“Flowers, baby?” I prompted.

“Fuck,” he repeated.

“Flowers, Merry.”

“Fuck,” he whispered.

“What do you need?” I asked quickly.

He looked to the side and I saw his jaw tight, his cheek ticking.

“Merry, what do you need?”

He looked back to me and announced, “I’m a cop.”

“I know that,” I told him carefully.

“You get that?” he shot back.

I thought I did, but the way he was speaking, I wasn’t sure. So I just nodded.

“You need to get that, Cher,” he stated roughly.

“I get that, Merry.”

“You don’t.”

“I do,” I promised, even though I wasn’t sure I did.

“We eat, we do it in front of the fucking TV.”

His abrupt subject changes were bizarre, and even if I was getting him (which I wasn’t sure I was), with the quickness of those changes, I wasn’t keeping up.

“Okay,” I said hesitantly.

“No fuckin’ flowers.”

“No flowers, Merry,” I agreed.

“Your mom wants me back, I’ll eat at her table. But you tell her that shit—no flowers.”

I nodded.

He said no more.

“Why no flowers, baby?” I asked quietly.

“Cecelia liked flowers.”

I shook my head.

His baby niece liked flowers?

“I—”

“My mother, Cher.”

I shut my mouth.

Shit.

Shit.

Fucking shit.

“We Merricks aren’t real good at sittin’ down with family.”

“Your mom liked doin’ that,” I whispered.

“Every night. No fail. And either Dad bought ’em or she got ’em herself, but in our house, there were lots of flowers.”

God.

God, Merry.

“Weak,” he grunted, that one word sounding torn from him in a way so extreme, it also ripped through me.

“What?” I asked, knowing we were now somewhere else. I wasn’t keeping up, but it was essential that I did.

“This shit. I’m fuckin’ forty-two and still not over it. It’s weak.”

Was he crazy?

“I dread it,” I told him.

“Bet you do,” he said like he knew what he was talking about.

Maybe he did.

I told him anyway.

“The day I lose her…I dread it. She’s been there. Always been there. I fucked up, Merry. You know I did. But it was worse when I was a kid. Christ, when I was a teenager, I fucked up, but she was always there. She held my hand when I pushed out Ethan. She looks after him just as much as me. She’s always there and I love that. I love her. But I know she’s gonna go. It’s the way it is. And I dread it. I know I’ll never get over it. It’ll be like a piece was torn from my heart and it’ll never beat the same way again. I know that. And I also know feelin’ that feeling is so far from weak it isn’t funny.”

Merry didn’t move, not even his mouth.

“Lord forbid it happens anything like the way you lost yours. Won’t be in my power however it goes down. But the way you lost your momma, Merry…God.” I shook my head, feeling moist in my eyes. “The beauty you are, standin’ right there? I don’t know how that could be. I’m breakin’ my back to give Ethan good and I’m doin’ it with fingers crossed, hopin’ he grows up half the man you are. You lost your momma and you’re all that.” I swung a hand to him. “You’re fuckin’ straight up crazy if you think any of that is weak. Love is not weak. Grief is not weak. Lovin’ her so much you’re givin’ that to her decades after she’s been gone and you’re still standing? Baby, seriously, how the fuck can you think that’s weak?”