I told her about riding those mountain roads with Julie on the back of my bike, her arms wrapped around my waist, her laughter carried away by the wind.
And when I said Julie’s name, Hope didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. She just listened, her eyes never leaving mine, her hand still holding mine across the table.
“She loved the mountains,” I said, my voice rough. “Used to say she could feel God there. In the trees and the mist and the way the light came through the leaves.” I stopped, swallowing hard. “We would ride up to Clingmans Dome sometimes, just to watch the sunset. She would sit on my bike with her head on my shoulder, and we wouldn’t say anything. We’d just... be.”
Hope’s eyes glistened, but she didn’t cry. She just squeezed my hand and said, “She sounds like she was an incredible person.”
“She was.” The words came out steady, true. “She was everything.”
“Tell me more,” Hope whispered. “Tell me about her.”
So I did.
I told her about the first time I kissed Julie in the eighth grade, behind the bleachers after a football game, both of us nervous and fumbling and laughing when our noses bumped. I told her about prom, how Julie had worn a blue dress that matched her eyes, and how I had stepped on her feet three times during the slow dance. I told her about our wedding. Small and simple, just family and the club, Julie in a white sundress with wildflowers in her hair.
I told her about the way Julie used to hum while she cooked, always off-key but so damn happy it didn’t matter. About how she would steal my T-shirts and wear them around the house, the fabric hanging to her knees. About the way she would curl up against me at night, her head on my chest, her fingers tracing the tattoos on my ribs while she told me about her day.
I told her about the years we tried for a baby. The hope and the heartbreak, month after month. The way Julie would cry in the bathroom when her period came, and after every miscarriage. How I would hold her and promise her it would happen, that we just had to keep trying.
And I told her about the day Julie told me she was pregnant.
“We were in the kitchen,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I was making breakfast—eggs and bacon, nothing fancy. And she just walked up behind me, wrapped her arms around my waist, and said, ‘Chapman, we’re having a baby.’”
Hope’s breath hitched, and I saw tears slip down her cheeks.
“I turned around so fast I almost knocked the pan off the stove,” I continued. “And she was holding the pregnancy test, and she was crying, and I just—I picked her up and spun her around. Right there in the kitchen. We were both crying and laughing, and I kept saying, ‘We’re gonna be parents. We’re gonna be parents.’”
I stopped, my throat closing up.
“She was so happy,” I said finally. “So fucking happy. She would talk to her belly every night, telling Aurora stories about what her life was going to be like. About how much we loved her already. About how she was going to grow up surrounded by family and the mountains and everything good in the world.”
Hope was crying openly now, her hand gripping mine like a lifeline.
“And then she died,” I said, the words flat and final. “And all those promises, all those dreams, they died with her.”
“But Aurora didn’t,” Hope said softly.
I looked up, meeting her eyes.
“Aurora’s still here,” she continued, her voice gentle but firm. “And she still deserves all those things Julie wanted for her. The family. The love. The good life.”
My chest tightened, and I felt something crack inside me. Something that had been holding me together through sheer force of will.
“I don’t know how to give her that,” I admitted. “I don’t know how to be her father without Julie.”
“You learn,” Hope said simply. “You try. You fail. You get back up and try again.” She paused, her thumb brushing over my knuckles. “And you let people help you. You don’t have to do it alone, Chapman.”
I stared at her, at the tears on her cheeks and the quiet strength in her eyes, and I realized something. She wasn’t just listening to my stories about Julie. She washoldingthem. Holdingme. Making space for my grief without trying to fix it or take it away.
And for the first time since Julie died, I didn’t feel like I was drowning.
The days blurred together after that.
We would meet at the diner two, sometimes three times a week. Other nights, when the weather was good, we would meet at Medicine Park and walk the trails that wound through the Wichita Mountains. The paths were quiet and empty after dark, just the sound of our footsteps on gravel and the distant call of owls in the trees.
I told her about Digger and Stella. How they had been high school sweethearts just like me and Julie, how Stella ran the Tennessee clubhouse kitchen and kept all the brothers in line with nothing but a wooden spoon and a sharp tongue. I told her about Ravage and the houses we built together, about Sandman and the work we did in the tomb that I couldn’t talk about, but she seemed to understand anyway.
And slowly, carefully, I started asking her questions.