For Life by L.E. Chamberlin Read Free Book Online

her hand around the back of my neck, stroking me as I explore her mouth with my own. When we finally break apart she smiles, and everything else melts away. She wanted that kiss just as much as I did, which makes me feel like the man.
    This girl is everything.
    This girl is the one I’m going to marry.
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    Cassie
     
    “Just wanted to say goodnight, you two,” I call softly from the bottom of the stairs. The kids are sharing the attic room Donna made after Chloe was born. It’s more a playroom for children than a bedroom for teenagers, but I’m not surprised they want to sleep there rather than in the den in front of the new TV as Donna offered. At this time of loss and disruption, my kids are comforted by the things that are exactly the same in their world.
    Just like everything else in this house, it looks and smells the same as it has for decades. Two single beds are separated by a shelf stuffed with worn picture books and old Jack London paperbacks as well as copies of newer YA reads. Trunks full of old toys - some of which belonged to Carl, Sr. and Donna and others that belonged to Grady and his brother - flank the beds. On one wall are Grady and Carl’s high school football and basketball trophies, and my kids have added a few tokens of victory to the display, such as Chloe’s photography plaque and Caden’s middle school field day ribbons.
    I must look worried, because Caden frowns when he sees me. “You okay, Mom?” he asks.
    “Sure, sweetie.” I nod and sit on his bed to kiss him goodnight. He wraps his long arms around me and just squeezes. In that moment I’m reminded of Grady as a teenager, full of life and mischievous sweetness, and my heart aches for the boy who lost his father and the man who lost his best friend. He’s now missing half his family. I can’t imagine his pain. Caden has his dad’s caring spirit and sense of devotion, and I just know he’s the one keeping Chloe calm instead of being soothed by his older sister.
    When I try to kiss Chloe goodnight, she squirms uncomfortably under my touch before finally relenting, like a cat who’s being mauled by small children and realizes struggling is futile. Although I’m used to her shrugging me off, it suddenly stings that she’s doing it now. I say a hasty goodnight with my emotions lurking too close to the surface and head to my room. As I make my way back down the creaky stairs I hear my kids giggling and speaking to each other in quiet voices, just like they did when they were smaller, and I’m glad they have each other.
    But I can’t sleep. Being in this house and sleeping in the guest room, where I stayed as a young girl on my first winter break home from college, feels so familiar that I half expect Grady to come sneaking into my room. I smile as I remember the youthful torture of sleeping down the hall from him, of hearing his quiet footsteps in the hall and knowing he was going to pop in to steal a kiss or two, slide his hands into my shirt, and whisper all the things he wanted to do to me when we were finally alone. Today we greeted each other like the polite, restrained adults we are, but there was a time…
    Grady and I didn’t so much fall in love as plummet into a conflagration of lust. Love came later, but in those first few months we were two sparks in a powder keg. When love finally grew between us, the passion was always there, simmering behind it. Even in the early days of our marriage, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I’d finally get Chloe down and we’d burrow into each other, frazzled and exhausted new parents seeking comfort in the other’s arms. His touch made everything right again, returned me from the anxious first-time mother I’d become to the confident girl I’d been.
    Until the last year of our marriage. Well, maybe the last two years. It doesn’t matter. It was so long ago, and the pain was so searing I don’t allow myself to think about the final days, not ever. I lived