Whatever it was… the thing that would’ve told me that he was not doing okay. I would’ve heard it. If I’d been listening for it. If I’d been thinking about something other than myself and my giddiness over my new relationship.

“I didn’t feel it,” I told Rowan. “He died yesterday at six in the morning. And I was in the bakery. Making croissants. And I didn’t fucking feel a thing.”

Why didn’t I feel anything? Was it the distance between us? Was it because I hadn’t seen him in months… the longest we’d been apart?

No, it didn’t have anything to do with physical distance or time. Another chasm had formed between us. I’d moved forward in life and love, and I’d left my brother behind. To rot in that town with my mother. Without a shield from her venom.

“It’s my fault.”

“No, it’s fuckin’ not,” Rowan immediately hissed.

So predictable. He stepped up. Wanted to go to bat for me. Protect me. Even from myself.

“It is,” I protested, looking up with dry eyes. I was in too much pain to cry. I hadn’t known that was a thing. That your body could be in so much agony that there wasn’t a way to expel it physically. “I left him. I made a life here.” I waved my hands around my living room. The one I’d been so proud of, my eyes grazing over all the things I was so proud of. Now every fucking thing haunted me, taunted me, showing me what I had and what my brother hadn’t. I wanted to tear it all to shreds.

“I was too much of a coward to stay there, be near her. And I wasn’t strong enough to get him to leave with me. He was half of me, and I just… left him. To die.”

“Enough.” The single word was a solid thing, jolting me. “He was half of you,” Rowan acknowledged. “And knowing how stubborn you are, I know that you couldn’t convince him to do anything he didn’t want to do. That he wasn’t ready for. You can’t take that on. And though I didn’t know him, I know that he adored you. Know he’d be really fuckin’ pissed off you’re laying the blame at your own feet. This is a tragic thing. A fucking horrific thing. It doesn’t make sense. It won’t make sense. Even the people we’re closest to, who we know the best—especially the people we know the best—can hide the truest, darkest parts of themselves from us.”

Emotion saturated his tone. And knowing. A knowing that might’ve piqued my curiosity normally, but not now.

“Please, Nora, can you let me cook for you?” He locked eyes with me.

I wanted to fight him. But instead, I nodded, too tired to do anything else.

Chapter Twenty

Recipe: Tarte Tatin

From ‘Dessert Person’

We flew to Chicago for the funeral.

He would not have wanted to be buried there.

He didn’t even want to be buried.