“You okay?” Mom asked.
“Yeah. I was … training with my manager and …,” I paused, trying to decide if it was wise to even tell them a little bit of this conversation. No part of my interaction with Isabel felt safe for consumption yet. I wasn’t even ready to process what it meant, let alone spoon-feed it to my mother and my younger sister, who’d devour it with the same unfettered glee as she was attacking that peanut butter straight from the jar. “I just fell,” I finished lamely.
Eloise narrowed her eyes, but I knocked her legs sideways when I passed into the kitchen of our parents' house. She kicked out at me, catching my hip when I cleared the island, and she was lucky I didn’t dump her off the counter.
I’d already been kicked at enough by one feisty twentysomething tonight, and I didn’t need my little sister added to the ranks.
And dammit, like I needed the reminder that she wasn’t that much older than Eloise.
“When did Anya fall asleep?” I asked.
My mom grabbed a spoon of her own and snuck the container from Eloise. “’Bout thirty minutes ago. Colored a picture with El after we had some dinner. Clark was here for a while and played Uno with her. Her forehead was a little warm, and she said she was tired, so I told her to cuddle up on the couch. She fell asleep as soon as I turned the TV on.”
I rubbed my forehead wearily. “I wondered if she was getting sick. She was a little off last night too.”
Mom’s face, as usual, took on that look of concern. “She still getting finicky at bedtime?”
My laugh was dry. “Yeah. Last night we hit a new variant, though. She asked if she could sleep in bed with me, which she hasn’t done since Beth died.”
Eloise stared down at her lap, and my mom clucked her tongue. The lack of immediate reaction was nothing new to me.
This was my life on a loop.
Sometimes they piped up with suggestions, but for the most part, no one in my family had ever dealt with a loss at this level until my wife died. Their silence was a glaring admission. This sucks, and we don’t know what to tell you.
It was the largest piece to moving through life-altering grief. Making peace with that unfulfilling truth.
It sucked. And no matter what people said, their words didn’t make it better. Better came with getting through each day.
“Did you let her?” Eloise asked. For as much as she gave me shit—that was part and parcel with being the youngest of five and the only girl—my sister always trod carefully in this area.
I shook my head. “I can’t move backward now. I’m not really sure what triggered it, but I’ll keep an eye on it.”
“She climbed up on that armoire in our bedroom,” Mom said. “Had to bribe her with cookies to get her down.”
“How’d she get up there?”
She shrugged. “I think she used the small end table from your father’s side of the bed.”
I sank onto a stool at the island and rubbed my forehead. “That’s happening more again too.”
“Your house?” Eloise asked.
“The gym.” I blinked a few times, an unwitting smile pulling at the edges of my lips. “My manager was pretty impressive in trying to bargain her off the steel beams holding up the heavy bags.”
Eloise cleared her throat delicately. “The same manager you sparred with tonight?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know, Aiden,” she said. “You tell us. You just”—she waved her spoon at my face—“smiled. A little. Sort of.”
“I did not.”
“You did,” Mom chimed in. “Sort of.”
I sank my head into my hands.
“Is he crying?” Eloise whispered.
My head lifted just so I could glare at her. My mom laughed.
“I liked it better when you were too young to be involved in these conversations.”
“Wellllll, you can thank Mom and Dad for that. Not like I chose to be fourteen years younger than you.”
Mom held up a hand. “Don’t look at me. It’s your father’s fault. He couldn’t keep his hands out of my pants when we were in high school. Being a teen mom was never in the plan.” She leaned over and ruffled Eloise’s hair. “But it all worked out. We made all our mistakes parenting Aiden, so by the time the rest of you came along, we knew how not to screw you up too badly.”
Pressing the palms of my hands into my eye sockets, I took a few deep breaths.
My mom laid her hand on my back. “What happened, Aiden?”
I paused. “Nothing.”
It was the truth. But it wasn’t.
I’d made peace with the loss of Beth, and what it might mean for my future. Grieving my wife, grieving the absence of her sweet, funny nature, the knowledge that Anya may not remember her when she grew up. Not once in the past two years had I met a woman who stirred up any sort of reaction.
So, while nothing had happened with Isabel, inside me, it didn’t feel like nothing.
It felt an awful lot like someone had flipped a switch whose location had been kept a secret, even from me. It wasn’t like I’d been fumbling around in the dark, trying to force attraction to someone. There was no empty gap in my life that I was looking to fill.
But now, all I could think about was how she would’ve responded if I’d slid my hand behind her neck and took her mouth with mine. How well she’d fit me, how well we’d move together because she already proved she could match me step for step. If I allowed the images to progress with Isabel, I’d never have to worry about breaking her, because the likely truth was that she’d probably have me on my back and at her mercy before we ever got to that point.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
Mom tsked. “Language. I raised you better than to curse
