Chapter 13

They grabbed Red Robin burgers on the way home, made the girls take showers, and tucked them, fragrant with shampoo and dopey from the sun and activity, into bed.

Since Hunter’s return home, they’d been taking turns saying good night to the girls—Trina first, and then Hunter. But tonight, he didn’t wait for her to be finished before he came in. While she was sitting on the lower bunk, reminding Phoebe in a low voice how proud she was of her, how lucky she felt to be her mother, Hunter climbed the ladder so his head poked over the upper railing, and she heard his low voice murmuring similarly to Clara.

She shouldn’t read anything into it. He’d just chosen to streamline the process tonight.

But it felt cozy. Homey.

It felt like something she’d imagined during his absence, something she’d dreamt up before her hopes and expectations had gotten dashed.

Like the squeeze of his hand over hers this afternoon. Like the flashes of heat in his eyes, the all-too-familiar way his gaze had settled, heavy, on her half-bare breasts.

Hope had bloomed, even unwanted, amid all that.

“That was a fun day,” Phoebe whispered.

Trina loved bedtime. Because no matter how much of an adolescent her daughter had become during the day, at bedtime she was a child again, trusting, innocent, confiding. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“Do you think we’ll do stuff like that with Daddy?”

Would they? She didn’t know. If Stefan took an interest in them that was more than a passing fancy. If he didn’t find that they cramped his style.

Her stomach hurt a little bit at the thought. Because she could hold her own feelings in check and keep herself from getting hurt again, but the idea of Phoebe’s disappointment was more than she could bear.

“I don’t know, hon’,” she said. “I hope so. I think so. But Daddy—he’s very busy. So we’ll see. But I’ll do cool things with you.” She leaned down and touched her lips to her daughter’s smooth forehead. “I love you, Phoebs.”

“How much?”

“A bazillion, two gigahertz, and a partridge in a pear tree.”

“I love you a bazillion, two gigahertz, and two partridges in a pear tree.”

Hunter, who had descended the ladder, crossed behind her. His body didn’t touch hers, but she could feel the energy and heat of it, and her body hummed in response; she wondered if he could feel it. She wondered whether he’d meant any of it—her hand in his, the way he’d heated her skin with a glance.

“Hey, Phoebe. I had a good time with you today. I’m sorry I don’t remember the last time we hung out, but I’m glad we got another chance.”

Trina’s heart squeezed. Today—as he’d always been—Hunter had been easygoing with Phoebe, funny and noncommittal, and her usually shy daughter had opened up to him. There had been only a few moments—and if she didn’t know him so well, she might not even have noted them—when she saw him fall, for just a split second, into the darkness of forgetting.

In one of those moments, he’d looked to Trina and she’d smiled to tell him it was okay, and she’d seen relief overcome panic. And been absurdly touched by the fact that her presence soothed him. Before she’d remembered that it didn’t, couldn’t, matter.

“Me, too.” Phoebe’s voice was small but pleased.

“Good night, kiddo.”

He hesitated in the doorway, and his eyes snagged hers, dark and serious. “Good night, Trina.” Something in the weave of his gaze and voice left her breathless.

“Good night, Hunter.”

He went out, his fingers wrapping the edge of the doorframe, and whether the gesture was deliberate or not, she felt as if he’d let that lingering hand drift over her skin.

Oh, you fool, she told herself, as if that would help. As if it would make the way she felt go away, when nothing would, except time and distance and, eventually, forgetting.

She was envious of his forgetting, she realized.

She climbed the bunk ladder and peeked over the top at Clara, who had drawn her quilt up to her chin.

“Did it work okay?” she whispered. “With the tampons today?”

They’d had an awkward but fruitful lesson on the topic earlier; a tearful Clara had declared that she would never, ever, ever get it to work, but ultimately emerged triumphant from the bathroom and thrown her arms around Trina, whose chest had felt full to overflowing.

“Mmm-hmm,” Clara murmured.

“Good. ’Night, Clara.” She settled a kiss on the girl’s forehead, just as she had done to her own daughter. “I love you, hon’.”

But before she could retreat down the ladder, Clara reached out and grasped Trina’s wrist. “Wait. Don’t go.”

Trina leaned in close, thinking Clara had something she wanted to ask. Or say. But Clara only held on tight to Trina’s wrist, and tears filled Trina’s eyes as she realized what Clara was saying. Don’t go. Don’t go away. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave us.

“Sweetie. I have a couple more days. And we’ll visit.”

But as she said it, she knew it was not nearly enough, not with all Clara had lost.

“It’s not the same. It’s not the same. Don’t go.”

“Oh, baby,” Trina said, and rested her head beside Clara’s on the pillow. “I love you. I wish I could stay.” It felt like her chest was bursting open, like her heart was breaking into a million pieces. For herself, and for Clara, who had lost a mother and was losing another.

What a muddle.

She blinked back tears.

Clara’s lids were heavy, and her grip on Trina’s wrist had begun to slacken. But the vise around Trina’s heart had only tightened.

This. This is what I want, she thought, watching as Clara’s last long blink turned to a sigh and sleep.

I’m sorry.

It was Hunter’s voice, when he’d told her he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—try to find his way back to her.

It was her own voice, telling Clara she would never have let her love her like a mother if she’d known it wasn’t for keeps.

It was the whole damn world, weeping for what couldn’t be.

This. This is what you get for wanting.