19. Fern

19

Fern

T heo’s ribs moved up and down in a steady, hypnotizing rhythm as he slept.

Fern watched his lashes flutter, eyes moving rapidly beneath closed lids, and wondered what babies dreamed about.

She’d held her friends’ babies countless times, had watched them grow and taken them for long weekends while their parents were away, and she loved all of them… but not like this. The love she felt for Theo went deeper, right to the marrow of her bones.

It felt like her love for her own babies.

Her daughter would have been five now, if Fern’s body had been able to hold on to her for just a little longer, long enough for her fragile lungs to grow stronger and take in air.

Her son would have been just about Theo’s age.

Fern wondered sometimes if that was why her heart had latched onto this baby with such fervent stubbornness, why she loved him beyond all reason.

It was illogical, maybe even unhealthy.

He wasn’t hers . She had no claim on him.

But she would give her life for his in a heartbeat.

After her miscarriage – her son was with her for less than twenty weeks, meaning that his death wasn’t technically a stillbirth, though it was no less devastating than her first loss – Fern had locked her longing for a baby away.

She’d moved to Hawai‘i and built a business in Pualena, made friends and found community in a new place. She’d made a home for herself and started – finally – to put down roots.

And then Theo had come along and blasted the doors off of her heart.

He’d reminded her of how deeply she longed for motherhood – how much she wanted a family . She’d even started looking into what it would take to become a foster parent in Hawai‘i… but between her tiny one-bedroom home and her students paying her under the table in cash, she worried there was no way she would ever be approved.

A soft rap on the door – too quiet to disturb Theo’s sleep – pulled Fern from her thoughts. When she opened it, a rare smile from Ethan made her heart flutter.

She wasn’t in love with him, hadn’t fallen head over heels for him in an afternoon… but she easily could, and that was a terrifying possibility.

The man was gorgeous, but he was grieving. Romance was off the table.

In different circumstances, she might have considered a rebound fling – but not when he was subletting the apartment upstairs, and not when she loved Theo like he was her own flesh and blood.

So far, despite handing Theo off multiple times a day, they had each given the other their space. Ethan worked tirelessly at renovating an apartment that neither of them owned, Fern taught her classes, and Theo moved back and forth accordingly.

“Is he sleeping?” Ethan asked quietly.

“Yeah. He just went down about ten minutes ago.”

“Thank you for watching him today.”

“It was my pleasure,” she assured him. “He is so precious.”

“I finished the kitchen floor. Do you want to see?”

“I’d love to.”

“Okay. I’ll carry him up.”

She stepped aside and let him in.

“He’s really conked out.” He stood for a moment just looking down at his son. The expression on his face was the softest she had ever seen.

He picked up the portable cradle and carried it carefully out the door and up the steps, his work boots steady on each of the non-slip strips that he’d installed.

Upstairs, she was astonished to see beautiful gray tile on the kitchen floor.

“I thought that you were going to get something inexpensive,” she said.

“I got a great deal on these. Some rich lady in Kona changed her mind after the tile had already been shipped from the mainland, and her contractor sold me these for next to nothing.”

“You drove all the way to Kona for this?”

“I don’t have much else to do,” he said with a shrug. “Teddy sleeps well in his car seat. As long as the car’s moving, that is.”

Another bashful, unexpected smile made her heart skip a beat.

“Hello?” An uncertain voice cracked mid-word. Fern turned to see a teenage boy standing outside on the landing. Ethan strode across the living room, and the kid handed him two big bags of food through the open door.

“Thanks.” Ethan handed him cash. “Keep the change.”

“Mahalo!” The kid took the wood steps down two at a time.

Ethan turned back to her, grinning like a little boy who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He held up the two takeout bags, and the smell of coconut milk and lemongrass drifted across the room.

“I always order enough for an army,” he said. “Will you stay and eat with me?”

It should have felt strange, being a guest in the apartment that had been hers just a few weeks before… but it didn’t. She closed the front door and then checked on Theo, who was still sound asleep. Ethan set the table as she sat down and looked out the window.

The view from this side of the house was solid green, her garden backed by an overgrown lot and albizia trees in the distance. She liked her cozy little home downstairs, but she missed this view.

“Do you like tom kha gai?” Ethan asked as he pulled out the chair that stood at a ninety-degree angle from hers.

“It’s my favorite.”

“Mine too.” He ladled a full serving into her bowl before serving himself.

The sharp smells of citrus and galangal filled the air, carried by a warm undercurrent of coconut milk and chicken broth. Fern leaned forward and inhaled the steam before picking up her spoon.

“It’s a good thing that the few restaurants that Pualena does have are good, because I’ve pretty much been living off of them.”

“Yeah, we’re lucky in that way.” She sipped the off-white broth from her spoon and reflected on all of the ways in which the small town that had accepted her was extraordinary. “In every way, really.”

“It’s a special place,” he agreed. “I can see why Emma stayed. And why Jun doesn’t want to leave.”

“Where were you before?”

