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I was up off the couch now, pacing the room. Austin didn’t say a word. She just got up and walked beside me. Poor thing. She’d opened the floodgates now.

“And Tad. Talking about some beautiful feet. All these years I’ve been standing here dying, trying to serve God only to have people look down on me because I didn’t have a husband, and now this fool wants to try and be good to me?”

She took my hand, laced my fingers. I didn’t pull away.

“There was so much more I wanted, but I was trying to do the right things. But it didn’t work, none of it. Jordan is back and instead of fixing everything, he’s messed it all up. Him and his silly girlfriend. I don’t even know that I want him anymore, but he should have tried harder, done more than just propose to some heifer he barely knows—”

“Yeah.” Austin finally spoke.

We stopped walking and I tried to breathe. I guess it was time for her to rein me in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say all of that,” I said.

She shrugged. “It’s okay. You needed to. Everybody needs to bleed. That’s what friends are for. The thing is making sure the wound is clean after. It’s the infection that can kill you.”

This time I took her hand. We walked to the couch, the one unused until today and knelt there together. I bowed my head.

“Let’s pray,” Austin whispered.

“Mom, I didn’t think it would be this hard.”

I stared at my son through bleary eyes, spotting his face across his daughter’s crib. Moriah, my sweet pea of a granddaughter, had been crying nonstop for thirty minutes. It was four in the morning. “Actually, this is the easy part. They sleep a lot at the beginning.” My arms extended to take her from him.

Jericho swiped at his chin. “This is a lot of sleep?”

Moriah snuggled into my robe, no doubt looking for milk I didn’t have. “This baby does well. You kept me up most of the night until you were five years old. If it wasn’t for Dana, I don’t know how—”

“I’m sorry.” He dropped into the rocking chair I’d brought down from the attic, the one I’d rocked him in. It was still functional, but as creaky as his voice.

“Don’t be. This is what it’s all about. There were great moments, too. Being a parent is the most difficult and the most rewarding job I’ve ever had. The shop, my faith, most of who I am—it’s all somehow tied to making a better life for you.”

He scrubbed his eyes. “But it could have been easier if Dad had been there, huh?”

I paced to the door and back again. “I try not to think in could-haves, honey, but yes, I suppose it might have been easier with your father around, but then again, maybe not.”

With a final wail, Moriah went limp against me.

“Finally,” I whispered, starting toward the crib.

My son held out his hand, shook his head. “I’ll walk her a little more. Until she’s asleep for real.”

Asleep for real? I stared down at her closed angel eyes, tiny chest rising and falling. What was this, fake sleep? I didn’t dare ask. I wanted to tell him that even if she woke up she’d go back down again, just like he always had, but that would be parenting advice, which I’d promised myself not to give. Though I still think parents who live with their parents need all the advice they can get.

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