like rocks and woke up slower than molasses. I walked to the foot of Ruby’s bed and sat down slowly, trying not to jar her.
“Ruby, sweetie, time to get ready for school.” I reached out and rubbed my hand gently down her back, feeling her finally wake up a little underneath my touch. “Come on, Rubster. Time to wake up.” I watched as she stretched, her head of brown, curly hair emerging from under the covers, little hands reaching out as if to hold on to sleep a little bit longer.
“Aunt Evie?” she asked, her voice heavy with sleep.
“Yes, baby?”
“How many days until summer break?”
I laughed. Ruby loved school, but she loved sleep more. “Quite a few, honey. You’ve got two months left.” A loud groan came from under her blanket. Then I heard her brother grumble too, although, he was less resistant to waking up.
“Jaxy, you awake?”
“Yeah,” came his little voice from the other side of the room. When Liv and Devon had first gotten married, they purchased a smaller, two-bedroom house. That had worked fine for them for a while. A couple years later, however, when Jaxy was born, they started to feel just a little cramped. When they finally moved into a bigger house, Ruby had cried and cried when they told her she was going to get her own room. She was devastated she wouldn’t be sharing a room with her baby brother any longer. So, just like any parent trying to deal with a four-year-old’s tantrum, they gave her what she wanted. Ruby and Jax had shared a room since his birth and Liv and Devon figured eventually one or both of them would want their own space. When that time came, there was a spare bedroom waiting for one of them.
“Okay, kiddos, let’s get up and get going.”
This was our routine. Every school day, I came over to get the kids ready in the morning. Devon was here, but he had to leave for work before the school bus came. Before, Liv would have been here doing this – being a mom – but I stepped in after the funeral as a way to help. Liv had been a stay-at-home mom and loved every minute of it. So, in her absence, Jax had recently adjusted to going to preschool. Another heartbreaking change to his regular routine. But he was a trooper. Both of them were.
“You guys get dressed and meet me downstairs for breakfast.”
I had just finished packing Ruby’s lunch when I heard the unmistakable sounds of Devon coming down the stairs. Longer strides, heavier footfalls. It was only moments before I saw his frame fill the doorway from the living room to the kitchen.
“Good morning, Evie,” he said when he saw me. That morning, not unusually, there was a smile on his face. It wasn’t the best smile I’d ever seen him wear, but he was slowly improving.
“Morning,” I responded, smiling back at him. He turned sideways to squeeze between the kitchen counter and me, and I had the same thought I’d had for ten years whenever he was close. I remembered him as he was the first time I met him, shirtless and huge. I hadn’t known it at the time, but he was a player for the college football team, which explained his size. After college, however, when his job became more of the suit and tie variety, his bulk went away. He was still tall, and still very much an overwhelming presence, but he wasn’t nearly as huge as he used to be. What I’d seen from summers at the lake house, Devon was still built and still had every muscle imaginable, they were just less enormous now.
“You’ll be here when Ruby gets off the bus this afternoon, right?” he asked as he grabbed a mug out of the cupboard.
“Oh.” I paused and turned to him. “Remember last week when I told you I couldn’t be here this afternoon? I have a meeting with a client. Remember?”
“Shit,” he whispered, closing his eyes. I hated this. I hated this part. The part where I could see the ache in him, could see how much he missed his wife. I knew that was what was going through his head. He would first berate himself for not being able to remember our conversation, and then he would think about how none of this would be a problem if Liv were still alive. I hated that even though I did everything I could for him, for his kids, I was never enough.
“I can cancel,” I said quickly, trying to smooth over the situation, to fix it before it caused him any more pain. “Or reschedule. It’s really not a big deal.” I waved my hand, as if I could magically erase the agony that came with losing his wife and all the pain in the aftermath. If I could have waved it away, I would have. Devon had suffered a lot in the last three months and sometimes, I was at a loss as to how to help him. But I could cancel my meeting.
“Evie,” he said, his voice so low and so sad. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Giving things up for us. Rearranging your life for us. It’s not fair to you.” His back was to me and I was facing away from him, but the tension in the room was zipping between us like lightening.
“It’s really not a big deal,” I said as I turned my attention back to the lunches I was preparing. Just like every other time since I’d met him, his rejection hurt me in a way I didn’t like to acknowledge. I knew Devon cared about me, knew from the moment we met I was important to him, but I felt differently for him and I always had.
“Are you sure?” he asked, even though his tone made it clear he wasn’t.
“What other choice do we have?” My work was very much fluid and I was my own boss. I had no one to answer to besides my clients. Devon worked for a corporate conglomerate and the chances of him coming home early were slim. He’d taken a lot of time off when Liv had been sick, and then again when she had died, and even though his job was understanding to a point, he’d used up all the time allotted to him for the death of his wife and had none to spare. There was a long pause, and the silence was filled with so much angst and emotion. Perhaps, and most likely, I was the only one feeling everything between us. After all, that was usually the way it worked. I watched from afar with a veil over my real emotions, only letting the outside see what I wanted to show, while on the inside I was waging a war I never wanted to fight. What other option did we have? I’d had a thousand options. But I gave them all up when I decided to bury my emotions.
“All right,” he finally sighed. “But this is the last time, Evelyn.”
Something dangerous rolled through my body when he used my full name. Just another feeling to bury.
I turned my head just enough to meet his eyes over my shoulder. I smiled at him. He didn’t return it, just stared at me over his cup of coffee. Before either of us looked away, two small children came bounding into the kitchen, running directly to their father.
“Dad, Jax didn’t change his underwear,” Ruby tattled as she wrapped her arms around her father’s middle. I smiled at the image and then turned again to the lunches.
“Jax, did you put on clean underwear?” Devon’s fatherly tone indicated he already knew the answer to his question.
“I looked in my drawer and there was none.”
“Shit,” Devon murmured. “I forgot to do the laundry again.”
“Jaxy, I think I put a load in the dryer yesterday afternoon. Why don’t you go check?” I held my breath, knowing Devon would view this as me doing too much. I couldn’t help it. He needed my help. I listened as Ruby told her father about the tigers she was learning about in school, and as she jabbered, he inserted the appropriate responses.
I turned to watch Jax run through the kitchen on his way back upstairs as he yelled, “Found some!” and waved his clean underwear over his head.
Breakfast was served, lunches were packed, and as Ruby, Jax, and I sat at the table laughing at something Jax had said, Devon walked through the kitchen, stopping to kiss both of his children on the head as he passed.
“Ruby, be good for Aunt Evie this afternoon, and Jax, I’ll pick you up from preschool on my way home.”
“Bye, Daddy,” Ruby said with a smile.
“Can we have pizza for dinner, Daddy?” Jax asked.
With a laugh, Devon responded. “Yeah, buddy. We can have pizza. Love you both.”
“Love you too. Bye, Dad,” Jax said, mouth full of pancake.
“Thanks again, Evie. I’ll see you this evening.” His voice was back to being friendly, but his words were still a little cold. That made me feel guilty. I was trying to help him, but he wasn’t comfortable taking it from me.
“Have a good day.” My voice was quiet and I didn’t bother looking at him. I knew what I’d see – a man who missed his wife.