“Damn,” I muttered. “I was jealous of the woman, but I didn’t want her to get cancer.”
“Yeah.” Primrose used her fingers to pull apart a drumstick and shoved a piece of the meat into her mouth. “Right after she had little Teddy, the doctors found it. She fought and they thought they had it beat. When Teddy was five, Esme fainted. They found out the cancer was back, worse than before. She was gone in four months.”
“That’s heartbreaking.”
Primrose nodded. “Kyle has been through a lot. He honestly loved Esme. When she died, well, I think the only thing that kept him going was Teddy.”
“She’s beautiful.”
Primrose laughed. “Yeah, she is. Kyle often jokes that he’s thankful Teddy has her mother’s looks otherwise she would have been screwed.”
I laughed. “I don’t think so.”
We went silent for a spell, eating with our fingers.
“How are you going to handle tomorrow?” Primrose asked.
“I was trying not to think about it.” I used my fork to cut off a piece of cheesecake and pushed it into my mouth. “It’s my first full day. Hopefully, he’ll be gone to work.”
Primrose laughed. “Good luck with that. Kyle works from home. He owns a very successful architecture firm—sole practitioner. He went out on his own after Esme died. He works from home so he can raise his daughter.”
“I really screwed up, didn’t I?” my voice cracked. I poured some wine and downed the entire thing. “That little girl could have been mine. I could have had that kind of love.”
“It’s not too late. Maybe Kyle wasn’t meant to be your Esme kind of love.”
“Then who else was it supposed to be? The dating pool in this town is—small.”
“Who are we kidding—its stagnant.” Primrose sighed. “Hell, someone poisoned it.”
I sighed and poured more wine. “A toast.”
Primrose poured what was left of the final bottle of wine and lifted her glass.
“To stagnant man-pools and the Esme kind of love,” I managed.
“I can certainly drink to that.”
Primrose spent the night in my old room. I hadn’t had time to redecorate it, so the ungodly pink walls were still covered in Backstreet Boys posters and pictures from high school. By the time the house went silent for the night, it was just after one in the morning.
I was tipsy and sad—a bad combination.
Before going to bed, I filled a bowl with cold water then stopped to grab a clean facecloth from the bathroom. Once I had brushed my teeth, used the facilities and climbed under the blankets, I dunked the facecloth into the cold water and wrung it dry.
I checked to ensure my alarm was set for half an hour before I should actually wake up and laid the cold cloth over my eyes. The last thing I needed was to show up at Kyle Henderson with bags under my eyes.
Kyle
Teddy stood beside me as I watched Christine outside the window. It was freezing cold, but she’d found Esme’s favorite place—a bench I’d created for her that overlooked the pond at the back of the house.
“She’s really nice,” Teddy said. “And she smells like mom.”
I smiled and kissed her head. “You still have a book to finish reading for school.”
She groaned.
“Go.”
I watched as she wandered from the room. Teddy loved reading—except when it was for school.
Strange.
With her gone, I looked out the window again, inhaled deeply and walked from the room. By the time I was wearing my jacket, I had two mugs of coffee in my hands. I sat beside her and handed her one of the mugs.
Christine looked up at me, smiled and accepted it. “Thank you.”
“You do realize it’s winter, right?”
She nodded.
We sat together, staring over at the frozen pond. Though I didn’t know what she was thinking, I was wondering if Teddy could handle me even contemplating dating again. I sighed and sipped from my mug.
“Were you happy with your life, Kyle?” Christine asked.
“I was—I am. Esme and I were very happy,” I replied honestly. “Until she became sick. She didn’t want us to treat her like she was sick. I tried but at nights as she slept, I wondered why the fates were so determined to take her. Now, it’s a struggle to keep her memory so Teddy never forgets her.”
“That shouldn’t be hard.” Christine sipped from her mug. “You loved her. I think that’s the first thing you should make sure Teddy remembers. Then how she smelled, what her voice sounded like, the colour of her eyes. As long as you remember, she will too.”
That was the best advice anyone had given me on that topic.
“Are you happy?” I asked her.
“Not as happy as you’ve been,” she replied softly. “I made some terrible decisions. I wish I could say it was because I was young but—”
She took a few more swallows.
“I thought I knew what I wanted and all I had to do was go for it,” Christine continued. “I mean, acting was my thing. But it was never going to happen. I’d broken too many hearts along the way and karma—she’s not a fan of that.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Sure, it is.” Christine shifted to look at me. “There has to be some kind of consequence for what I did to you, and everyone else along my way. Having my fiancé tell me I’d let myself go. I mean, I went to the gym every day. I worked hard for this body. But it wasn’t enough. Then he was arrested and charged with running a prostitution ring and they went through every part of my life.”
“They thought you were involved.”
She nodded.
“And you want to know what hurts the most? As they tore my world apart, the thing that hurt the most was realizing I’d given myself to someone who was giving what was mine to everyone. That every time he told me he loved me, he lied. And then I stopped to think what a horrid person I was because the girls he and his best friend exploited were in a hell of a lot more pain than I was.”
I finished my coffee. “Come, we should get out of the cold.”
Christine hesitated, but allowed me to take her hand and lead her into the house. I closed the backdoor, poured her another cup of coffee to warm her up, then set to work building the fire in the living room. I carried our jackets to the front closet then returned to find her standing in front of the fire.
“I think about the life we could have had. If I’d taken just one second to think over what you asked.” Christine sat in the sofa and I draped the Afghan around her shoulders. Once she gripped the edges, I sat across from her. “But now as I hear people talk about the life you had with Esme and Teddy—I can’t feel bad. I’m sorry you lost her.”
“I can’t tell you how many times in the last few years, people tell me, it’s better to have loved and lost, that never loving at all.”
“How many times did you haul off and pop someone in the throat?”
“Not enough?” I laughed. “Before she died, Esme told me it was now my responsibility to show Teddy how to love. Aside from loving Teddy with every beat of my heart, I have no idea how to do that.”