My parents used to send us care packages from their farm, usually packed with my dad’s terrible homemade chocolate chip cookies. At twenty-two, I genuinely believed nothing could shake the foundation that Tristan and I had built since our high school days.
He had proposed the summer after graduation, dropping to one knee on my parents’ back porch while the evening crickets chirped around us.
“You’re going to be stuck with me forever,” he had said with a wide grin, sliding a silver ring onto my finger.
“Promise?” I had asked, laughing through tears of excitement.
“Cross my heart,” he replied, pulling me into a tight hug.
My twin brothers, Mason and Liam, were only five years old, but they adored him and followed him around the yard like little shadows. They called him “Tristy,” a silly nickname that made him laugh out loud as he pretended to chase them through the tall grass.
My mother would watch them from the kitchen window, wiping her hands on a dish towel before gently squeezing my shoulder.
