Restored (The Walsh Series Book 5) (13 page)

"Oh…" I straightened my watch and brushed my thumb over the palm of my hand. "She would," I said. "She'd bring half of her closet to your place today if you asked. She'd do anything to help you out, and she just wants you to like her. Or, more specifically, not hate her."

"Tiel and I have had some colorful moments but I think we understand each other now. And believe me, it's going to happen for you guys," she said. "My little Froggie and your little band geek are going to be best buddies. Just wait, Will is going to be presiding over crawling races on my lawn next summer. We just need to get Matt and Lauren on this, too. But not Patrick and Andy. They're playing a twelve-year-long chess game."

"Chess game?" I repeated.

Shannon's eyes drooped shut again and she nodded. "A long chess game," she said. "Let's just say they're watching each other's moves rather carefully."

Will's voice rumbled from the conference room, and the muffled sounds of him and Patrick talking floated through the bathroom door.

"He's gonna yell at me," Shannon said. "I got a big speech this morning about needing to slow down and get more rest and wearing sensible shoes, and I told him to suck my dick while he shoved his paternalistic advice up his ass. I mean, fuck, I wore the flats but only because they go with this look. I'm not a leggings-and-heels girl."

I stood and stepped toward the door then paused, turning back to Shannon.

"Thank you for…" I started, gesturing toward her. "For this. For everything. I've been hard on you for a long time. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve all the shit I left at your door."

"I gave you some shit, too," she said, attempting to brush off my comments with a flippant shrug. She hated talking about feelings. "I think we needed some time apart. Maybe we were a little codependent, and we couldn't take any of the next steps until we found our sea legs. And of course we had to yell at each other in a bathroom to get past it all."

"You're probably right," I murmured.

"I'm often right."

Shannon opened her eyes, and we stared at each other for a moment. We were finally mourning the end of the relationship that sustained us through Angus, through our first breaths of adulthood, through the end of our twenties. We didn't spend our weekends shopping or open-housing anymore, and we didn't exchange hundreds of texts daily, and we could no longer name each other as the people who knew us best. But we were going to be okay.

"Peanut," Will growled from the doorway, "you're coming with me, and there will be no arguments."

"I don't have the energy for an argument," she said.

In one quick movement, Will scooped her off the ground and had her cradled in his arms. "There's a first time for everything," he said.

A
pril

M
ay

S
am
:
I'm leaving now.

A
dull
, sinking ache lived in my chest. I tossed my glasses on my countertop and pressed my fingers to my eyelids with a yawn as the din of nail guns and workers rang around me. The Brookline property was buzzing with activity as the final days of the project loomed near, but I knew I should have stayed with Tiel today. She'd ordered me to leave, insisting that she wanted to sleep.

Shannon appeared at the kitchen doorway, her phone and water bottle tucked in one hand, and a wall sconce in the other. "Hey, I need you to—"

"Nope," I interrupted. I blinked and replaced my glasses before shoving my things into my messenger bag. "I have to leave for the rest of the day."

"What?" Shannon snapped. "What are you talking about?
You
wanted all hands on deck to get ready for the photographers next week. You were gone all yesterday afternoon, and I still have a list of things to work through with you because of it. I need you here."

I was ready to yell at her. To throw something. To expel all the grief and frustration I'd been hoarding since the ultrasound tech ceased chattering about baby names, and started murmuring to herself while she methodically swiped the wand back and forth over Tiel's belly, since the doctor was called in to confirm that the heartbeat couldn't be found, since silent tears started streaming down Tiel's cheeks and hadn't yet stopped.

But I'd abandoned the practice of slamming people with my emotions.

"The timing is shit, I know," I said, "but Riley and Matt have it under control. Worst case scenario—and I mean
worst
—you call or text me."

Shannon set the sconce down and eyed me. "What's going on?" she asked. "Something's not right."

I nodded, rubbing the back of my neck to alleviate some of the tension there. I beckoned her into the mud room with me, away from the flow of work. Closing the door behind us, I said, "Tiel was pregnant. We lost the baby last night." I leaned against the wall, suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. "We were going to tell everyone this weekend. At Andy and Patrick's place. Tiel had beer cozies made up for everyone. They said Aunt Lauren and Uncle Riley, and…she's barely spoken since it happened. She's devastated—we both are—and all I know is that she needs me to come home."

"Sam," she gasped, her fingers flying to her baby bump. Her eyes crinkled with concern and she reached out, pulling me into her arms. "Sam, I'm so sorry. You're right, you need to go. What the hell are you even doing here?"

