After Dark(41)

“I wasn’t myself. I haven’t been…”

“That’s all right.” Now he patted my cheek. “I’ll come back. I need to see my family.”

“I am your family.”

“Matt…” He kept one hand around the reins and pulled me in with the other. He brought my face against his shoulder.

I know something about grief. I learned it the hard way, which is the only way. The thing I know is that grief is no feeling—no feeling at all. When it comes, we expect a terrible pain or drawn-out, stinging sorrow. Then we learn that grief is a vacuum. Even tears would be preferable. It is no feeling that comes and comes; it is loss itself.

After a while, Nate told me to go up to the house. He said that Hannah was my family, too, and not to be angry with her about the horse.

I thought about the horse as I walked back. An impulse buy, it seemed. With Nate leaving and Hannah ignorant of horses, I would need to care for the animal, which was no simple task. I wouldn’t sell it, though. I already loved it. Hannah must have known that the moment I saw the horse, I would love it.

And if I didn’t care for it, it would die.

Animals are that simple. They need our care and we love them for needing us. Children are the same.

I stopped midstride, and then I ran.





Chapter 33

HANNAH

That evening, Matt returned to the house alone.

I met him in the doorway.

His hair was wind-mussed and he was panting.

“Where’s Nate?” I said, looking him over.

“Taking the horse to the barn. He said he’s going to buy some things for her. He said he’s leaving soon. Did you know that?”

I gazed dumbly at Matt’s mouth as it moved. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this—an abrupt return to clarity and full sentences.

“Are you … okay?”

“I’m not angry about the horse. I like the horse. Hannah, what—Chrissy, the baby…”

“Come in, come on.” I closed the door and led him to the great room. He refused to settle on the couch. I sat while he paced. “What do you want to know?”

“Is Chrissy … all right?”

I nodded quickly. Matt’s energy was contagious. I wondered if this was phase two of a protracted breakdown—some kind of mania.

“She’s fine. I mean”—I searched my memory—“we spoke … a couple times on the phone. After, uh … she moved back home. She’s back with our parents.”

I watched the color drain from Matt’s face.

“Out of the condo? That nice condo?”

“Well, S—” I bit my tongue. Seth didn’t leave Chrissy anything. But that wasn’t Seth’s fault. He didn’t know death was right around the corner. “She can’t afford that place.”

“We can. She can stay, for God’s sake.”

“No, love…” I smiled softly. Matt was concerned for my sister? Strange, but touching. “It’s more than the money. She needs people right now, family. The condo isn’t good for her. Isolation isn’t good. It’s been … hard for her.”

“Okay.” He dragged his hands through his hair. “The baby?”

I shrugged. I did not want to be having this heavy conversation. Any one of these topics—Seth, Chrissy, children—could send Matt back into a tailspin. And God, it was heaven to have him here and communicative and engaged with the real world.

I stopped his pacing with a hug.

“Baby, are you hungry? Do you want dinner?”

“Not at all.” He squeezed me, his voice thin. “Please. Is she still pregnant?”

I stared up into his wide eyes. Was that the problem here?

“Yeah, she is. For now.”

“For now?”

“She doesn’t know what she wants anymore.” I stroked his cheek. “She’s twenty-two weeks this week, so she could still—”

“Don’t.” He pulled away from me. “Don’t say it. I get it.” His gaze panned rapidly around the room. “Right. She only wanted the kid to get to him.”

I’d had the very same thought about my sister, but when I heard it from Matt, spoken with such contempt, protectiveness reared inside me.

“Hey, you don’t know that. She’s going through her own issues, okay?”

“No. It’s not okay. You don’t understand.” He hurried to the window and looked out in the direction of the paddock. “If she does that, I will never be okay. I’ll do anything she wants. It’s not just some child. It’s my brother’s child, and my brother is dead.” His eyes snapped to mine. “Get her on the phone.”

* * *

Matt locked himself in the study with my cell.

He spoke in a low, continuous murmur. Not once did he raise his voice. And that sucked, because I couldn’t hear a damn thing he was saying.

I hovered outside the door until I heard Nate returning.

With a sigh, I descended the stairs.

“Everything okay?” Nate said. A long receipt dangled from his hand.

“Uh, sort of. What’s all that?”

“Supplies for Written in Verse. It’s all in the barn. A couple more pieces of tack, hay, oats, a concentrate mix.” He set the receipt on the mantel. “In case you need to return anything.”

“Thank you.” I looked at my feet. I should have bought food and supplies before having the sellers drop off the horse. Desperation made me rash. “That all went well, huh?”

“Amazingly well.” Nate approached me. For the first time in weeks, he looked happy and confident, like his old self. “You know what you are?”

“What?” I peered up at him.

“Saving Matt with a white horse. You’re his knight in shining armor.”

I laughed. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Well, you are. You’re a regular heroine, in my book. Make sure he teaches you to ride that horse, because I want to see you on it—jumping fences, fending off doctors, throwing yourself like Pocahontas onto ungrateful men.” He hugged me and kissed my cheek. “Where is that ungrateful man, anyway?”

“In the library.” I cringed. “On the phone with Chrissy.”

“Oh, Lord. Really?”

“Really. He gave me this fire-and-brimstone speech about how she must not get an abortion and—” I covered my mouth. Oops. I’d momentarily forgotten Nate’s Christian status.

“It’s fine, Hannah. I’m also a doctor.” He took a swift stride toward the steps, then stopped. “No … I suppose I won’t interfere.”

“Probably a good idea. He’s…”

“Being a bit of an asshole?” Nate raised a brow. He swore so rarely that when he did, I had to laugh.

“Exactly.”

“Then he really is feeling better. Listen, I’m packed already and I got myself a hotel for the night. I’ll fly out tomorrow or Thursday. You two have put me up long enough.”

“Oh…”

“Yes. You both need this place to yourselves.”

A twinge of fear pinched my heart. For weeks now, we’d been a team, trying to help Matt—and though we argued more than we agreed, I would have been lost without Nate.

“What if he’s not actually better?” I fought the urge to grasp his sleeve.

“He’s coming out of it. I can see it. I’m a phone call away, and don’t forget Mike.”

“But you can’t just sneak off. He’ll want to say good-bye.”

“Oh, no.” Nate smiled. “He won’t.”

I watched him walk away and climb the stairs two at a time. The thick wedding band on his finger skated up the rail. My future brother-in-law. He truly felt like a brother now, after all that we had been through. I would be proud to call him my brother.

And there were things I wanted to ask Nate, with his unwavering faith—did we bring this pain on ourselves, did we deserve to lose Seth because we played a game with death?—but I think the time for those questions had passed.

He returned with his bags. I walked outside with him, we hugged again, and I watched his rental car roll into the dark, crunching and kicking up dust.

When I got back inside, I found the study door open.

I heard a loud thump, then a grating noise.

“Matt?”

“In here,” he called.

I peered into his room. He’d moved Laurence’s hutch to the door. All his weights were rolled into a clump on his exercise mat.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Mm, moving things. This room is ridiculous. Here.” He returned my cell and frowned. “Rather, not ridiculous. It was nice, having all my things in easy reach. Thank you…”

“You’re welcome. Any time.” I swallowed and touched his cheek. The words “in sickness and in health” passed through my mind.

For better, for worse. “Any time … ever, Matt.”

My eyes watered. I’d begun to hate my emotionality, and also to expect it. These, at least, were tears of happiness and relief.

He kissed me. I laid my hands on his chest and leaned against him.

“I want us to have an exercise room. You need an office. I’ll put my books in the library and Laurence, I think, somewhere downstairs. You know he likes to be centrally located, privy to all our comings and goings.”