Chapter 5

Early January (six weeks later)

The wind cut sideways across the driveway, sharp enough to make every cardboard box feel twice as heavy. Aimee’s red Honda was packed to its small, stubborn roofline, and we had already made two trips inside. Beth stood on the porch, gloved hands tucked into her coat sleeves, grinning like she couldn’t remember the last time a January day held something worth smiling about.

Aimee had told Beth at Thanksgiving that she might need a full-time job in the spring. But we found a way to make it work. Aimee moving in shifted the math -- lower expenses meant she could stay our sitter, stay in school, stay in our lives.

“Last load,” Aimee called, breath clouding in the air. “I think. Unless the back seat ate something.”

Ethan and Jake bounced their boots against the frozen ground, dancing in place like puppies that needed an excuse for joy. They had made a welcome sign out of construction paper and half-dried glue: WELCOME AIMEE!!! The exclamation points drooped sideways.

I reached past Aimee to grab the box labeled WINTER CLOTHES and our gloves brushed -- just a half-second, nothing that would stop the world. But it was the first time we’d touched in weeks, and my body remembered faster than my mind did. Her eyes flicked up once. Not a conversation, just an electrical check-in: still here? still us?

Beth was already inside clearing space in the mudroom, humming something under her breath that could have been a carol if it weren’t two weeks too late.

“This one goes upstairs,” she said when we stepped through the door. “End of the hall. We moved the desk in there yesterday.”

Aimee peeled off her hat, hair sparked with static, and smiled at her. “Thanks again, Beth. I can’t tell you how much this helps. Better than couch-surfing and trying to write papers with someone’s dog licking my face.”

Beth laughed. “We’ve all been there. Well, minus the dogs. Jim, did you ever write a thesis with a golden retriever trying to make out with you?”

“Just one professor,” I said. Aimee snorted; Beth bumped my shoulder with hers as she passed, the three of us stepping around each other in the narrow hall, the sort of domestic choreography that develops only in close quarters.

We set the box down in what was now officially Aimee’s room. Beth tugged the quilt straight, smoothing a hand across the fabric. For a moment Aimee watched her -- really watched her -- the way she sometimes watched the boys when they built a tower out of blocks and hope. Beth didn’t notice. Or maybe she did, but chose not to name it.

“Okay,” Beth said, stepping back. “This looks like a room someone can think in. That’s all that matters in January.”

Aimee touched her elbow. Quick. Light. Gone. “Thank you. For letting me stay. For everything.”

Beth’s smile softened, something private in it. “We’re glad you’re here.”

Jake barreled in and wrapped himself around Aimee’s leg. “Cookie Lady lives with us now! Forever and forever and forever!”

“Careful,” I said, ruffling his hair. “Your mother might want a lease agreement before forever.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Please. I’m just thrilled someone young enough to understand TikTok can keep babysitting for us.”

We worked another hour, breaking down boxes, figuring out shelf space, negotiating which bathroom drawer could be hers. It felt, strangely, like ease. Like all three adults were breathing from the same set of lungs.

Late afternoon light slid pale and silver through the kitchen windows. Beth heated water for tea; I was helping Aimee sort notebooks when our hands brushed again, knuckles to knuckles. We didn’t look at each other. Didn’t need to. Whatever we were, whatever we were becoming, it was waiting -- patient, like snow that hadn’t yet decided to fall.

Beth called from the kitchen, “Aimee? Chamomile or peppermint?”

Aimee started toward her voice, pausing long enough to squeeze my wrist -- not a promise, not an apology. Just a pulse shared for one heartbeat.

“Peppermint,” she called back.

And then she was gone, and I stood in the half-unpacked room, heart tapping quietly against my ribs, wondering when this house had started feeling bigger than it was.

By the time the last box was flattened and Beth had found Aimee a spot in the hall closet for winter boots, everyone was starving. The kind of hungry that feels woven into your bones.

Beth insisted on making a “first night” dinner. Nothing fancy -- pasta, jarred sauce, a frozen loaf of garlic bread -- but she moved through the kitchen with a spark I hadn’t seen in months. The three of us fell into a rhythm: I chopped salad, Aimee set the table, Beth stirred sauce and stole bites of mozzarella meant for the top.

The boys kept darting between us, wooden trains in hand, orbiting the grown-ups like small moons.

At one point, Aimee reached past Beth for a stack of plates in the cabinet. I watched as her fingers grazed Beth’s wrist -- so slight it might have been accidental. Beth didn’t react, at least not outwardly. She just passed Aimee the plates without breaking eye contact, the steam from the pasta fogging the space between them for a heartbeat.

We ate at the kitchen table instead of the dining room, which made it feel less ceremonious and more like something we’d always done. A strangely quick sense of us settled in.

“Best moving day ever,” Ethan declared through a mouthful of pasta.

Aimee grinned. “Well, I do come with snacks.”

Beth laughed at that, a warm, round sound that made Aimee glance over the rim of her water glass and smile back -- something easy and private passing between them.

I couldn’t name the feeling in my chest. Not then, not clearly. It sat somewhere between pride and longing and a little fear of how easily three lives could begin to braid. And under that, quieter but sharper, the knowledge that Aimee and I were holding a secret between us -- one that might, if we weren’t careful, pull everything loose.

When dinner was over, bedtime began its usual half-chaotic march. Pajamas, tooth-brushing, stories. But when Ethan crawled under his blanket, he held out his arms -- not to me or Beth, but to Aimee.

“Don’t go yet,” he mumbled. “Just one minute.”

Aimee sat on the edge of his bed, brushing a strand of hair off his forehead. One minute turned into two, then three. Jake, not to be outdone, tugged at her sleeve and claimed his own hug -- longer, tighter.

Beth stood in the doorway, arms crossed loosely, watching. Something soft in her expression. I wondered, not for the first time, if she needed Aimee in a way neither of us had language for yet.

After I finally got the boys to sleep, I went downstairs to put away leftover pasta. I heard them before I saw them.

Beth and Aimee in the kitchen, laughing. Really laughing -- full-bodied, unguarded, the kind that shakes a person from the inside. When I stepped into the doorway, Beth was wiping her eyes, breathless, and Aimee was leaning against the counter with her hand over her mouth, trying to get control of herself.