Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 86826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Today is different. I lower myself into the leather chair and examine the first picture.
And there he is, smiling. Ben had Kylie’s smile.
Just a baby in this photograph, barely more than a few months old, swaddled in pale blue while Kylie cradles him against her chest. His eyes are fixed solemnly on the camera in that strange thoughtful way babies sometimes look at the world, as though they’re trying to understand it.
I simply stare at him. I see pieces of myself in him now in ways I couldn’t back then. The shape of his eyes. The skepticism that lies in them.
And yet, there’s so much of Kylie in him too.
The softness in his cheeks. A love overflowing from a smile so bright, it’s unnecessary to turn on the lights in the room.
“Seven,” I murmur into the quiet room.
That’s how old he’d be today.
Old enough for scraped knees and homework and jokes. Old enough to trail behind me through the arena asking endless questions about hockey players and statistics and why adults always take themselves so seriously. Old enough to fill this house with noise instead of memories.
I stare down at the photograph while grief moves through me, like a hurricane and tornado bundled into one. Inescapable no matter how hard I try to move past and through it.
A soft knock against the study door brings me back to the present.
The door opens quietly, and Percy steps inside carrying a silver tray. The man has spent decades knowing exactly what I need before I say a word.
Tonight it’s eighteen-year-old scotch poured two fingers high and a plate of dark chocolate sea salt cookies from the bakery on Madison, the ones Kylie loved when she was pregnant.
Percy crosses the room slowly before setting the tray onto the desk beside me. For a moment, neither of us speaks. He simply looks down at the photograph in my hands.
“Master Benjamin,” he says quietly. “I haven’t seen a smile that jubilant on the face of any other human, young or old.”
Percy lowers himself into the chair opposite me, the movement slower these days than it once was. Age has begun settling more noticeably into him over the last couple years, but his mind remains as sharp as ever.
“How are you holding up, sir?”
“Poorly would probably be the honest answer.”
Percy nods, like honesty is all he ever expected from me tonight. Not much different from most nights, really. It’s what makes him the closest confidant I have.
“I wonder what we would have done for his seventh birthday,” I say quietly, my gaze still fixed on the photograph.
Percy’s eyes drift toward the rain-streaked windows before he says softly, “I still remember that morning he was born. You sprinted through the maternity ward after I had alerted you she was in labor. I had never seen you move that quickly in your life.”
“Kylie was yelling at everyone,” I say as the memory returns to me too.
“She was terrifying,” Percy agrees. “One nurse fled the room. I believe it was her first delivery… or would have been had she stayed.”
I smile.
My eyes drift back down to the photograph. “I had a dream about Kylie the other night.”
Percy remains still, attentive.
I lean back slowly in the chair, dragging one hand down my cheek while I try to untangle thoughts I’m not certain I fully understand myself. “We were on the yacht… watching the sunrise.” I see it in my mind’s eye, clear as in the dream. “And Harper was there.”
I stare into the scotch while rain taps softly at the windows. “Kylie told me Harper was there for me and I woke up feeling…” I exhale slowly. “Guilty.”
Percy studies me now. “Because of Ms. Hawthorne?”
I nod. “Things with her are moving quickly. Much faster than I expected.”
And if I’m honest with myself, part of what gives me pause isn’t the speed itself but how little I want to slow it down. I pause before finally voicing the thought that has been clawing at me since the dream.
“Do you think I’m moving too quickly?”
Percy’s expression turns contemplative. “Oh, sir,” he says gently, “there is no proper timeline for grief. Or recovery from grief, for that matter.”
I lean back in the chair while he continues.
“The simple truth is that moving forward with your life is the only option any of us truly have. The alternative is remaining frozen beside ghosts forever… and that, sir, is no solution at all.”
I take a sip of my scotch.
“But of course,” Percy says, “we are only human.” His eyes drift toward the photograph still resting in my hands. “We do not let go of the past easily, particularly when the past contains great love.”
“Truer words,” I murmur.
Percy folds his hands loosely together. “That is the eternal conflict of the human condition, I think. We spend our lives grieving what we lose while simultaneously fearing what it means to move beyond it.”