I’d mentally made a decision that I wasn’t ready to make a decision about whether having children meant more to me than having Grant. I guess I just hoped things would work themselves out. Maybe I’d discover Grant wasn’t Mr. Forever, or he’d soften on his position. Either way, it kept me from having to make the decision to walk away—which I definitely wasn’t ready for at the moment.
On Saturday morning, I woke up from the rocking. It was the first time I’d slept on Grant’s boat and felt more than a light sway. Patting the bed next to me, I found cold sheets instead of a warm body. So I pulled on the dress shirt Grant had worn to work yesterday and went searching for its owner. I found him outside on the back deck.
The wind blew, sweeping up the bottom of the shirt, and I caught it just as it was about to flash my ass. “It’s so windy.”
Grant nodded. “Storm’s brewing.”
The sun looked like it was trying to come out, but the sky was so cloudy, it just turned everything an ominous dark gray color.
Grant held out his hand and guided me to sit in front of him, between his open legs.
“Do you stay down here during a storm?”
“Sometimes. Depends on how bad it is. We don’t really get too many days where there are whitecaps in the inlet.”
“How long have you been awake?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. A few hours.”
I turned my head and looked up at him. “What time is it?”
“About six.”
“And you’ve been up for a few hours?”
Grant nodded. “Had trouble sleeping.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Just some work stuff on my mind.”
We sat quietly watching the sky for a little while.
Then Grant spoke again. “I’m full of shit.”
My forehead wrinkled. “About what?”
He shook his head. “It’s not work that’s bothering me.”
I sat up and turned around to face him. When I’d walked out, I hadn’t really taken a good look at him, but now I could see his face was etched with tension. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”
He looked down for a long time. When he looked up, his eyes were watery. “Today is Leilani’s birthday.”
I was confused. “The boat?”
Grant shook his head. He looked over my shoulder at the sky and swallowed before his eyes met mine again. “My daughter.”
“What?”
He closed his eyes. “She would’ve been seven.”
Would’ve been. I clutched my chest. “Oh my God, Grant. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
He opened his eyes and nodded.
My daughter. Two simple words that explained a whole lot. The name of the boat, obviously the reason he didn’t want to have kids… It was like the missing puzzle piece of Grant Lexington swirled around in the air and clicked into place.
“Was she…sick?”
Grant kept staring out at the turbulent sky. He shook his head.
My eyes widened. “What happened? An accident of some sort?”
A tear rolled down his cheek as he gave the slightest nod.
I wrapped my arms around him and hugged as tight as I could. “I’m so, so sorry. So very sorry.” Grant’s pain was palpable, and my own tears started to flow.
I have no idea how long we stayed like that, clinging to each other, but it felt like hours. So many questions swirled around in my head. What kind of accident was she in? Why didn’t you tell me until now? Is that why you spent the last seven years keeping women at a distance? Have you been to therapy? Did she look like you? But obviously the subject wasn’t an easy one for him to talk about. So I needed to let him decide what he was ready to share.
At one point, someone yelled hello to Grant from the dock, and he raised a hand to wave. I took the opportunity to sit up and look at him.
“Do you…want to talk about it? I’d love to hear all about her.”
Grant looked me in the eyes. “Not today.”
I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. “I understand. And I’m here whenever you’re ready.”
The first raindrops started to fall a few minutes later, so we went inside. Grant looked exhausted, so I led him back downstairs to the bedroom, and we got back into bed. He wrapped me in his arms, spooning me from behind and gripping me so tightly it bordered on painful. But it didn’t matter. If holding me gave him even one ounce of comfort, I’d let him crush me. At some point, I felt his grip loosen, and the sound of his breathing slowed. He’d fallen back asleep. Though I couldn’t. There was way too much to go over in my mind.
Grant had a daughter.
Who would have been seven today.
Her name was Leilani, and she had a boat named after her.
And Grant lived on this boat—seeing his little girl’s name in big bold letters every single day when he came home.
My aunt used to say grief was a lot like swimming in the ocean. On the good days, we could float on top with our heads above water, feeling the sunshine on our faces. But on the bad days, the water grew violent, and it was difficult not to get sucked under and drown. The only thing we could do was learn to be stronger swimmers.
But I knew there was another way to keep afloat—find a life raft. I’d been young when I lost my mother so tragically, and my aunt had become just that for me. I didn’t know if Grant had a life raft, but I felt like maybe, just maybe, everything happens for a reason, and I was here to pay it forward and be that for him.
Chapter 28
* * *
Grant - 7 years ago
All good things must come to an end.
Whoever coined that phrase must’ve been a goddamned genius. I was an idiot for thinking the normalcy that lasted while Lily was pregnant would continue. It had hung on a little while after she gave birth, and two months ago, we’d left the hospital practically floating. In the weeks that followed, though, things started to break down a little bit each day. Lily had trouble sleeping and was irritable. But we had a newborn, and after I went back to work, she did most of the getting up at night. So who wouldn’t be tired and cranky?
At six weeks, we went to her postpartum checkup. When the doctor asked about mood swings and depression, I mentioned the changes in Lily, since she’d answered that everything was great. But Dr. Larson only patted my hand and told me an adjustment period was normal. Lily’s hormones were going back to normal, she had the stress of new motherhood, and Leilani seemed to have her days and nights mixed up. I left feeling hopeful that I’d been overly concerned.
Things started to go downhill pretty steeply the next few weeks. Lily became almost paranoid that something bad was going to happen to the baby. She didn’t even want the nurse to hold Leilani at her two-month checkup, claiming she wasn’t supporting her head enough. Everyone seemed to chalk the behavior up to motherly instincts—a hyper-protectiveness that stemmed from her trying to be the best mother she could. Again…it made sense.
But in the last week, everything had begun to unravel. Lily couldn’t sleep—like, at all. She was physically exhausted, yet barely allowed me to touch the baby. She claimed Leilani liked things a certain way, and I wasn’t doing it right. But I had the feeling she didn’t trust me around my own child. Her paranoia seemed to spread wider and deeper each day, and we argued about it. In fact, lately it seemed like all we did was argue.