“I’ll get our bags,” Maxx said as I started heading toward the porch. I took in a million details in the seconds it took me to approach the house that had once been my home. My parents had replaced the old, battered porch swing with a small, wrought iron patio set. My mother’s old rosebush on the side of the house had been dug up, and a wooden lattice now stood in its place.

It was obvious my mother was still compulsive about her gardening. Now that the weather was getting warmer, I could see she had been working to get her flower beds in order.

My eyes traveled over the well-worn steps I had climbed countless times. And then I was standing in front of the door, now dark blue and no longer a gleaming white. There were so many changes, yet it still felt the same. The soothing familiarity of home fought to overwhelm the nerves in my belly.

I stood there, staring at the door, not knocking. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for, but I couldn’t bring myself to raise my hand to the wood.

“Do you want me to do it?” Maxx asked quietly, dropping our bags on the floor by his feet.

I nodded. This was it. I was home.

chapter

twenty-eight

aubrey

maxx knocked, steady and loud. Then, as though she had been waiting by the door, my mother was suddenly there, standing in the open entryway.

“Aubrey,” she murmured, her voice a hoarse whisper. She was surprised. I hadn’t told her I was coming.

Her face looked so different than I remembered, and she didn’t seem exactly pleased to see me. I started to think this idea of mine was a huge mistake.

“Mom,” I replied, looking up at the woman who had loved me and then thrown me away.

We didn’t move toward each other, but I could feel her gaze as she looked me over, and I wondered how much I was coming up short.

My mother had aged since I had seen her last. Her blond hair was streaked with gray, and her once unlined face was punctuated with wrinkles. Her eyes looked tired and sad, and her shoulders were slightly drooped. She seemed weary and . . . old. It shocked me.

Maxx cleared his throat and thankfully broke the tension. “Hello, Mrs. Duncan. I’m Maxx Demelo, Aubrey’s boyfriend,” he said, holding out his hand.

My mother offered him a polite smile. “Aubrey never mentioned a boyfriend,” she said, and I wanted to roll my eyes.

“Which is crazy, given how often we chat,” I said with icy sarcasm.

Maxx widened his eyes, and my mother’s jaw tightened, though I could have sworn I saw a flash of hurt on her face before she smoothed her expression.

Mom shook Maxx’s hand and then moved aside, waving us inside. “I wasn’t exactly expecting company, so you’ll pardon me if things are a bit of a mess,” she said, sounding slightly flustered. I realized how unfair it was to spring my visit on her, with a boyfriend no less, without giving her time to prepare.

I guess I had worried that if I had actually spoken to my mother again, I would have chickened out. That she would have said something to piss me off, and I would never have made this necessary leap to bridge my past with my present.

I had avoided this town, this house, this woman, for so long, and I was tired of running. If Maxx was making an effort to move beyond his past, then I owed it to him—to us—to do the same.

So I took a moment to breathe in and out, collecting myself, before following my mother into the house. Maxx put a hand on my lower back, and the slight pressure, the smallest reassurance, was all I needed to calm my trembling nerves.

I reached down and laced my fingers through his, finding strength in the man who had always needed me to be his rock. Now he was slowly becoming my foundation.

We stepped together over the threshold, and I stopped, looking around. I almost thought I could hear the echoes of my baby sister’s laughter in the air around me. The memories of a thousand mealtimes and movie nights. Years of holidays and those infinitesimal moments that make up a life. They were everywhere. All around me. Threatening to drown me in the agony and joy of remembrance.

It was the same house but different. The furniture was all as I remembered, though it looked as if the walls had received a fresh coat of paint sometime recently. But the atmosphere was what had changed. It felt . . . empty.

The heart, the love, the center of this home had disappeared. It was a shell of the happy place I remembered as a child. It had been buried in the ground with my sister.

I hated it.

It seemed wrong that three years later, we were still imprisoned by our grief that had almost destroyed us. I looked at my mother, and she was straightening the cloth runner on the dining room table. She looked edgy and uneasy with my being here, even though she had requested that I come.

For the first time since my sister’s death, I allowed myself to let go, just a tiny bit, of the anger and resentment that had taken up a painful residence inside me. I was tired of being the emotionally disconnected, righteously furious woman who felt wronged by her parents and betrayed by a sister who had hidden secrets that had ultimately killed her. Holding on to that was exhausting.

Maxx still held my hand tightly in his. His eyes scanned the space I had once inhabited, and he appeared to be taking it all in, though his face revealed nothing.

I wondered what he was thinking. Did this conjure memories of his own family? Would this trigger something dark inside of him?

Before I could start to panic at that thought, my mother finished her fretting and turned back to us. “I really wish you had told me you were coming. I haven’t even made up your room.” She inclined her head toward Maxx. “I hope you’re comfortable with sleeping on the couch. Aubrey’s father and I aren’t those liberal parents that are okay with their daughter sharing a bed with a man while unmarried.” I covered my snicker with a cough. I found my mother’s stern words humorous. It felt good to laugh instead of becoming angry at her blatantly judgmental tone.

Maxx cleared his throat and gave me a sideways look before turning back to my mother and her pursed lips. “Yes, ma’am. I would never expect that. The couch is fine.”

My mother nodded her head into the living room. “You can leave your stuff in there.” Then her eyes flickered to me and the hard set of her mouth softened slightly. “Aubrey, let me take you up to your room.”

“I know where my room is, Mom,” I pointed out, not sure I was ready to be alone with her.

There it was again, that flash of hurt that was there and gone before I could be sure I had seen it at all. She looked as though she wanted to say something. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. In the last few years, our interactions were few and fraught with tension and unresolved bitterness. But right now, while those feelings were still there, it seemed they were being smothered by something else.

Tentative hope.

“Okay, then. Well, I’ll go put some coffee on. Come down after you drop your things in your room.” Then she was gone, and I took my bag from Maxx, who seemed unsure as to what to do. I knew I was putting him in an extremely awkward position. It was unfair of me to lean on him like this when he was only just learning how to cope with his own issues.

But I needed him. I needed to be able to rely on him.

Maybe I was testing him. Testing us. Testing the strength of this new relationship we were foraging for ourselves. I wanted to see if we’d shatter or whether we could survive the weight of the baggage of both of us.

Looking into his eyes, I wasn’t entirely sure where we’d end up. Broken and bleeding, or strong and together. “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked. It was on the tip of my tongue to say no. To go it alone, as I’d forced myself to for a long time now.