The One Real Thing

by Samantha Young

  “Thanks, Elodie.” I kissed her cheek and turned to press my lips to Clarke’s cheek, too. “Clarke, thanks for coming.”

  “You don’t look a day over twenty-five,” Clarke said sincerely.

  “I love you.” I looked around for my husband and saw him still trying to usher the kids in the house. “Do you hear this, Nathaniel Sawyer? That is what you should have said to me this morning.”

  He grinned over at me. “What?”

  “Clarke just told me I don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

  “You asked me to always be honest with you, babe. You can’t have it both ways.”

  While everyone tittered—except Ellie, our resident romantic, who stared at Nate in horror—I glowered at my husband. “Your charm just bowls me over. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”

  “Girl? Really?” Joss mused. “Do we think we should be using that word now?”

  “I hate you all.”

  They laughed and I pretended to be mad at them, walking into the room to greet some colleagues from work, including Ronan, whom I’d worked with for so long we were good friends. “Hey.” I hugged him tight. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Of course. I left your present on the table back there.” He gestured to Joss and Braden’s dining table that was covered in fancy linen, a ton of presents, and a birthday cake so elaborate it could have been a wedding cake.

  Ellie.

  In fact, the whole house looked as if a professional decorator had been brought in for the occasion. Pretty bunting strung together to read “Happy 40th Birthday, Olivia” was pinned across the double doorway to the sitting room and the one to the dining room. White candles and pale-colored peonies were placed carefully here and there. It was sophisticated and pretty and could have been for a wedding. It did not at all reflect my personality, but it reflected Ellie’s.

  I could have cared less.

  All I cared about was that I had friends who cared enough to throw me a party.

  “I bought you—“

  “Don’t tell me,” I cut off Ronan. He was well known for spoiling the surprise. “I’ll know when I open it.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Pot, meet Kettle.”

  “Liv.”

  At the familiar voice, I spun around and immediately embraced the woman in front of me. Nate’s mom, Sylvie. “Thank you for coming.”

  “You know we wouldn’t miss it.” Nathan, Nate’s dad, wrapped his arms around me as soon as Sylvie let me go.

  Over the years, Nate’s parents had become my mom and dad, too. More so Sylvie, because I lost my own mom so many years ago. My dad, Mick, was a great dad, but it was nice to have Nathan in my life.

  Speaking of . . . I turned to search the room for Nate, who was holding back the girls from dive-bombing their grandparents while they said hello to me. “Where is my dad?”

  “Mick and Dee are on their way. Caught in traffic.”

  I nodded and then gestured that he could let the girls go. As soon as he did, Jan ran at her grandparents, while Lily followed at the more sedate pace of a cool eleven-year-old. Still, she wrapped her arms around her grandparents when she got to them, just like Jan, something Sylvie and Nathan got a kick out of. They didn’t seem to mind that their time and attention were completely consumed by their granddaughters whenever they shared a room.

  For a while I circled the room, until eventually Joss rescued me, put a glass of champagne in my hand, and hustled me toward the ladies who were standing together by the bay window.

  “We didn’t think that part through,” Ellie said, looking apologetic as she gestured to the room. “You, having to greet all those people.”

  “Uh uh.” Joss made a face. “You didn’t think that through. We were against inviting all these people.”

  “Well, all these people are Liv’s friends and family and they’re enjoying my posh canapés and expensive champagne, so I think it worked out alright in the end.” Ellie huffed, stuffing said posh canapé into her mouth.

  “Are you pregnant?” Joss made a face.

  “No, I am not pregnant.” She swallowed a massive gulp of champagne to prove her point. “Sometimes you’re just annoying.”

  “What else are sisters for?” Her sister-in-law shrugged and grinned wickedly at the rest of us. It was a well-known fact that Joss liked to wind Ellie up and vice versa, but even I noticed that Ellie had sounded a tad snarky for Ellie.

  “You sure you’re okay?” I asked.

