Immediately, I was shaking my head.
“Promise me that, if you find someone like that, you won’t ignore it.” Her voice wavered, and I wanted to rage. Scream. Break something.
I sighed, finally meeting her eyes. “All I got out of that picture was that she has a mouth the size of my face and likes cookies.”
Beth breathed out a laugh. “That’s a gross oversimplification of what I said.”
“What did you say?” I asked quietly. “Who’d you conjure up for me, Beth? Because they won’t be you.” I shook my head again. “I don’t care what list you just gave her. They won’t be you.”
My wife ignored my attitude. She’d known me too long, knew it was easier to brush past it. She’d learned that lesson when we were eighteen, and she kissed me for the first time when she got sick of waiting for me to do it.
“I told Anya that hopefully someday you’d find someone kind and funny, someone who smiles and laughs easily because we both know you don’t.” I held her eyes, unable to argue. “Someone soft where you’re hard, someone who will know how to handle all the things that Anya will need help with. Someone who can bake cookies for her, and sing her to sleep, and teach you how to handle all her big emotions because I know they scare the shit out of you, Aiden.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to hear any of this, but like any conversation I had with Beth these days, I forced myself to soak up every word. Every nuance. Every second.
“And for fuck’s sake, don’t fall for the first tight-bodied fangirl who fawns over you,” she teased. “I’d haunt you for the rest of your life.”
Somehow, I managed a smile. “Would you?”
“I’d make a bitch of a ghost.” Her frame was wracked with a rib-rattling cough.
Lifting her featherlight hand up to my mouth, I kissed her knuckles. She smelled like medicine. Her fingers were cold against my mouth, and all I wanted to do was warm her. Fix her.
And I couldn’t.
The helplessness had me wanting to wreck everything. Especially when she kept talking. Her words were so much worse than the knife; it was like a hundred of them. The girl next door, who I’d known for more than half my life, who’d had my heart for almost a decade was going to leave a gaping hole, and I didn’t want to think about the fact that I couldn’t fill it.
“You have excellent taste, Aiden Hennessy,” she said quietly. “You must if you chose me.”
I gave her a look. “I think it was you who did the choosing. The way I remember it, at least.”
She hummed, eyes falling closed. “That’s right. I had excellent taste.” She slid her hand over my cheek and down the line of my jaw. “That’s why you should trust me.”
“I do,” I whispered.
“Good.” Gently, she exerted pressure on my chin until I couldn’t look away. “That’s why I answered Anya’s question. Because you two will be okay, and she needed to know that. You will be happy again, even if I’m not there.”
“Beth.” My voice cracked on her name, eyes burning dangerously. “Please.”
“You will be okay without me,” she repeated, her own gaze clear and strong.
It was like she pulled the knife out—every single one—and everything they’d held in came pouring out in a messy rush. I dropped my head onto the side of the hospital bed, and while my wife stroked the back of my head, I wept.
Chapter One
Aiden
“It’s a little crooked.”
A slow sigh escaped my lips, not that my daughter could hear with the unicorn-covered blankets pulled up past her nose.
Hand on my hips, I stared at the offending item. “I don’t know, gingersnap. It looks like it did last night, right?”
That stumped her for a solid thirty seconds. Her blue eyes stared straight up, unblinking and unwavering, and I could practically see her trying to dig up reasons the hot pink tulle canopy was off center and thereby unacceptable. If it was unacceptable, she wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Her eyes darted toward me, then back up to the pink cloud. “Did Uncle Clark measure it?”
“Uncle Clark measures everything.”
The sound of her giggle was muffled by the mound of blankets. But nonetheless, I heard it, and something eased in my chest. Bedtime had been our biggest struggle in the two years since Beth died. It began about six months after we buried her and with just little things at first.
Daddy, can you move that lamp a little closer to my bed? It’s too far away, and I can’t see it.
Can I have one more blanket over my feet? They’re cold, and I won’t be able to sleep if they’re cold.
Can I get one more stuffed animal from the playroom? Four isn’t enough, and I think I need five to sleep.
Over the next year, the things that bothered her got a little bit bigger and a little bit harder to accommodate. But it faded as we rounded the eighteen-month mark. Her bedroom stayed untouched, and I was able to slip out after reading her a story, saying a prayer, and wishing a good night to each and every plush character that filled the queen-sized bed with her.
Then we moved from California to Washington to be closer to my family so I didn’t have to raise my daughter completely solo. So Anya could have grandparents and her uncles and aunt around. And the first night in our new home—where we’d been for the last two weeks—it began again.
“How about this,” I said slowly. “I’ll go downstairs and see if Uncle Beckham brought his tape measure over, and he can check Uncle Clark’s measuring skills. Sound good?”
She nodded, tufts of white-blond hair sticking up around her head.
Carefully, I bent over and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Love you, gingersnap.”
“Love you more, daddysnap.”
My lips curled into a smile.
“You’re coming back after you talk to Uncle Beckham, right?”
“Yes.”
Anya sighed, slipping the covers down a couple of inches, enough that I could see the gap where her two front teeth used to be when she smiled at me. “Okay.”
The bedtime routine was a dance the two of us had performed countless times on our own, and I could do it half-asleep.
Turn on the small lamp on her nightstand.
Adjust the framed picture of her and Beth so that Anya could see it easily.
Adjust the canopy so it enclosed as much of her bed as possible.
Stop just before I left her room, blow her a kiss, which she caught and smacked over her mouth.
But my smile dropped as I descended the stairs down to the main floor, where my brothers Beckham and Deacon waited for me.
They were on the floor of the sprawling family room, assembling something pink and white and covered in glitter.
“What is that?” I asked.
Deacon brought a glittery crown up to his forehead. “I think it’s supposed to be one of those vanity things.”
My eyebrows rose slowly. “Who bought her that?”
“Eloise,” they said in unison.
“Ahh.” Our youngest sibling had taken to purchasing anything Anya could possibly want since we moved here. My parents weren’t much different, given she was the only grandchild—which meant the only niece for my four unmarried siblings. If Anya wasn’t a complete monster by the time she turned ten, it would be a miracle.