I released a rueful laugh, and surrendered to her tight squeeze. "As someone mentioned, I ordered all hands on deck to get through the punch list," I said. "And she wanted to be alone. They did a…a procedure last night, and we didn't get home until the morning. I thought she'd get some rest. I know now that I shouldn't have left, but…I didn't know what to do. I don't know what to do, Shannon."

She leaned back, her head shaking and her eyes shiny with tears. "Go home," she said. "Don't come in tomorrow. I don't want to see you until Monday morning at the earliest." I nodded, and she continued, "What can I do for you? Are there any clients I can handle, or anything I can take off your plate? Do you want me to grab some carryout for you guys? Can I pick up some comfy jammies for her or girl stuff she doesn't want to ask you to get, or anything?"

I shook my head. "I have no idea," I confessed. "I don't know what we need, but I don't want her alone any longer."

"Of course," Shannon said, "and I'll take care of everything. Go."

The city dissolved into a slow-moving whirlwind of noise, color, and shape as I drove home, but I couldn't process any of it. When I arrived, I abandoned my phone and messenger bag in the kitchen, and carried water, a bagel, and pain medication upstairs.

From the doorway, Tiel was nothing more than a tiny knot of woman, her head tucked to her chest and her arms roped around her knees. Her shoulders shook with quiet sobs, and it was possible that I'd never seen her shattered quite like this before.

After brushing her hair off her face, I left a kiss on her temple and convinced her to eat the bagel and swallow the pills. There was nothing I could do to shield her from this loss, and nothing to say that we hadn't already heard.

These things happen.

There was nothing you could have done to prevent it.

It's more common than you think.

Don't blame yourself.

You can always try again.

I held her close and stroked her hair, and stayed there long after the tears dried and she surrendered to sleep. Then, I set out to fulfill her one request. The alcove where we'd been stockpiling tiny t-shirts and socks, story books, blankets, and stuffed animals had to disappear. As I folded each item, I was filled with the dim sense that I'd never unpack them.

I
didn't expect
them to come, but I should have. If there was one thing my siblings did with remarkable consistency, it was show up, and it took this moment to realize that I
had
been holding them at a distance.

But they didn't let that distance stop them. They circled around us.

Shannon arrived the next day, and without a word, she crawled into bed with Tiel and cried along with her. Andy and Lauren turned up not long after, and I was ordered away.

They promised to care for her, and though I still felt powerless, as if I was watching her slowly drown, I trusted these women. They were each strong-willed forces of nature in their own rights, but their love was the greatest force.

I found Riley, Matt, Patrick, and Will surveying the roof deck—God forbid anyone slipped up and called it a roof garden because Patrick was never more than moments from unleashing his loathing of roof gardens—with measuring tapes and the level app on Matt's iPhone. At one time, Riley and I entertained the idea of engaging Magnolia to renovate this area, but that had been cooling on the back burner.

"There's a lot of dry rot here," Patrick said, motioning to the old deck flooring. "I'm not seeing anything that should be salvaged. We're going to pull it up and replace it with some better materials."

"You don't have to do that," I said.

"I told them that," Riley said as he devoured an apple.

Matt pointed to the low railing that faced the Fort Point Channel. "What about some benches over here? And I think you're going to want some shade. Maybe a pergola."

"Yeah," Patrick murmured to himself as he walked the perimeter. "Yeah. Let's build some of those deep planter boxes, like the ones we used on my terrace. Cypress trees would give you shade and privacy. You can never have enough privacy when it comes to women and patios."

"I appreciate the offer, but honestly, it's fine. We don't use this space and—" They weren't listening. Will was prying up decades-old wood, Matt was recording measurements, and Patrick was scoping out the roofline.

"Is she doing the naked tanning thing again?" Will asked Patrick.

"Jesus. Yes," he growled. "The first mild day of spring, she was lying out on the terrace and bare-assed for the entire North End to see."

"I lucked out with the ginger," Will said. "She's the only person I know who wears more clothes at the beach."

"You really did," Patrick answered.

Will pulled up another plank and said, "We're gonna have a lot to haul away."

Matt glanced at his watch. "I can have a construction dumpster here in an hour or two."

"Okay, all right," I said. Building a deck seemed like the last thing I should be doing while my wife was recovering from a miscarriage, but damned if I knew the first or second things to do in this situation. "If we're doing this, we're using the right tools." I pointed at Will. "Just because you can break boards with your bare hands doesn't mean you should."

"No," Will said, shaking his head slowly, "that's
exactly
what it means. You should seize every opportunity that life gives you to tear shit apart."

We spent the weekend demolishing the old deck, and in some brutal way, it was exactly what I needed. What we all needed.