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Theo gives me a smile, and for a second, the resemblance to Levi is almost startling. He has the same crooked tilt to his grin. It’s uncanny, actually.
I hesitate, then ask gently, “How old are you?”
“Ten,” he says proudly.
Ten.
Levi looks about forty. The math doesn’t quite add up for brothers with that kind of age gap. It’s not impossible, but…
“Do you have the same dad?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Theo shakes his head, his expression turning suddenly serious. “His dad is dead. Mine just didn’t want me.”
The blunt honesty hits me square in the chest. There’s no self-pity in his voice, just a simple, matter-of-fact acceptance that breaks my heart a little.
I offer him a soft smile instead of an empty platitude.
We say our goodbyes, and I finish hanging the laundry while Fifi watches from a sunny patch on the grass. Once everything is clipped up, I carry her inside and am gently cleaning her off when my phone buzzes on the counter.
A missed call from an unknown number.
I hit redial immediately.
“Don’t panic,” Grace says the moment she picks up.
My stomach drops anyway. “Why would I panic?”
“We did something.”
Given that she recently ran off with a hitman, I’m not sure anything can shock me anymore.
“We eloped.”
I was wrong. For a long moment, I can’t speak. My baby is married and I wasn’t even there.
“Mom?”
I swallow hard and force warmth into my voice. “I’m so happy for you, sweetheart. Tell me everything.”
“It wasn’t anything big. I wish you could’ve been there, but it had to be fast.”
“I still don’t understand what the threat is. Why you had to leave the country?”
“Mom,” she says gently, “You know I can’t talk about that.”
We chat a little longer. She promises to send me a photo from the wedding, and she asks about school. I lie and tell her it’s going wonderfully, that I’m making friends and settling in.
When we finally hang up, I sit on the edge of the couch with the phone still clutched in my lap.
The photo comes through a minute later. Tears sting my eyes the second I open it.
Grace looks radiant in a simple white dress. She has the kind of beauty that doesn’t need embellishment; if anything, the simplicity makes it sharper. Her smile is wide and bright and so genuinely happy that it’s hard to be upset about the elopement for more than a second.
Beside her, Drew stands in a nice suit, clean-shaven and handsome. But it’s the way he looks at her that catches in my chest—like she is the best thing in the entire world.
It makes it almost impossible to dwell on what he does for a living. Or what he did. I don’t know the current situation, and I’m quite certain they wouldn’t tell me if I asked.
I trace my thumb gently over Grace’s face on the screen, my heart aching with a strange, bittersweet mix of joy and loss.