  Hannah slid her arm around her big sister’s shoulders and hugged her. “She was just high-strung, making sure everything was okay for you.”

  “Ellie, it’s beautiful.” I felt bad for being so ungrateful earlier. “Really. Thank you.”

  “No.” She deflated. “The girls were right. I got so caught up in the idea of for once throwing a grown-up party that I forgot about who I was throwing it for. This isn’t you.” She gestured wildly to the room. “And you’re turning forty. Who wants to celebrate that?”

  Grace choked on her sip of champagne while Joss just straight-up laughed.

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  Ellie winced. “I didn’t mean it like that. Oh God. Foot. Mouth. Argh.”

  “It’s fine.” I shrugged. “So I’m turning forty and have mild panic attacks every now and then about life slipping through my fingers and my babies getting married and having their own kids in what will feel like merely a year. It’s no biggie.”

  Shannon patted my arm. “It’s not that bad.”

  Said she who was not even thirty yet. “What are you? Twelve?”

  Joss shook with mirth. “I love forty-year-old you.”

  “Is it really that bad?” Grace asked. “Because I struggled with thirty. I can’t imagine how I’ll react to forty.”

  “I didn’t struggle with thirty,” I replied. “I’d just gotten married to Nate and I had a super cute one-year-old. My job was going well. Everything was as perfect as it could be.”

  “You’re still married to Nate. Now you have two beautiful little girls. And you run the library of one of the top twenty universities in the world,” Hannah reminded me. “So why is forty so challenging?”

  I sighed and glanced over my shoulder at Nate, who was encircled by my tribe’s menfolk. All of our kids were playing with each other while the grandparents watched over them. It was a beautiful sight, seeing the kids happy, and my husband laughing with his hot guy friends. Hot guy friends who just happened to be devoted to the women I cared most about in this world. I had a very nice life.

  Yet there was still that niggle of unease.

  “I guess it all seems so fleeting,” I answered. The last ten years of my marriage had just flown by.

  “That’s because it is.” Joss brought my attention back to the group. Her expression was solemn. “It is fleeting, Liv. That’s why we don’t waste it thinking about the shit we can’t change. Including the fact that it’s fleeting. Accept it.” She grinned big, beatifically, and glanced around to stare at her rugged husband, who was laughing at something Adam was saying. “And enjoy the fuck out of it.”

  “Aunty Joss said ‘fuck’!” Bray, Ellie and Adam’s eight-year-old, shouted from behind Joss.

  Joss had her back to the room and she squeezed her eyes closed as if she were in pain, while the guests all quieted and looked in her direction.

  Braden, Bray’s namesake and uncle, was grinning from ear to ear in anticipation of his wife’s reaction.

  “Every time,” Joss whispered. “Why does no one else get caught?”

  We all struggled not to laugh (me near choking on it) as Joss finally turned around and smiled serenely at the guests. She looked down at her nephew. “You misheard me, honey. I said duck.”

  “No.” Bray shook his head, smirking. “You said ‘and enjoy the fuck out of it.’”

 
Joss glanced over her shoulder at Ellie. “You going to do something about your kid cursing like a sailor?”

  She narrowed her eyes at her sister-in-law and then softened when she approached her son. “Bray-Bray, you know not to repeat bad words you might hear Aunty Joss say.”

  “I said duck! Enjoy the duck . . . out of it!” She gestured with her arms wide. “As in the party.”

  “I’ve never heard of that saying, babe,” Braden piped up, grinning wickedly.

  Joss skewered him with her gaze, which just made him grin harder. “I made it up. I am a writer. I get to make crap up.” And on that rather grand announcement, she stormed out of the room, I suspected in search of a glass of something stronger, while the rest of us busted our guts laughing

  * * *

  * * *

  “There you are.”

  I glanced up from the armchair in Joss’s office on the first floor of the house. It was off-limits to party guests but I’d needed some breathing space. Joss told me to use her office, but if my father had been sent to look for me, I’d obviously been up here too long. “Hey.”

