After the Climb (River Rain 0.50)

He didn’t know how to describe it.

Gen did.

“Lost. Drifting. Aimless.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

She rolled her head on her neck before she asked, “Do you think it might be the divorce?”

“I can’t know, baby. I’ve known her a month and this is all I know of her. Sunny. Sweet. Lively. But directionless. Is that a change?”

She nodded.

“She was an athlete, like her dad, her brother. Matt played tennis. He was good. Not as good as Tom but few are. Sasha played beach volleyball. And she was great. Coaches talked to her and us about the possibility of her going pro and competing in the Olympics. She’s a laidback kid. Chloe got all the drama in the family. But with that, Sash was driven. She loved doing it. After we moved to Phoenix, we spent a lot of time, shuttling back and forth so she could keep doing it. She was all in. And then she just…stopped.”

“Before the divorce, during or after?”

“During,” she whispered.

“You need to have a talk with her, Genny.”

“I have, Bowie. And she tells me to chill out. She’s all good. Just because she’s not doing what everyone else is doing doesn’t mean what she’s doing is wrong. I tell her everyone else doesn’t have a trust fund and rich parents to keep them in ripped jeans and embroidered tops. It isn’t like she’s scoring through the money we set aside for her to go to school and set up a life. She’s low maintenance. It was far more expensive to have Chloe in France for three years.”

He was not surprised about that.

“I shared in return you can’t wander through life without something,” she continued. “I agree with you, it’s okay for a while. And even good. She’s lucky she has that privilege when others don’t. But I’ve told her it can’t go on forever and Sash doesn’t get angry easily, or impatient, but that sure makes her both.”

“Can you cut her off, money-wise?” he queried.

She nodded but didn’t look happy about doing it. “Tom and I have control of her trust. She can’t get to the totality of it until she’s twenty-six. But, Bowie, that’s last ditch. It seems punitive. And she’s not doing anything wrong…as such. She’s just not doing, well, anything.”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“I’ll have a talk with her, after Christmas,” Gen decided.

“How ’bout you corral Coco to have a talk with her?” he suggested.

“I think you can imagine that Sasha is the least inclined of anyone to do what Chloe tells her to do.”

“Maybe. Chloe is also a big sister, has it together, and doesn’t breathe unless she’s doing it for someone she loves, and Sasha knows that. So it might not go down great in the beginning, but it also might get her thinking.”

Gen was also thinking as she said, “I’ll talk to Chloe about it. After the holidays.”

“Good. Now, time for bed.”

Her distracted expression fled, and her eyes came to his.

Then she gave Cookie a snuggle before she rose from her chair, dropped the cat on the seat and they walked, arms around each other, to their room.

Duncan didn’t know what woke him, especially after poker, a number of Scotches, a late night, and a slow fuck that ended fast and hard.

But he woke.

To an empty bed.

Not even thinking about it, he sat up, ready to toss the covers aside and look for her.

But he didn’t move when he saw her standing at the window, staring into the night.

Either she heard him move, or simply sensed he was awake, because she spoke.

“It snowed.”

He could tell by the brightness coming into the room that wasn’t just the usual from a moon that was not dimmed by the lights of humanity.

The theme of the planet: what they create doing everything from reducing to obliterating the beauty of nature.

“Come back to bed,” he called.

“I hate that you lived the marriage you had,” she told the window.

Shit.

Yeah, his comment about Harv being the best friend he’d had had gotten to her.

“Come back to bed, baby,” he repeated.

“I hate that we didn’t get the chance to make daughters. You’re great with my girls. I love to watch you with them. A natural.”

His voice was lower, rougher, when he reiterated, “Gen, please, come back to bed.”

“I need to do this,” she replied, also lower, throatier.

Hearing that, Duncan said nothing.

“Just this once,” she went on.

Duncan remained silent.

Genny spoke on.

“I get that it wouldn’t have worked. I get that it would have overwhelmed us. I get that, if it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have had my kids, and yes, Tom, and you wouldn’t have had the boys, and the times that were good with Dora. I get all of that.”

She stopped.

He waited.

She started again.

“But my mother loved you. There were times I thought she was more hurt than I was at how we ended. And my father never had a son. You were that to him. And he tried to hide it, so he could look after me, but I knew he was devastated. So I also hate that they didn’t live to know what really happened, to see us together again, and to have you back in their lives.”