Page 28 of Never Forget
Then he followed his aunt toward the parking lot, his shoulders hunched against the wind.
I watched them go.
Sam was still beside me.
"It was good of them to come," he said quietly.
I nodded. Meeting them, seeing them, putting faces to the story I'd been told didn't make the grief smaller, but it made it mean something. Jack had given his life for that woman and her daughter, and they were here. Alive. Breathing. Because of him.
Mark appeared at my side.
"You ready?" he asked gently.
I looked up at him and took his arm. Across the cemetery, I saw Amber making her way back toward Sam.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm ready."
But I kept Jenna's card in my hand. I didn't let go.
CHAPTER 6
Jamie
"You sure you don't want me to stay another few days?"
Mark had to fly back to New York the morning after the funeral. He had a business to run. He'd been gone too long already. Meetings were piling up. There was a deal he had to close.
"I've got it. Loretta's here. I just need to get the paperwork fixed up, and talk to the lawyers. I think I’ll stay for another week? Maybe two."
We were standing on the porch while Mark's rental car idled in the driveway, ready to take him to the airport.
He nodded and kissed me, one hand coming up to cup my cheek. "Call me tonight?"
"I will."
The house was quiet when I stepped back inside. I closed the door behind me and stood there for a moment.
A week. Maybe two. That should be long enough to deal with what needs to be done.
Rosie went down for her nap after lunch, and Loretta and I sat at the kitchen table with cups of coffee neither of us was drinking.
The house felt different in the quiet. Smaller somehow, and too big at the same time. Every room held Jack's presence like an afterimage, the ghost of him lingered in the chair he always sat in, the mug he always used, the hook by the door where his jacket still hung.
"What are your plans?" Loretta asked. Her voice was gentle, but I could hear the weight beneath it. "Once the paperwork is sorted. Are you taking Rosie to New York?"
"That's the plan." I wrapped my hands around my mug, letting the warmth seep into my palms.
Loretta nodded slowly. "I'm proud of you. You've really come a long way, baby. And I know your parents would have been proud of you too."
It meant something, hearing her say it. Loretta was the only person left who could say that and mean it.
"And Mark seems like a good man."
"He is."
"Do you think he'd be a good father to Rosie?"
The question caught me off guard. I thought about Mark with Rosie over the past few days. The way he'd been gentle with her. He'd read her a story one night when I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open. He'd made her laugh at breakfast yesterday with a silly face that surprised us both.
