13. Mattias

Iwas never sure what to do with my situation with Connor Darling.

I know, I know, what situation?

The man was married and I saw him once a year for a week, and that whole visit invariably revolved around the heart-shattering loss of his beloved child. Of course, it seemed that Connor had changed his whole life to revolve around that loss.

It was strange, how people handled tragedy differently.

Some people—most of them, I thought—tried to distance themselves when tragedy struck. They dropped out of social circles including other parents and the PTA if they lost a child. They stopped going to couple-ish events when they lost their spouse. They quit hobbies and careers and places and people because they associated them with their personal traumas.

Sometimes, to small degrees, they used those same things to bring them closer to their tragedies. Me, for instance. Since Grandpa had died, I'd picked up painting. Well, a little, anyway. I was nowhere near as good as he'd been, but standing in the small outbuilding he'd used as his studio, looking out the window at the river, surrounded by the smell of oil paint, had made me feel closer to him in a way I couldn't truly be anymore.

And some people—the exceptions, the outliers, the most incredible people, to my mind—recentered their whole lives. They realized that what they had been doing before, careers and hobbies and social lives, weren't as important as this tragedy, and that the same tragedy affected other people. They changed everything to try to do what they could to help others in the same heartbreaking situation. They became grief counselors, started groups and websites, and... well, if they were Connor Darling, they started entire organizations designed to help people through one of the most traumatic things that could ever happen to a human being.

Frankly, I stood in awe every time I saw him listed as speaking at an event, or on one of his organization's commercials. The man had strength I could barely understand, to get in front of millions of strangers and talk about the event that had shattered his life into a million pieces.

Somehow, though, he texted me, or walked into the inn for his yearly visit, and he was still just Connor. Still a little goofy and a little awkward and uncomfortable with his own life, always denigrating himself in small ways, pointing out that he was only a multimillionaire by an accident of birth. He hadn't changed, even while he'd been changing the whole world.

Something was different, this year.

In the two years since Jessie's disappearance, Connor hadn't changed any physically. Sure, he'd seemed hollow and thin and miserable during the visit the year before, but I'd expected that. This year? This year, he seemed... better. Not well. Not happy. The man was still carrying his five-year-old's suitcase with him on vacation. It wasn't healthy.

But it also wasn't wallowing in the way I might have expected. The way I did sometimes, looking through old family photo albums just to see pictures of my grandparents, hale and healthy and together, and cry. It wasn't like he was sitting there with the suitcase in his lap sobbing. He was just bringing it along. Just in case, I suspected. Even though a seven-year-old certainly couldn't fit into a five-year-old's clothing, and Jessie would be seven now.

Every time I left the kitchen to go into the dining room, I almost tripped over Peanut, because he hated that he wasn't allowed in the kitchen. So he sat there against the kitchen door, whining like someone had shot him and he was lying there bleeding out. Or dying of pudgy little doggy starvation. Attention-starvation, more like.

But still, when Grandma came in to sit at the table, he rushed to her side and lavished attention on her, which had been the point of getting a dog. As much as I wanted to spend every moment with her, I couldn't. I was too wrapped up in the day-to-day running of the inn, and she'd been lonely.

She scrubbed his ears with both hands, smiling down at him. "Who's the best little peanut in the whole world, hm?"

He whined with sheer canine joy, sure that the answer was himself, of course, and tried to wriggle his way onto her lap. Then I walked into the room and he fell back to the floor, affecting innocence, because he knew darn well he wasn't allowed in the dining room chairs. All the other rooms in the house, he had free rein, but no kitchen, and no dining room furniture.

"Indian?" Grandma asked, smiling, her expression not falling a bit when she looked from the dog to me. I was her other puppy, I supposed.

So I smiled back. "I thought so. I know how you love naan, so I made lots of dough."

That turned the smile into a downright grin, and Peanut turned begging brown eyes in my direction, like if Grandma wanted a thing so much, then clearly it had to be good for him, too. Unfortunately for him, I also slathered the naan in garlic butter, so it definitely was not for him.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Don't you give me that. Your homemade dog food is better than half the meals I eat, so no complaining."

"Dog food, huh?" Connor asked from the door. He was looking at Grandma, not me, concerned. It was understandable. She'd just come home from the hospital last time he'd left, and she'd still been on required bedrest at the time. Her hip had healed, but she was fragile now, in a way I was struggling to reconcile from the hardy woman who'd taught me how to garden. Clearly, Connor felt the same way, if to a lesser degree. "I heard people are into making their own nowadays, never really thought about it."

I shrugged as I headed back over to the kitchen door. "I mean, nothing against kibble, if it's what you have time for and can afford. I just cook for a living, so it seemed ridiculous to leave Peanut out of my cooking. Plus a lot of those premade dogfoods have main ingredients that aren't super healthy."

I was picking up the enormous bowl of curry when Connor followed me into the kitchen, a tentative look on his face, brows drawn together and biting his lip. "I thought, um, I'd ask if you needed help carrying things into the dining room. Feel free to kick me out if you don't want me in the kitchen or something. Like Peanut. No, bad Connor, no treats for you."

I laughed at that, shaking my head, and pointed my chin at the still steaming pile of naan in another container. "You can bring those in if you want. And I promise not to withhold treats. I've even got kheer for dessert, and everyone knows it's the superior rice pudding."

He grabbed the naan, smiling, then leaned over and looked at the huge bowl of rice. "This too? Pretty sure I can carry both."

"Then by all means," I agreed, hurrying to the door to open it for him, since he didn't have a free hand.

I even managed to avoid tripping over Peanut, who had stationed himself right back in the doorway.

A moment later, though, I almost tripped over my own damned feet when I realized something. Connor, carrying my platter of naan in his left hand, wasn't wearing his wedding ring. In fact, there was a conspicuous pale line there, as though it had only relatively recently been removed.

Connor wasn't wearing his wedding ring.

Connor was . . . not married anymore?

I couldn't even fucking ask, because how rude would that be, but oh how I wanted to know every damned thing.