Paper Hearts by Courtney Walsh Page B

empty bed gave him pause. Her light was on, but she wasn’t in her room. “Junie?” Was she feeling sick again?
    As he turned to check the bathroom, he heard rustling from the walk-in closet.
    He opened the door and saw her feet sticking out from under the hanging clothes. “Hey, Mouse.”
    She pulled her feet in.
    He sat down inside the closet, resting his back against the wall. “Kind of nice in here, huh?”
    Nothing.
    “It’s quiet and private. I can see why you’d want to hide out here, but your dinner’s getting cold.”
    No response.
    Carefully, Jacob parted the clothes, revealing his little girl and her tearstained face. He frowned, and that parental heart tug yanked him sideways. “What’s wrong, Junie?”
    “Miss Rosemary is gone.” Junie hugged her legs and rested her chin on her knees. “Just like Mommy.”
    The words sat in the air between them, weighty and unfair.
    “Not like Mommy, Junie,” he said. “We can find time to go see Miss Rosemary.”
    She scrunched her lips together. “Why do they all leave me, Daddy? Did I do something wrong?”
    He reached over and pulled her onto his lap, wishing he could extract every ounce of pain she felt, fighting the anger that always bubbled below his surface. “Junie, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
    “Then why do they all leave?” She let the weight of her head fall onto his shoulder, and he wished he could stay there forever, just the two of them hiding away from the rest of the world.
    “I don’t know, Junie. It’s not fair.” He hugged her. “But I can promise you something.” He leaned in closer, his mouth on the back of her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    Without a word, she turned and buried her head in his chest, clinging to him in a way she hadn’t since the day they buried Gwen.
    He held her and let her cry, willing away the sorrow that hung over them like a black fog, too thick and close to the ground. Zero visibility. Moving hadn’t taken away the pain; it just packed itself right up in their U-Haul and came along with them.
    He couldn’t change anything for his daughter the same way he couldn’t change anything for Gwen. Some healer he turned out to be.
    If only he’d been there for her   —seen the signs, done something, anything. This whole mess they were in was his fault, and that was something he’d never live down.
    “I miss Mommy.”
    The words were soft, whispered in the air of the only place that felt safe to either one of them.
    “That goes double for me, Junie Moon,” Jacob whispered back.

CHAPTER

8

    H OW A BIGAIL ENDED UP on Gigi Monroe’s doorstep after work, she really had no idea. She’d peeled herself off her desk chair in a daze, which was how she’d finished out the day until it was finally time to leave for the night. Her intention had been to go home, take a hot bath, put on pajamas, eat a bowl of cereal, and fall asleep.
    Abigail acknowledged that this plan was based on the misguided notion that, when she woke up, she’d find that someone else had figured out what she should do next. Clearly she was embracing blissful ignorance as to the amount of work it would take to arrive at a good next step.
    And unfortunately, she’d lost the right to pawn her problems off on someone else when she stopped living under her parents’ roof. Not that Teensy had ever had much insight when it came to her business anyway.
    “The store is a fine way to pass the time until you can findsomeone to marry you, Abigail,” her mother had told her only last month. “But you’re so busy all the time. It’s starting to look like more of a hindrance to you getting a life. And goodness knows you don’t need any more hindrances in that department. Plain girls can’t afford to be too busy.”
    Abigail had chosen not to ask her to elaborate, tucking away the adjective plain as yet another insult doled out with expert precision by the woman who was supposed to love her unconditionally.
    In spite of all this, the