I shrug before taking all of the towels out and setting one down on the sand before sitting down next to her, a giant grin on my face. “Yep.” I turn my gaze to Clay and Izzie where they run down to the sparkling blue ocean before saying, “Don’t go too deep into the water.” I pause. “And stay where I can see you!”
“Okay!” Clay shouts as he turns back around to face me before Izzie cheers and continues running toward the water, Clay on her tail.
Harmony chuckles lightly as we watch Clay lift Izzie up, her squealing in delight. “He’s so good with her, not all siblings have the bond that they do.”
“They don’t.” I lean back on my elbows before crossing my ankles. “Clay seem
s to be less… stressed lately,” I comment. “He hasn’t come into my room in the middle of the night scared for a few nights now.”
I close my eyes as I realize what I said to her. Why did I say that? She doesn’t want to know about Clay and the fact that he gets into bed with me most nights, scared to death of the dark and the nightmares that haunt him when he closes his eyes.
I turn to face her, seeing the sadness shining in her eyes at the mention of Clay. “Does he normally get into bed with you?” She worries her bottom lip. “Izzie mentioned that he’s scared of the dark.”
I run my hands down my face. “He is… and I don’t mean your average scared, he’s petrified. For the first couple of years after…” I trail off, leaving the sentence hanging in the air before I shake my head and clear my throat. “He sleeps with me most nights, he’s too scared to be in a room by himself. My mom keeps saying that I need to get him counseling but… I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of being judged by some shrink.”
“I guess the firefly jars aren’t helping the way I thought they would,” she mumbles to herself, biting her lip before turning toward me. “It’s not my place to say at all, but… I think he would benefit from seeing someone. No one is going to judge you for loving your kids and wanting to do what’s best for them.”
“I don’t know,” I reply before looking down at the water and seeing Clay and Izzie splashing each other. “I don’t want someone thinking that I don’t look after my kids, but it’s hard. People see a single father and start to think things.”
“Anyone with two eyes can see how much you care for them.” She frowns, looking away before turning back and catching my gaze. “So... it’s only the three of you?”
I sit up, my back straightening as nerves run through me. I knew this was going to come up at some stage, but I didn’t think it’d be right here, right now. “I…” I turn my face away and back toward her, my brows dropping low into a v on my forehead. “Yeah.” I clear my throat and shuffle uncomfortably. “Their mom, she…” I can’t say it; the words don’t want to physically come out of my mouth as a lump forms in my throat. “She… died.” I say the last word as a whisper, the wind carrying it over to her.
Just thinking about what happened to Natalia that day obliterates me, but the fact that Harmony still doesn’t know who their mother is feels like someone is stabbing me in the heart over and over again. I know that I have to tell her, but it doesn’t stop me not wanting to cause her more pain than I already have. We’ve both had enough pain to last a lifetime; I can still see the hurt I caused her all those years ago when I look into her beautiful honey eyes. I have no doubt that she can see the pain reflected in mine too; however much I try to hide it, I’ve never been good at shielding myself from her and now isn’t any different.
“Tristan, I…” I can see the emotion start to fill her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
I look down at the sand, scooping up a handful and watching it dissipate between my fingers as I splay them open. “Why do people always say that?” My voice comes out harsher than I meant it to and I immediately snap my head in her direction. “I didn’t mean…”
“No, it’s okay, you don’t have to explain.”
I move my hand from out of the sand, dusting it off on my shorts before running it through my hair and feeling the leftover grains rubbing against my scalp. “It’s just… I don’t know how to say this.” I swallow, taking a deep breath as I gather myself. I can’t believe I’m about to tell her. “You knew their mom.”
She pulls away slightly, sitting up straighter as she frowns. “I… What?”
My muscles are so tense, I don’t know how she’s going to take this. After I left her that summer, she had no idea what I left her for—who I left her for. “Their mom is Natalia,” I blurt out before holding my breath, waiting for her reaction and expecting her to shout or scream, or at least storm off.
I wait a couple of seconds before I turn my gaze back toward her, watching as her breath hitches and a tear escapes her eye and travels down her cheek. “Natalia? She… she’s gone?”
“Yeah,” I croak out and close my eyes, trying to fight back the memories from that day—so much blood—before I center myself and open them back up, staring into Harmony’s eyes. “She died after she gave birth to Izzie.”
Her hand covers her mouth as the tears track down her cheeks like rain battering against the window in a storm, her sadness and grief obvious. “So, Izzie never met her?”
I shake my head, my stomach bottoming out as I look down at the crystal blue sea where Izzie and Clay are playing at the edge of the water. “I sometimes wonder who has it worse—Clay for meeting her and missing her, or Izzie for never having met her.”
I don’t know what I’m trying to achieve by telling her something that has always bugged me, but I say it anyway.
She’s silent for so long that at first I think she hasn’t heard me, so I turn my gaze from Clay and Izzie to her, watching her reaction as she faces the water, watching my kids in the same way that I was, all the while mourning her friend.
“You two were... You were married?” she asks suddenly in a voice that has a slight edge to it.
I clutch my hands together, squeezing so tightly that they turn white from the force as I look down at where they sit between my legs. “We were,” I answer, not wanting to keep anything else from her. “There was a lot of things going on back then, Harm. Things you didn’t know about—”
“Don’t.” She turns to face me, wiping at her cheeks. “Don’t try to make excuses for it, own your decision.” Another tear rolls down her cheek.
“I… I’m not...” I desperately want to say more to her, to tell her everything, but now isn’t the right time—I don’t know when will be.
She swipes at her face, dispersing the tears from her cheeks. “I’m mad as hell right now, so don’t bother.” She pauses before saying, “I am sorry for what you all went through though. It can’t have been easy having all of this on your shoulders and bringing the kids up on your own at the same time.”