The Love We Missed novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Anything

"I don't want anything from you, Patrick," I said.

"You don't mean that."

"I mean it more than anything I said in seven years."

Bria's phone was right in his face.

He didn't even notice it.

"I made a mistake," he said. "One. One big one. We can fix it. We can get a place, a little place, the three of us."

"There's a rowing machine on the lawn," I said. "Start there."

I turned and walked to Ciaran's truck.

He laid the board in the bed on a folded moving blanket, pencil lines up.

Behind us, Bria said to her phone, "Okay, that was iconic."

On Thursday, two dozen red roses showed up at the hotel's kitchen door at five in the morning.

The card said, "I'm sorry. I love you. P."

I gave them to the dishwashers.

On Friday, there were two dozen more.

The dishwashers asked me who P was and if he could keep going.

On Saturday afternoon, Patrick came to Lawrenceville.

It was cold and bright.

Nellie was on the swing in her rain boots, and I was pushing her.

Next door, the man with the snowblower was out testing it on a dry sidewalk.

Across the street, two women were stringing Christmas lights on a porch rail and arguing about the plug.

Patrick came up the walk in a clean suit and a fresh haircut.

He stopped at the bottom of Tricia's steps.

"Daddy!" Nellie said.

"Hey, Nell."

He didn't come up.

He looked at the swing, and then at me.

He cleared his throat, loud enough for the street.

"Someday," he said, "you're getting a house with a porch swing, and you're never staying up till two again."

The women across the street stopped arguing about the plug.

He said it well.

He'd practiced it in the car.

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