  Dad closed the door behind him and leaned against it. My dad was in his late sixties but you’d never believe it. He still had a full head of hair, was distinguished and handsome with those exotic golden eyes he’d gifted to me, and he was a big guy. His work as a painter and decorator kept him busy, as did running around after his granddaughters.

  “They sent me to bring you back down.”

  “I guessed as much.” I stood up. “I didn’t mean to stay up here so long.”

  “Why are you up here?” Dad studied me carefully. “What’s going on, sweetheart? You know I can always tell. And things have been off with you for a while.”

  Of course my dad had noticed. We didn’t get much alone time anymore, but my dad was observant. He worried about me all the time, and as a parent, I now realized that was just something that came with the territory. I worried about my kids all the time, and I knew that I’d still worry even on the day they were turning forty years old.

  “I’m okay, Dad. Just having a tough time with the whole fortieth-birthday thing. But I’m getting over it.”

  “You and Nate okay? You don’t seem . . . Well, I mean, you two haven’t seemed quite as close lately.”

  My reassuring smile was not so reassuring since it trembled. “We’ll be fine. We . . . um . . . we’re just going through a rough patch, but we hashed a lot of it out and I think we’re going to be fine.”

  “You will be,” Dad said with so much certainty I almost believed he knew it to be true. “He loves you. He knows I’d kick his arse if he ever stopped treating you the way you deserve.”

  I grinned and hurried across the room to hug him. A girl never stopped needing a hug from her dad, no matter what age. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Hey.” He kissed my head and held me close. “Always, sweetheart.”

  Finally, I let him loose and reached around him for the door handle. “Did you struggle with forty?”

  “A little,” he said as we walked out onto the landing. “I think that’s just natural.”

  “So I’m not being a giant baby?”

  “No.” He chuckled. “And I can promise you, what you’re feeling will pass.”

  Reassured, I followed him downstairs, trepidation building inside of me when I realized there was no noise coming from the sitting room. What was going on? I looked at my dad but he just gave me this mysterious little smile.

  Bracing myself, I stepped off the last stair and peered into the sitting room to see everyone was huddled around, waiting on me. Standing in the middle of them all was Nate and two shiny new suitcases. The girls were standing with Sylvie, Nathan, and Dee, bouncing excitedly and giggling, with presents in their hands. The rest of the guests were gathered at their backs.

  “What?” I searched everyone’s faces for some answers, finding nothing but mischief, and finally returned my focus to my husband. “What is going on?”

  Nudged forward by their grandparents, my girls hurried over to me. “Happy birthday, Mum!”

  “Thank you, babies.” I took the gift Lily offered first. “I have to open it now?”

  She nodded. I looked to Nate. He nodded.

  Seriously. What was going on?

  I tore open the present, my cheeks hot from being the center of attention. My confusion only grew when the present Lily gave me turned out to be a glasses box. Inside it was a pair of black-lensed sunglasses with chunky nineteen-sixties-style round white frames. They were so me. “I love them, baby, thank you.” But we lived in Scotland. I only needed sunglasses for driving, so I didn’t exactly need them to be this cute. It was a very random gift.

  “Now mine.” Jan held out two gifts.

  One was very flat and bendy, like there was paper inside, and the other small and circular. I opened it first to find a bracelet made of small seashells. Again. Random. “It’s adorable, baby.”

  “I know.” She grinned. “Now the other.”

  The other, to my ever-mounting confusion, was a map of a town called Hartwell, Delaware, in the United States. “Okay. Thank you?”

  She giggled and Lily grabbed her hand to lead her back to their grandparents. I looked at Nate. “What is going on?”

  His dark eyes danced with amusement as he strolled over to me and held out an envelope. “Happy birthday, Liv. Oh . . . and belated happy tenth anniversary, too.”

