The short walk to a nearby school playground allowed him a moment to get himself together. Kerrie, walking beside him, was silent, and Cody pushed Sienna in the stroller at a pretty good pace, which was putting them farther and farther ahead. Jake suspected he was doing it on purpose, and he appreciated it.
For some reason, it made him think of Jamila and his dad. Jamila and her prayers.
Of the way some people’s happiness could depend on other people’s loss.
Of the way some of those people had enough grace to acknowledge that. To honor it, even.
“How do I do this?” he said. He could feel Kerrie’s attention on him, and she probably had no idea what he was talking about, so he gestured up at her husband and daughter.
“What’s happened, Jake?”
“I accidentally fell in love, and she’s pregnant.”
Kerrie’s delighted laugh drew his attention. She stopped walking, so he did, too. Thought about what he’d just said. I accidentally fell in love.
He hadn’t articulated it that way before, even to himself. But as had been happening to him lately, he recognized the truth as it was coming out of his mouth, as he was surprising himself with it.
He loved Nora Walsh, the pixie doctor who was only staying in town for two years. He loved her zombies and her thoughtful questions and the clear-eyed, unflinching way she looked at the world. He loved the hair on her head and the brain inside it. He loved how much she loved the lake and his cove.
He loved her stupid, tiny dog named after the wrong band.
“Congratulations,” Kerrie said. “That’s wonderful.”
“It doesn’t feel wonderful.”
“What does it feel like?”
“It feels like I’m betraying him.”
“I know,” she said.
He was startled by her easy agreement.
She went on. “Like, how can you just carry on and be happy when he’s dead—right?”
He sucked in a breath. That was it. That was exactly it. “It’s the same with you?”
“I used to feel that way, but not anymore.” When he didn’t say anything—he wasn’t sure what to say—she kept talking. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you really need to talk to someone. That grief counselor I told you about or someone like her. I know when you’re in it, it feels like the biggest, most unique thing that’s ever happened to anyone. But what you’re feeling is textbook. And there are things you can do, simple things, to help. You don’t have to feel that way anymore.”
“But what if I don’t want to stop feeling it?” What if he didn’t want to give up the waves?
“Ah.” They had reached the playground. Sienna was laughing as Cody pushed her in a swing. Her delighted baby laughter was making her dad laugh, too. Kerrie led him to a bench on the far side of the play structure. “That’s a problem, then, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“Let me ask you a question. Do you think I don’t deserve to be happy? That I don’t deserve this?” She gestured at her family.
“Of course not.” He bristled at the suggestion. What kind of monster did she think he was?
“So why is it any different with you?”
Because I let him die.
She knew his thoughts. She knew him. “He died, Jake. Kids die. It fucking sucks, but it’s a thing that happens. It wasn’t your fault.”
How many times had he heard that phrase in the years since Jude died? It was a refrain in his life. Background noise.
She grabbed his upper arms. He let her turn him so they were looking into each other’s eyes. “You were the best dad. You were a better parent than I was.” He tried to interrupt, to protest that he wasn’t better, just different, but she kept talking over him. “Jude was lucky to have you. It wasn’t your fault.”
He wanted to argue with her, but she was in what he used to think of as lawyer mode. You couldn’t win an argument with Kerrie when she was in lawyer mode.
“You’ve been a dad without a kid for a lot of years, Jake. Your girlfriend, or whoever she is, is going to have a baby. Do you want that baby to be a kid without a dad because you’re too stubborn to get over yourself?”
No. Oh God, no. He couldn’t breathe at the image her words conjured. A kid without a dad.
“Do you want that kid to have a stoic, silent dad who’s too lost in his own guilt to do right by him, or do you want that kid to have a dad who’s happy, who loves him and loves his mom? Who shows him what love is like?”
She was right. She was right. It sounded so simple when she said it like that.
He forced air into his lungs. It hurt like hell. It sounded like hell, like the dying gasp of a broken man, but it wasn’t a dying gasp. It was the first breath of a new era.
He remembered, suddenly, Jude’s first breath. He’d come out into Jake’s arms—the doctor had positioned Jake to catch him—and had been utterly silent. They’d all paused for a moment, waiting for him to cry. It had seemed like an eternity, that liminal space between birth and breath. He’d looked at his tiny, slimy son, and thought, Breathe.
And then Jude had breathed.
Everyone else probably just heard the crying that came with the exhalation, but Jake was paying such close attention that he heard the inhalation before the exhalation.
His son’s first breath.
He was there for his son’s last breath, too.
Kerrie delivered her closing argument. “I know you have this twisted notion that by moving on, you’re dishonoring Jude’s memory, but I personally can’t think of a better way to honor Jude than to love his little brother or sister.”
He was at the top of his first breath, and like with Jude, what came out on the exhale was a sob.
His phone blew up on the drive home. He wasn’t the sort of idiot who messed with texting while driving, so he didn’t look at it until he stopped for gas on the Bluewater Highway before turning into town. He had a bunch of texts from Sawyer. He scrolled back to the first one. It’s Sawyer. I heard you got a phone, you asshole. Call me. Or come to the station. I need to talk to you.
He wondered who had spilled the beans about the phone. Clara had kept his phone secret for so long. Nora? Why shouldn’t she have, after the way he’d treated her when she’d told him she was pregnant? She needed someone to help her, and the way he’d acted had given her no indication that it was going to be him.
He kept reading. I’m home now. Come here. We’re starting a new canoe.
Yep, Nora had told him. Probably everything. Or someone had. He still hated the idea of everyone in town talking about him, knowing his business, but it really couldn’t be helped, could it?
There were two more texts, one from half an hour ago. I went to your house and let your damn dog out. Where the hell are you? And the last from a couple minutes ago. Listen, I know about you and Nora. She told Eve months ago, and today Eve told me. Get the hell over here.
He got the hell over there. Cheerfully, even. Well, okay, not cheerfully. But determinedly. Aside from the past couple of months, when he’d had his head in his ass about “cooling things off,” he was a man of action. That was what Nora said she liked about him. So he needed to make a plan. And he needed to show her that plan, not tell her about it. And for that, he was going to need help.