I didn't feel alone that night, even though I was.
That's the thing I'm sitting with while Harper naps after lunch, and I'm lying on the couch with a blanket, feeling genuinely dreadful and trying not to show it even to myself.
I haven't felt alone in months.
Even the nights Tyler's been away, even through the worst of the sleep regression, I haven't felt the bone-deep loneliness I used to carry everywhere—and I didn't notice it going—which is exactly how these things work. You don't notice the absence of something until it's been absent long enough to become normal, and then one day you realize you can't remember the last time you felt it.
The last time I felt truly alone was probably August. Standing in my apartment with overdue notices on the counter and nothing on the walls, and the Morrisons already gone. BeforeHarper's doorstep arrival. Before Tyler's terrified voice came through the door.
Before all of this.
My phone buzzes. It’s a photo memory—my mom in her garden, squinting at the sun a year before she died. I feel the reflex, the automatic reach, the beginning of the thought that always comes.
I should call her—and then it stops at the wall it always meets.
I hold the phone.
But instead of the usual wave of grief, something else comes with it today. Something softer.
She would have liked Tyler. The way he loves Harper, the way he saysmy girlswithout a care in the world. She would have watched him for five minutes and understood something about him that would have taken me months to put into words.
She would have liked Nora-with-Tyler better than lonely Nora with nothing going for her.
I think I do, too.
Harper wakes up from her nap at three, and I get her up, and we sit on the couch together, her standing on my legs and bouncing, which she finds extremely satisfying, while I try to look better than I feel. My fever is higher now. I know it is. I'm not going to check because what would that accomplish? But I know.
Tyler will be home eventually.
I've been doing this alone for years. A little bit longer is nothing.
But I notice, sitting here with Harper's warm, solid weight on my legs and the house quiet around us, that I'm not dreading the hours. I'm just waiting for them to pass. There's a difference.
There's a specific comfort in knowing someone is coming home.
34
TYLER
Sunday morning in Boston, and I can't focus on anything except my phone.
The team's having breakfast in the hotel restaurant, and I'm checking my messages every thirty seconds, reading Nora's updates about Harper being better, but something in her texts feels off.
Me: How are you feeling? You sound tired.
Nora: I'm fine. Didn't sleep much while Harper was sick.
Me: Red, are YOU sick?
Nora: No. I'm okay. Focus on your game.
I don't believe her for a second.
"West, you good?" Danny asks from across the table.
"Harper was sick all weekend. Stomach bug."
"That sucks. She better now?"