Hate You Not

I get up again and use a tube of motel toothpaste to brush my teeth with my finger. I look at myself in the mirror—I look pale and tired and fucked up—and I think about my mom and her pain. For years, I tried hard not to. Now it’s like a jagged tooth that I keep pushing my tongue onto.

I look at myself—slightly blurry still, though not as much as even yesterday—and I feel like she’s looking at me, too. I wonder what she’d say if she could, and somehow I just know she would be saying sorry.

I’m so sorry, sweetheart. It went so wrong, and I didn’t want it to. I never wanted that for you, Burke.

I wipe my eyes with hotel tissue, but the faucet stays on for a while longer. I feel nauseated by the time I fall asleep in June’s arms.

The next morning, I find I can see her face with almost perfect clarity. I can see Peanut better, too.

June straddles my hips and kisses my forehead when I tell her. “I’m so freaking happy. And I know you’re relieved.”

“You sure you can forgive me fucking up and ghosting?”

“I’m not mad if I can keep you.” She smiles in that way she has, so I can see wheels turning in her head.

I see my mother smiling, so clearly it’s almost like she’s right there with us.

I nod twice before I find my voice. “Whatever you want,” I rasp. “I’m yours already.”

“You are mine.” She leans down and kisses my lips, her hair falling over my neck and shoulders. It feels so good, I shut my eyes.

“What do you say we go out and you can show me all around to all the places I read about in magazines. We stay here for a few days, and then go back to the farm. Unless you want to live here? Do you want to live here?”

I laugh. “Do you?”

Her eyes widen. “I don’t know.” She takes a breath and lets it out and meets my eyes. “What if I spend time here and it turns out that I don’t, Sly?”

I grin. “Then that’s good. I don’t know if I want to live here either.” She gives me a questioning look, and I trace her forearm with my fingertip. “I want to be where you are, Gryff. I’d re-locate in a heartbeat if it means I get to be near you.”

“You would, really?” Her lips twitch into a smile that turns into a big grin.

I smile back. “Really, really.”EpilogueJune“What do you think?”

I grin at Burke, and then reach out and run my fingertip over one of the crib’s delicate spindles. “I don’t have words.” I throw my arms around his neck and sort of hit his six-pack with my basketball belly. “It’s freakin’ gorgeous. Peanut—a.k.a. Ashtyn Lawler-Masterson—is gonna love it.”

I take Burke’s hands, and we twirl in a circle over the pale pink rug in our baby girl’s near-finished nursery. Margot and Oliver must hear me laughing, because they dash in and join the party. Somehow Margot ends up in the crib, and Oliver is hanging upside down from Ashtyn’s rocker. Burke throws both of them over his shoulders and starts downstairs, roaring like the troll he sometimes pretends to be. His low voice echoes through the house’s roomy corridors.

We moved into my childhood home a month ago, though we’re not completely furnished with our renovations.

It took some thinking, but we ended up deciding to get rid of almost everything that had been in here and re-decorate a little bit, to make my family’s home feel more like ours. And it is ours. Burke bought the house from my dad and then signed it over to me, so it’s about as both of ours as anything could be. Daddy used the money to pay off his new house, where he’s living happily with Mrs. Kensington—mustache and all.

As a “Baby Mama Token of Appreciation,” B paid off the bank loan on the farm and even bought some acreage back from neighbors we had sold to in the last few years.

In the last couple of months, since he’s been well and truly settled in here with the kids and me, he and Shawn started “S of a B Woodworking,” which is quite a hit on Etsy and in a few showrooms up in Albany and Atlanta. When he and my brother get a few dozen more pieces—mostly beds and custom rocking chairs, although they plan to start doing some tables soon—Burke and I and the kids will spend some time in California, seeing how we like things there and letting Burke court showrooms in the Bay and L.A. areas.

I’m excited to spend time in California, soaking up the sun.

Now it’s January, a little cloudy and a little chilly the way Georgia has a tendency to be in winter. But it doesn’t seem dreary to me. I’ve got my hot tea and my Kindle and a bunch of plans I’m working on for when Ashtyn is born—which should be around February 21.