Brothers of Paradise Series

I shift Emma to my left side. We leave down the sidewalk and I look once over my shoulder, over at Lee, still standing in front of my mother’s house. His dark eyes watch me.

So I take Emma’s hand and resist the urge to run the rest of the way down the cul-de-sac. We take the walking path between the houses, past the meadow, and onto Parker’s street. Emma is quiet beside me, her legs moving fast, hand tight in mine.

She knows, I think. For all that I’ve tried to shield her, she knows, because she’s too clever.

We stop outside of Parker’s garage. A quick glance around shows that Lee isn’t following us, and I rush us into Parker’s backyard.

“But he’s not home. Right?” Emma whispers.

I nod and focus on sorting through the empty pots by the grill. He has the key to the garage in one of these, left for me if I ever wanted to work out when he isn’t home… and in the garage, under the box with the extra sails for Frida, is the house key, hidden there if he ever locks himself out.

He’d shown it all to me.

Parker, I think, and bite down hard on my tongue to stop the tears. Here he is, saving me once again, and I don’t know where he is.

He’d given me a job and trusted my skills when I didn’t myself. He’d half-forced me into the workouts, helping me to build self-confidence without knowing just how nonexistent it was.

And now he doesn’t even have to be here to save Emma and me from Lee.

I let us into his house and shut the door behind myself, pulling the deadbolt.

“Why are we here?” Emma asks. She’s toeing off her wet shoes without me having to ask. “Is it because of Dad?”

I nod.

“Oh,” she says, accepting it like she accepts everything. “Good.”

“Good?”

“I don’t think I like Dad anymore.” She walks into Parker’s living room and runs her hand along the wainscoting on the wall with every step. “Do we have to be quiet?”

“No.”

“Okay. Can I turn on the TV?”

“Yes,” I murmur. “Yes, of course.”Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

The place smells like him. An old cable-knit sweater is tossed over the back of an armchair. I reach for it and pull it on. It’s too long in the arms and I have to fold them up twice.

Come back, I think, looking at one of the trophies he has in his living room. I’d given him shit over them just a week ago. That he’d displayed them in the bookshelf, right next to a bunch of law textbooks and above a framed picture of all the Marchands on safari in Kenya.

“So boastful,” I’d teased. He’d wrapped his arms around my waist, face against my neck. Just wait till I get my trophy for winning you, he’d said. Watch me display it on the front lawn.

Ridiculous nonsense, but the memory makes my eyes sting. I love him. I hadn’t realized how much until he’s gone.

Emma and I sit side by side on the couch and watch the first thing she finds. It’s a cartoon she’s watched before, and I pull her close to my side.

Lee is back.

Parker is gone.

But I still have her, and it’s all that truly matters. Lee can’t take her from me. The papers Parker gave me are in my mother’s house, true, but they’re there and they’re all filled out. I’ll file for single custody first thing tomorrow morning.

Lily and I text, but there are no updates. Nothing at all, not from the coast guard, not from the family. She tells me their father is moments away from grabbing Frida and taking the boat out to look for Parker himself, if he wasn’t being stopped by Lily and her mother. Henry and Faye are on their way from New York. Rhys has been told.

Parker, I think. Please come home.

Emma is quiet beside me, like she often is. I didn’t think she’d caught most of what was going on, not until the cartoon ends and she stretches on the couch. “Mommy?” she says.

“Yes?”

“Maybe we should bake the cookies he liked,” she says. “With the M&M’s. For when he comes back?”

I close my eyes to stop the tears. “Yes, I think that’s a great idea.”

While we bake, I put Parker’s phone on his kitchen table, as if its very presence might force a call. As he might somehow call it himself. And we fill his kitchen with the smell of home-baked cookies.

Any updates? I text Lily.

None. Hayden and I are down by the marina, still no sign.

Emma eats two giant cookies and falls asleep on the couch. I spread the blanket over her and lean my head back. Close my eyes.

Come back, I think. I’ll do it all differently if you just come back.

Between the soft sounds of Emma dozing and the scent of Parker on the sweater I’m drowning in, I drift into an uneasy slumber. My mind is filled with crashing waves. Him, his ship, Lee. Water filling up my lungs. Sea-salty hair. The way Parker looks when he swims, strong strokes through the water.

His voice cuts through my hazy dreams. Jamie, he says, and then again, softer. Jamie, you’re here?

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, fighting against half-sleepy tears. The past twenty-four-hours have been too much. I care too much.

“Jamie,” his voice comes again, and then a hand lands on my shoulder. “Baby, wake up. Please.”

There’s a face bent over mine, beautifully familiar. A jaw with a two-day stubble and dark blue eyes.

“Parker?” I say.

He nods and puts a finger to his lips, motioning to the sleeping child beside me. I slide out from under the blanket and into his arms.

He gives a surprised oof and then his arms wrap around me, two steel bands that don’t let go, my toes the only part of me still on the ground. The skin on the side of his neck is warm and salty and I bury my face against it. He smells like ocean, like seaweed and wind.

“Shh,” he murmurs, hands moving over my back, and he buries his face in my hair, like he’s breathing me in too. “It’s okay.”

I don’t know when I start crying, but suddenly it’s the only thing I can do, sobs racking my body.

“Jamie,” Parker whispers. His voice is ragged and I tighten my hands around his neck. “Come here. Come, baby, let’s not wake Emma…”

He walks me into the kitchen, away from my sleeping daughter. And the small act of thoughtfulness, such a contrast from Lee, makes my tears run faster, until I have to gasp for breath. And Parker holds me through all of it.