“Jun grew up in Santa Cruz.”

“California?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s beautiful there.” Fern had passed through the beach town – beach city, really – a dozen times during the year that she lived in a converted van, traveling up and down the West Coast.

“It is. I thought it would be a good place to raise a kid, but I should have chosen better. The drug culture there… well, it took a toll on our family. But I was so entrenched in our home, and in my construction business, that I stayed longer than I should have.”

Fern nodded as she thought back to the darker side of Santa Cruz, to the tent cities that lay along the river and the discarded needles that littered the parks and beaches.

“I moved the family back to my hometown last year, a little mountain town north of Santa Cruz, but it was too little too late. My wife overdosed the week before we came here. To the island, I mean. I just cut and run. I couldn’t think there. Couldn’t function.”

Fern’s heart lurched, and she glanced over her shoulder to the basinet where Theo lay sleeping.

“Sorry,” Ethan muttered.

“No, I’m sorry. That’s horrible.”

“I’m out of my depth,” he admitted, staring down at his untouched soup. “I thought that another baby would be a fresh start for her, for our whole family. I never thought I would be raising him alone. I should have recognized the possibility, given everything… but it never even occurred to me. I guess I didn’t let myself think about it.”

“You’ve raised one wonderful kid already,” Fern said.

“I can’t take credit for Jun, not really. Her mom took care of her the first few years, while I was working seventy hours a week. It was mostly her and me for some of those middle years, but as soon as things got hard again, she moved in with her aunt. I feel like I failed her.”

Fern reached out to pat his hand, and he jerked in surprise. He stared at her and blinked rapidly, like he was just then remembering where he was.

“God, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to lay all that on you. I just wanted to feed you dinner and thank you for all of your help with Teddy.”

“I love spending time with him.”

“Yeah, you say that.” He leaned back and scrubbed a hand over his unshaven face. “I told myself that I would be more hands-on with this one. Maybe I should have stayed where we had more people, but I wanted to be close to Jun. Not that she wants me here, but I want to be here. In case she needs me. I don’t want to be thousands of miles away.”

“I respect that.”

“My sister’s here too, but she’s got her own kid, her own life. You have your own life. I can’t keep asking you to watch my kid. That’s not fair to you.”

“Ethan?” She waited until she had his full attention, until his eyes – green flecked with gold – met hers. “Theodore is not a burden. Not to me.”

His throat worked like he was holding back tears, and he nodded.

“Please don’t hesitate to give me time with him. Honestly, I’ve been afraid of the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll be devastated when you leave. I love that little guy.”

She held his gaze a moment longer, and then his eyes flicked down towards her mouth. They lingered there for a second before he blinked and looked away.

That moment was the first glimpse she had seen of any attraction he might feel – the first hint that maybe, maybe , he saw her as a woman. Not just as a landlady and convenient source of childcare.

And she would have been content with that, because she loved every moment that she spent with Theodore. Her neighbor was a widower, still freshly bereaved and grieving. That entitled him to a fair amount of leeway – and even if he had been in good spirits, there was no reason to believe that he would be interested in her .

He was younger than her, after all. And at nearly six feet tall – with a shaved head, no less – she wasn’t exactly every man’s cup of tea.

But that look .

Heat rushed to her cheeks a moment later when she realized that she was still staring at him. She looked down at her soup and picked up a mushroom with her spoon, even though she didn’t feel particularly hungry.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Ethan eating with a similar lack of enthusiasm.

“How long have you lived in Pualena?” he asked after a while.

She accepted the change of subject gratefully, and they spent the rest of the meal discussing the many places that she had lived – including her passes through Santa Cruz a few years back.

By the time they’d finished the soup and each eaten a bowl of curry, the tension between them had faded… mostly.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said after she had scraped the last of the white rice and green curry sauce out of her bowl. “That was delicious.”

“Thank you for joining me. For watching Teddy and… for listening.” He reached out and took her hand in his. “You’ll tell me if his time with you gets to be too much?”

“It won’t.”

“I don’t want to take advantage.”

“With all of the work you’ve been doing around here, it’s more than a fair trade. And even if you weren’t…” she shrugged. “I love spending time with him. Honestly.”

“Good.” He squeezed her hand once, like he was about to pull away… but neither of them did. His eyes traced the lines of her face, fixed on her for the longest they had since he had moved in. Almost imperceptibly, he leaned forward. And so did she.

A cry from Theo broke the spell.

Fern jumped to her feet and went to pick him up, acting on instinct.

“I’ll get a bottle going.” Ethan was on his feet too. He mixed up a serving of formula and put it in the bottle warmer, then set about clearing the table while it heated.

Her eyes followed him across the room as she swayed from side to side, hushing Theodore and rubbing his little back with one hand.

In her heart and in her gut, the cozy domestic scene felt so right .

Looked at objectively, it was more than a little bizarre.

What were they doing ?

Fern wasn’t sure. She only knew that there was nowhere on Earth she would rather be.