Page 119 of Just One More Thing

His thumb moves over the back of my hand. “Good.”

For a while, neither of us says anything. We don’t need to. The silence has shape now. It has room for what we were, and what we lost, and whatever thing we’re becoming.

Hank, who’s maintained a respectful silence through this entire emotional reckoning, stands, turns in a circle?—

And farts.

The kind that announces itself.

I laugh so hard my eyes water.

“That stinks, Hank,” Jake says, laughing.

Hank ignores him and launches himself backward into me with full bulldog confidence. “Oh my.“

I catch him on reflex.

I don’t catch the wine glass.

He settles against my chest like this was always the plan and gives me a look of profound contentment.

Jake looks at him and laughs. “He’s a clown.”

“He’s perfect.” I wrap both arms around seventy pounds of warm, snoring bulldog and press my face into the top of his giant head. “Hank, you’re my favorite.”

“I’m sitting right here,” Jake says.

“I know where you’re sitting.”

Jake watches us for a second, then leans forward and rubs Hank’s belly, his hand brushing mine as he does.

The stars come out slowly, one by one.

For all my overthinking, I didn’t think about this part.

The part where coming back would make leaving harder.

That sitting here with the stars rising over the water and his hand warm over mine and Hank across my lap, I would feel full and already grieving.

I let myself have both.

CHAPTER 30

EMORY

Bethany’s cottage has weathered cedar siding, light blue shutters, and a white front porch. Like all the homes on the lane, it sits right on the water.

I love it.

The front door is already open, but I still ring the ship’s bell hanging beside it because I was raised with manners. The bell clangs once.

“COME ON IN,” Bethany yells from somewhere inside. I open the screen door and step into a living room that feels cozy in that accidentally perfect way where nothing matches and everything still somehow belongs.

Books stacked sideways beneath a driftwood coffee table. Framed art hanging slightly crooked like nobody cared enough to straighten it because they were busy having a life. A throw blanket tossed over the couch despite the fact that it’s late August and the humidity outside could qualify as soup.

Fleetwood Mac is spinning softly from a record player in the corner.

A woman I’ve never met is sitting cross-legged on the couch with a wine glass balanced against one knee. Blonde hair pulledback. Oversized button-up that looks like butter if butter were thin cotton.