Sunshine After The Rain

Chapter Thirteen

After watching Anna drive away, Sophie slid in the passenger seat of Lucas' truck and they pulled out of the driveway.

"That went a hell of a lot better than I expected," he admitted as he pulled onto the main road. "I think it'll take Laura some time, but my dad seems to want to get to know her better."

Sophie stared at the window and watched the giant houses with the perfectly manicured lawns pass by. "He asked for my permission to be in her life."

"No shit? My dad doesn't ask anyone for permission about anything."

She'd noticed that about Joel over the years. He was gruff, much like her own father. Also like her father, he'd always had an air of entitlement, a trait Joel passed to his youngest son. "I think it was a sign of respect. He doesn't want to hurt me anymore than Jason already has. Even apologized for Jason cheating and took some blame for how he turned out."

Lucas let out a sarcastic laugh and Sophie saw him shake his head in the window's reflection. "Sounds like some conversation the two of you had."

"It was," Sophie agreed. She'd never been let in like that before. Not once. In the ten years she'd been with Jason and spending nine of them as his wife, Sophie was always the outsider. They'd both been mostly polite to her, but nothing more than that. She was forever the girlfriend he was taking home to meet the family rather than his wife and mother of his children.

"You okay?" Lucas asked as they reached the gate. Rather than put in the code, he turned to look at her.

It wasn't until he asked that question that Sophie realized how okay she really was. "I know you were worried about my reason's for doing this, but I honestly feel like this weight's lifted off me. When Jason died, it was like I inherited all these secrets and this shitty reality I wanted nothing to do with. Now that I'm letting it out... It feels like I can breathe again, you know?"

Lucas smiled at her and nodded. "I get that," he said before leaning out of the open window of the truck to press in the code. As they waited for the gates to part, Lucas spoke again. "Listen, Sophie, I want to thank you. Letting me get to know the kids and get to know you, you didn't have to let me do that."

A relationship with the children was one of the many of Jason's wrongs she had to make right, but was by far the easiest out of them all. "I'm the one that should thank you. Lucas, You've been a godsend," Sophie admitted as she shook her head. "I honestly don't know what I'm going to do without you."

"Just because I'm leaving doesn't mean you'll ever be without me," Lucas responded with a firm voice, then drove through once the gate fully opened.

Joel's pride in how his eldest son turned out was well earned. He was a great man. Sophie only wished the brother's had a stronger bond so Lucas hadn't missed out on so much. Either way, he was here now, and that was more of a comfort than Sophie could put into words.

***********

Sophie paid the babysitter and watched Lucas hold her two children, lift them off the ground, then shake them a bit until they both giggled through their tears.

They'd grown so attached to him in the few days he was here, and Sophie feared the small flicker of light that burned in her children's eyes would extinguish once he left. Lucas unintentionally became the glue that held them all together, kept them sane, and gave them a measure of peace. With him leaving, she was worried that Ella would go back to sitting in her room, Justin would return to silent with only a scowl to show what he was feeling, and Sophie wouldn't know what to do with herself anymore.

"When are you coming back," Justin asked, letting his uncle go.

Lucas set his giant hand on Justin's head and ruffled up his hair. "I'll be back next weekend, and the weekend after that, all of you will come up to my house and you and I can go fishing."

"I wanna go fwishing," Ella yelled as she clung to her uncle's side.

Ella would have no interest in fishing since she hated slimy things and didn't want to cause any pain to any living thing.

"You can go fishing," Lucas reassured before standing up and looked over at Sophie. "You can come too."

Sophie laughed beneath her breath. "Awe. Can I, really?"

Lucas walked over to her, Ella now attached to his leg and standing on his foot, and gave Sophie a hug. "If you want to talk to someone, day or night, you call me. Any time you need me, I'm here, Soph."

Sophie squeezed back, half-tempted to join her daughter and stand on his other leg, hold on as she crawled into a ball, and force him to stay. While she didn't have a lot of dignity, she had enough where that was unfortunately not an option. "I will. Promise." She forced her arms to fall from his body and took a step back, keeping her voice quiet enough so only they would hear the words. Not that either of her kids would have fully understood her comment. "I want you to know that your dad told me how proud he was of you today, and that he wished Jason had taken after you instead of him."

When Lucas heard those words, his brown eyes filled with something difficult to pinpoint, and his lips pressed together, only for them to land against her cheek. "I'll see you soon, kid."

Sophie pulled Ella off of his leg, causing her daughter to flail around and screech at a decimal that made the neighbor's dog bark. Lucas knelt down and kissed the top of her head, gave Justin a pat on the back, and walked out the front door.

As she watched Lucas pull away from the curb through the window, the further he drove down the road, the heavier the pang in her heart became. With two sad children, the life seemed to evaporate from the house by his absence.