“After Alex died, my brother blamed himself. He still does. As you can probably see from even just knowing him a short time, that hasn’t worked out so swell for him.” She frowned. “We always try to look back and see what we could have done differently to prevent such a tragedy, but you need to trust me that no good will ever come from you blaming yourself. Hope would not want you to live that way. Alex would have a fit if she knew how Tanner has slowly been killing himself these past three years, living in this damn house all alone.”
“He built it for them, right?”
“Yeah, but sadly, she never got to see it get finished.”
I hated to say that I was a bit relieved that I wasn’t walking in the shadows of her ghost and now it made sense why my words about the home had cut Tanner to the core. I wanted to ask exactly what happened to her. Tanner said that she went missing and her car had veered off the road, but that’s where the story ended when my face had flashed on the screen. Why did Tanner blame himself? But just as I was about to ask, said subject finally came inside.
He glanced at Tyler and me sitting on the sofa, then quickly averted his gaze, shrugging out of his winter clothing.
Archie hopped up from my lap and ran over to him, tail wagging, whining for affection. After giving Archie some good rubs, he lifted his hands and signed.
“Got the car moved to the workshop,” Tyler interpreted for him. “Gonna go take a shower and rest for a bit.”
He looked exhausted. Dark circles lined his eyes and his shoulders were slightly slouched over, as if he was carrying such a heavy burden.
My heart sank to my stomach. I couldn’t even imagine the mind-fuck it was seeing my face as a missing woman. If I were him, I wouldn’t know how to reconcile that. Yet here he was, helping me yet again in spite of his own pain.
“Thank you,” I signed to him. It felt so insignificant, but it’s all I could say.
He just gave me a slight nod and a feeble grin before retreating to his bedroom, with Archie on his heels.
I awoke several hours later, after nightfall, and wandered out into my living room. Tyler was in the kitchen cooking something that smelled delicious.
“Where is she?” I asked, looking around the empty living room.
“In the guest room, resting.” My sister pointed behind me, down the hallway. “I figured you didn’t want her upstairs. I’ll take the spare room up there.”
She was right. I didn’t even go up there anymore. The first year after Alex’s death, every so often I’d find myself heading up there to try and finally clean the spare room out and donate the items, and that never ended well. I’d get maybe one or two tiny items packed into a box and then a meltdown would rear its ugly head. I could never make it through.
“Speaking of that, you should probably get a flight back home as soon as possible,” I said.
“Say what?” I swear it looked as if my sister was going to lunge across the counter and choke me. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Tyler, you have a daughter. A husband. If shit goes down with her ex-husband you don’t need to be anywhere near here. Think about Brock. Think about Emma.” I glared at her. This wasn’t going to be up for debate. I’d call Brock if I had to and tattle just like a little brother should.
Something in her expression softened. She nodded. “Okay, I see your point there. But what are you going to do with Gia?”
“Gia?” I asked.
“Yeah, she goes by Gia, or sometimes G with her friends. Told me that earlier.” She waved a dismissive hand as if they were old buds or something now.
Well, I guess Gia had been slightly honest with me about one thing. She did go by G. Apparently, she and Tyler finally got friendly earlier while I was outside on my tractor plowing a path in the snow.
“So, what do you plan to do?” she asked again.
“I have no fucking clue.” It was true. I had no game plan. I’d known this woman for just a few days. Sure, there had been a spark, but all that was pretty much moot now that I knew she was still technically a married woman, and also pregnant. “I’ll probably let her lay low here until the heat dies down, then see about getting her to Canada.”
“Probably the wise choice.” A warm, buttery, dreamy look overtook my sister. “She is really beautiful though, and quite sweet. I couldn’t fault you if things took a turn and she stuck around.”
“Oh my god. You’re impossible, you know that, right? Six hours ago, you were telling me that I couldn’t fall for a woman I’d just met and were ready to kick her to the curb. Now what? You’re suddenly team Gia?” I threw my hands in the air. “She’s married, Tyler.”
“Only because she has to be. Not by choice.” She turned around and pulled a pan out of the oven, placing it on the stove to cool, then turned back to me. “And yeah, you need to get to know her, and she’ll need time to heal, but I mean, pretty soon they’ll assume she’s dead, right?”
Sometimes I swore my sister never thought before she spoke. Did she even realize how crazy she sounded? How hurtful that could be? “I can’t have a relationship with a dead woman.” My sister was certifiably insane.
She pursed her lips. “You have been for the past three years, Tanner. Alex is gone. It’s time to move on.”
Ouch. Every ounce of heat in my body went straight to my ears as I fought the urge to unleash on my sister. I loved her more than anything, but she also could piss me off like nobody else.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” she quickly apologized. “You just deserve the best. And I’m still a little angry at Alex for cheating on you.”
Yeah, that made two of us. Still didn’t make me miss her any less. It almost made the grief harder to bear. Especially because we were supposed to be starting a family. It's why I had worked so hard to finish the dream home. But what I didn’t realize at the time was the home was my dream, not ours. She just wanted my heart. Alex would’ve moved back to that dinky apartment in the Bronx above the laundromat if it meant she’d get my full attention back.
But I was a prideful son of a bitch who needed to prove to the goddamn world that Deaf wasn’t disabled.
And the price of my own ego had cost me everything.
“My point is, Gia’s husband is the one who broke their wedding vows, like Alex did yours. Sure, Alex didn’t deserve to die for it. That was just a horrible, tragic, awful accident. But it was an accident. Just like Hope Martin’s death isn’t Gia’s fault. Both of you need to let go of the guilt eating you up inside for the sins committed against you. The two of you deserve second chances at love.” My sister shrugged. “I’m not saying tonight, or even tomorrow, or even with one another. But you can’t have any future until you let go of the past.”
My mind kept floating back to that grieving man on the news, begging for any information that could lead to finding his wife. “Do you really think he’s a monster? Do you really think he killed her best friend?” I cocked a brow. After all, people at one time thought I was a monster because I’d gotten angry with my wife. The contractors were all privy to the heated argument we had the day she disappeared. But they couldn’t hear our words, they only could see our anger as our hands flew back and forth.