Page 84 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"That's a very serious nothing." I sit on the edge of his bed, careful not to reach for the pad, because I know a locked door when I see one, even a small one. "You know you can tell me things."

"I know." He doesn't look up. "It's just a list."

"Of what?"

"Stuff." He pauses a beat, his jaw doing the thing it does when he's deciding whether honesty is worth the risk. "Rafe does lists when he's worried about something. He says it helps him figure out what's actually true instead of what he's scared of."

Something in my chest goes tight and sore all at once, and I don't trust myself to say anything for a second, because my son has taught himself to grieve using the one habit Rafe left behind, and there isn't a single part of that thought that doesn't ache.

"Can I see it?"

"Not yet." He hugs the pad to his chest, gentler than I expect, like it's something fragile instead of just an ordinary legal pad. "It's not finished."

I let him keep it. Whatever he's building on those pages, checklist or wish list or something in between, it's the only thing he seems to be able to hold onto right now, and I'm not about to take that from him on top of everything else that's already gone missing from his life this month.

Maggie and Dot show up on the third day, unannounced and unbothered by that fact, Maggie with a casserole dish and Dot with a bottle of wine that's decidedly not for the twins. They set up camp at my kitchen table like they've done this a hundred times, because in a town this size, they've probably shown up like this for somebody else too.

"We're not here to fix it," Maggie says, sliding the casserole into the oven without asking. "Just so we're clear. I don't have a recipe for whatever this is."

"I appreciate the honesty."

"We're here to sit with you while it's terrible," Dot adds, already pouring three glasses like this was never a discussion to begin with. "And to tell you it's not your fault, because I already know you've spent the last three days convincing yourself it is, and I'm not having it."

"I don't know what I did."

"That's because you didn't do anything." Dot sets a glass in front of me, hard enough that it clinks against the table, some old fierceness rising up under the usual gossip and warmth. "I've watched that man for six years. He came into my chair every six weeks and stayed silent enough to unnerve me, right up until this town practically forced the two of you into the same room. Whatever's happening in his head right now, it started long before he ever met you, and it'll keep going whether you're standing in front of him or not."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"It's meant to get you to stop apologizing for something that was never yours to carry." She softens, just slightly, and reaches over to squeeze my hand once. "You're allowed to be furious at him and still understand him. Those aren't opposites."

Maggie doesn't say much for a while after that, just refills my glass when it gets low and lets Dot do the talking, and somehow the two of them together are more comforting than either one alone. Eventually she does speak, quiet, her eyes steady on mine over the top of her glass.

"You going to let him just disappear on you? Or are you going to make him say whatever this actually is to your face?"

"I don't know what good it does at this point."

"It doesn't have to do good. It just has to be true." She shrugs, the same easy shrug she gave me over a sandwich on my second day in this town, a lifetime ago now. "You've spent your whole marriage being told what you were supposed to feel instead of getting to ask. Maybe this time you ask."

I think about that longer than I mean to after they leave, dishes rinsed and the wine mostly gone and both kids finally down for the night, the house gone quiet in the way it only does after a house full of noise clears out all at once. Dot's right, and I hate that she's right, because it means the easy version of this week, the one where I keep waiting politely for an explanation that clearly isn't coming, isn't actually an option anymore. It's just cowardice with better manners, and I've spent too many years married to a man who specialized in exactly that to let myself get comfortable wearing it now.

I check on the twins before I decide anything else. Josie's asleep with one arm thrown over the stuffed dog she named after Biscuit, and Eli's asleep too, the legal pad closed on his nightstand, three lines visible at the top of the page in his careful, slanted print. I don't read the rest. I've seen enough already to know what it costs a kid to build a list out of missing someone.

I'm in the truck before I've fully decided to be, keys already in the ignition, the porch light behind me and the brewery's lit sign eleven miles ahead, the same eleven miles that used to mean something entirely different a few weeks ago. Gunny's truck is still in the lot when I pull in, along with Rafe's, and the brewhouse windows are the only ones lit, which tells me exactly where to look.

He's alone by the time I get through the door, coiling a hose he's clearly already coiled once tonight, shoulders set in the tight, deliberate line he gets when he's decided being busy is the same thing as being fine. He hears me before he sees me, and whatever crosses his face in that first second, before he locks it back down, tells me everything I actually came here for.

"Jenna."

"Don't." I hold up a hand before he can finish building whatever sentence he's already reaching for. "Not yet. I need you to just listen for a minute, and then you can say whatever you came prepared to say."

He sets the hose down slowly, like sudden movement might make this worse, and doesn't argue, which is new enough that it almost throws me off my own script.

"The twins think you stopped coming around because of something they did. Josie's asked me every single day this week if you're coming back, like there's a version of the truth I'm keeping from her on purpose. Eli's started keeping a list, Rafe. Your list. He's eight years old and he's learned to grieve you in your own handwriting because that's the only language he's got left that feels like you."

"That's not what I wanted."

"I know it's not. I don't think you wanted any of this. I think you're smart enough and careful enough that if you'd actually wanted to hurt us, you'd have found a cleaner way to do it." I take a step closer, steady, because I didn't drive eleven miles to shake in front of him. "But you did it anyway. Because it was never really about protecting us at all, was it?"