47. Knox

Fletcher was right;this wasn’t a decision like any I had ever made before—I needed to give it honest thought. So when I got off work, I didn’t drive home, where I’d be right next door to Larkin. Instead, I drove out to the country to spend some time with Dad.

I asked him all the questions I might never have an answer to on my own, like what it felt like to see your baby born. What it was like to watch one grow. I asked him why he didn’t remarry after losing Mom and heard every single worry he had as a single dad with five kids.

And when we were done talking and eating dinner, I went back to my place and spent the night alone, wondering what it might feel like to go to bed every night without Larkin by my side. Without the crackle of the monitor or the soft tune of the sound machine coming from the other room.

And it felt fucking terrible.

But I tried to imagine too what it would be like to know a baby was on the way. To watch my child grow in my wife’s stomach and see her give birth and support her through it. To hold a child who looked like the best parts of me and my girl. Admittedly, that sounded nice too.

Not nearly as nice as what I’d miss out on if I stayed away from Larkin. I knew that on day one of the pause Larkin and I were taking.

But I did my best to continue thinking it through. For what seemed like the longest week of my adult life, I gave her space. I went to work. I hung out with my family. I came home. I tried not to focus on the people I loved just a house away.

I left a little toy snake on their front porch to prank Emily and found a plastic pile of poop on my own the next morning.

By Friday, I’d about hit my wits end with the whole damn distance thing. But I knew there was one person left I had to see. The one I’d been dreading most, if I was being honest.

So when I got off work Friday night, I didn’t go straight home or hang out with Hayes at his garage. Instead, I took a dirt road to the cemetery outside of town.

The path was more than familiar, although I didn’t traverse it as often as I used to. Still, it was practically muscle memory, following the dirt roads, parking along the path, and getting out to find my mother’s grave.

The cemetery was empty, my truck the only one there. And I walked over the short green buffalo grass making it swish underfoot with every step until I reached my mother’s headstone. I remembered it had taken months after her death for it to be ready, but now the granite stood out amongst a sea of memorial pillars, her name etched forever into its surface.

Maya Madigan

Beloved wife and mother.

“Lead with love.”

There wereseveral items around the stone. Bright yellow silk sunflowers. A ceramic bowl Maya made in art class, colored in orange and red. A small rock turtle I’d gotten for her one year on vacation. And a few other items my brothers and dad had left behind.

I knew we all came out here when we needed her most and sometimes just because. Even though we knew her soul wasn’t here, it was a spot dedicated just to her and her memory.

But being here also made me remember that mad version of me. The one angry at God for taking my mom away when I wasn’t yet grown. The one scarred by images of my mother, wasting away in her bed at home, hair gone, eyelashes fallen away, bruises on her pale, papery skin from blood draws and medications that never did what the doctors promised they would.

I balled my fists at my sides and then released a breath, letting the evening breeze wash over me. I wasn’t that mad little kid anymore.

Heaving another sigh, I settled onto the ground before her headstone, careful not to sit on the spot above her casket. “I know my brothers always say they feel you here, but, Ma, I gotta be honest. I don’t feel comfortable with a bunch of other ghosts listening in.”

I imagined her laugh. She had the best laugh. Loud and carefree, and it always crinkled her eyes at the corners, like she felt her happiness with her whole body. Nostalgia washed over me.

I wished Mom could meet Larkin and her kids. Mom was so good with children, and not just her five little boys. She was the kind of person they were drawn to, kind of like Liv. Even now, I could feel her presence drawing me in, holding me close. So I started talking, hoping somehow she could hear me.

“I’m dating this girl, and I know that’s the kind of thing you probably hear more from Hayes.” My lips tipped because Ma and I both knew “dating” was the nice way to describe it. “It’s been hard for me to meet someone I click with here in Cottonwood Falls. And if I’m being honest, I was kind of thinking I’d be single forever, like Dad’s determined to be. But then I met Larkin...” Another breeze swept by, rustling the grass.

“She has two kids, and she’s worried about me being happy with that, feeling like I missed out if I don’t have biological children. But I’ve only ever felt like I was missing out before I met her. My life’s never been more full.”

I looked at her stone, those words staring back at me.

Lead with love.

Mom used to say that all the time. She wanted our hearts to be the guide—she said they’d never steer us wrong. When I’d get mad at my brothers, she’d ask me, “What would love do?” and that was always meant to be my next step. I could just picture her now, asking me the same question.

I laughed softly to myself. This whole week, I’d been wracking my brain for what to do, but I already knew what was in my heart.

I just needed to let it take the lead.

And it was pointing right back at Cottonwood Falls.