  I smiled, my excitement mounting now as I started to realize the girls’ gifts were hints at whatever was in this card. I ripped it open, not even pretending to be nonchalant, and my heart started to bang in my chest when I opened a birthday card and an e-ticket fell out of it. It was a flight schedule first from Edinburgh to London, then London to Philadelphia. I studied Nate. “Where are we going?”

  “Hartwell. A beautiful boardwalk town on the Delaware coast. We’re finally going to celebrate that anniversary.” He pulled me into his arms, kissing my nose.

  “You remembered?” I said, deeply touched. Years ago, I’d told Nate about my fondest memory when my dad came back into mine and my mom’s lives. We vacationed together on the Delaware coast and it lived up to and surpassed all my expectations of what a family vacation should be like. We’d vacationed there a few times over the years before Mom got sick, and I’d loved it every time.

  “Your family vacations to Rehoboth.” Nate nodded. “I remember everything you tell me.”

  “When do we leave?” I rested my hands against his chest, feeling relief flow through me at this romantic gesture.

  Nate grinned. “Now, actually.”

  “What?” I glanced down at the schedule. Did that say . . . “It says our flight to London leaves this evening.”

  “Aye, that would be right. Which means we need to go.”

  “Go? What?”

  “Don’t worry.” Jo hurried to my side. “Nate got your summer clothes to us behind your back, plus we packed some new clothes, your birthday present from us.” She gestured to my best friends standing behind her. “And we picked well, I promise. Those clothes do not reflect this party.”

  “Hey,” Ellie whined.

  “We love you, really.” Joss hugged her.

  “I hate you all,” Ellie mumbled and then she smiled at me. “Not you, Liv. Have a great time.”

  “Wait. What?” I was still freaking confused. “We can’t just go. I have children.” I pointed desperately to my girls. “And work. And I don’t have my passport or travel insurance or currency.”

  My partygoers laughed while Nate glowered at me. “Give me some credit, Jesus Christ. I told your work and Ronan has arranged cover for you.”

  I looked at Ronan and he nodded, smirking. How he’d kept this to himself, I had no idea.

  “I have your passport, travel insurance, and currency for us both. M
um and Dad are taking the girls for the first five days and Mick and Dee are watching them for the next five. They’ve agreed to stay at the house so as not to disrupt the girls from school.”

  “That’s a big ask.”

  “We’re happy to,” Sylvie said.

  My dad nodded in agreement. “Go, sweetheart.”

  Realizing this was actually happening, I turned to Nate. “Is this for real? You really organized all of this? For me?”

  Nate gave me a tender, loving look as he slid his arms around my waist and drew me against him. “When are you going to realize I’d do anything for you, babe?”

  I melted. “I love you.”

  “Aye, and me you.” And after that sweet declaration he pushed me none-too-gently toward my suitcase. “Now, move. The taxi’s been waiting for fucking ages.”

  Bray gasped. “Uncle Nate said—

  “Ducking ages.” Nate cut him off as he kneeled to hug Lily. “Ducking ages.”

  “Oh.” Bray frowned, looking confused as we said good-bye to our girls. I murmured I love you’s to them, kissing their faces all over, and already dreading not seeing them for ten days, despite my excitement. All the while I heard in the background:

  “Oh?” Joss said. “You believe Uncle Nate but not me?”

  “No, you definitely said the bad word,” Braden said.

  Bray solemnly replied. “I heard it.”

  Joss crossed her arms over her chest and jutted her chin out at her husband. “I guess we know who’ll be ducking himself this evening.”

  “Okay!” Nate shoved past them. “Youngsters in the room, and oldsters trying to get out.”

  Residual irritation niggled at me as I quickly said good-bye to my friends. “I’m not going anywhere if you intend to crack ‘old’ jokes the entire time, Mr. Forty-Two.”

  “Last one, I promise. Now let’s move.”

  “Let me say good-bye to everyone!” I cried out, flustered.