Monroe sipped her wine. “I did practice runs of a few of my old recipes from the Sugar Coated competition that I want to make part of my standard offerings. The high school is having a bake sale tomorrow, so I contacted them and I’m going to donate what I made today and frost it fresh in the morning.”
“That’s nice of you. So you’re going to put it on your website then? Sugar Coated Winning Baker! And make sure you include some photos from the show, too, leverage that for all it’s worth,” Taylor said. “And we can revive your old Instagram account as well.”
“It feels crazy to mention it, since it was so long ago.” Monroe looked down into her wine, already feeling that Taylor was going to jump in with a protest. “But I know it’s a good idea. I did win, after all.”
“That’s right. No sense hiding your achievements away out of modesty.” Loren nodded. “Toot your own horn as much as you can.”
“It all feels like it’s happening so quickly.” In only a month, she’d started getting business even without some of the infrastructure in place—like a proper portfolio, business cards, or some of the professional tools that would make things easier. She could already see how she was going to outgrow her little kitchen, even with the option to impose on Loren’s house for the big gigs.
“I’m so proud of you.” Loren reached out and pulled Monroe into a hug.
“Thank you both.” Monroe reached out for Taylor and brought her into the group hug. “I couldn’t have made this leap without you guys.”
“Liar.” Loren pulled back. “We have been bugging you for ages to make this leap, so don’t think we didn’t notice that the time you made your decision coincided with the arrival of a handsome and strapping Australian man.”
Monroe looked to Taylor for support, but her sister simply shrugged. “Okay, fine. Ethan may have had something to do with it.”
“It’s okay.” Taylor patted her shoulder. “Sometimes it takes hearing advice from the right person at the right time delivered in the right way.”
Maybe that’s exactly what it was—a weird snap of cosmic timing and circumstance that had been everything Monroe needed. A hollow ache yawned in her chest. But that thinking would mean that they only connected to serve a purpose…and she couldn’t buy that.
She loved him.
As scary as it had been to say it out loud, with all her years of baggage behind her and all the doubts swirling in her mind, she felt the truth of it deep in her soul. Their relationship wasn’t just about helping her move on. It was more than that.
“How are you doing anyway? Has he called?”
Monroe had downplayed the “breakup,” saying Ethan had left for Australia to deal with some personal family things back home, which wasn’t a lie. Part of her didn’t want to admit out loud that they’d split, almost as if wishing might bring him back.
You know that’s a fool’s game. Wishing does nothing.
“Uh no.” Monroe shook her head, and her sisters exchanged a glance. “But in other good news, it looks like I’m officially divorced…again.”
“Well that is good news!” Taylor signaled to the bartender to bring them another round. “Good riddance to that dumpster fire.”
Monroe snorted. “He’s probably happy he got his way. Now he can go off and marry Amber.”
“They deserve each other,” Loren said, leaning her head on Monroe’s shoulder.
“Yeah, they do.”
And for the first time since it had all happened, Monroe really didn’t feel anything bad in her heart. No regret, no sadness, just…peace. She’d finally moved on.
The girls continued to drink and pick at bar snacks for another hour, before Rudy came to pick up Loren. Taylor was meeting Tim at a music venue to listen to a band they both liked, and Monroe waited out front with her until the cab came.
“You sure you don’t want me to drop you home first?” Taylor asked.
“Nah, a walk will do me good.” Forever Falls was the kind of place where she could walk home safely at nine o’clock at night, and for that she was grateful.
Besides, there was one last thing she needed to do to complete her transformation into Monroe 2.0. She waved her sister off as the cab pulled into the street and then she set about walking down Main Street toward her apartment. Usually, at this point, she would peel off down a side street and continue in her zig-zag path, all so she could avoid the yoga studio Amber used to own.
Not anymore.
She walked straight, skipping her usual turn off and even the “emergency turn off” one street down that she’d used a few times to chicken out at the last minute. The studio came into view. It was a small but cute place, with a glass window and door. Sucking in a breath, Monroe walked right over to it and peered in the window.
It was empty—had been for a little while, which wasn’t uncommon through the colder months. Businesses couldn’t last through the quiet season, and it was sometimes hard to get new tenants in, especially in this economy. The person who’d taken on the lease after Amber had kept the yoga studio going for a while, but this past winter it had shut down.
At one point even walking up to this place would have sent her into a spiral, but now she felt…relief.
That part of her life was behind her. She was facing the opposite direction and putting one foot in front of the other toward her goals. She took out her phone and snapped a picture of the “for lease” sign, telling herself it was to capture the moment but a little voice inside her whispered: call the number.
Tomorrow. In the morning she would call and make a casual inquiry and just see what happened. But even as she walked home, Monroe was crunching the numbers in her head.
…
Ethan walked through the empty apartment in Melbourne that had once been his home. Over the last month the furniture had all been either sold or donated, and the rest of the items picked over by family and friends. Even Sarah had come by to pick up some things she wanted.
It had been hard seeing her, but there was a sense of closure between them. The spark they’d once nurtured was no longer there and Sarah was dating someone new. She seemed happy and that made Ethan happy. He was surprised at how little it hurt to hear she’d moved on, and he’d found himself saying that he had someone, too.
Monroe.
The woman who haunted his dreams on the nightly. The woman he couldn’t get out of his head, no matter how much he tried.
Ethan stood at the large window that overlooked the city. The Yarra River cut through Melbourne, dividing north and south. The glowing spire of the Arts Centre shifted colors against an inky night sky and the flash and brilliance of the Crown Casino and Southbank lit up like pure gold. He’d loved this place, though it had never truly felt like home.
To be honest, the glitz and glamour of city life wasn’t really him.
At some point he’d been chasing all this—the fancy apartment, the career accolades, the big salary—more to prove a point than because he wanted it for himself. He’d felt this need to prove himself to his father, because deep down he knew something was wrong. But Ethan had felt more at home hauling firewood at Lottie’s inn than he did suiting up like a monkey every day to work in an office.
“Ethan.”
At the sound of his name in a very familiar voice, he turned. Ivan Hammersmith, the man who’d raised him, stood in the doorway of the apartment. Ethan had left the door unlocked because he hadn’t planned to stay long. Ivan looked the same as he always did, jeans and steel-capped boots, a utility jacket, cap pulled down low on his brow, a gray-flecked goatee which remained on his face regardless of whether it was in or out of fashion.
“Hi uh…” He didn’t even know what to call the man.
“You can use my name,” Ivan said gruffly, walking through the apartment, the sound of his heavy boots echoing in the empty space. “You don’t have to call me Dad anymore
.”
They hadn’t spoken about this since Ethan’s mother revealed the truth. Not after she died, nor in the time since Ethan had returned home. After leaving Fiji, he’d returned to Australia to tie up loose ends. That involved clearing out the apartment and getting a real estate agent to put it up for sale. The new owners wouldn’t be moving in for another month, but Ethan wasn’t sticking around for that. It was nothing the real estate agent couldn’t handle and frankly, he knew there was nothing here for him anymore.
“What are you doing here?” Ethan asked.
“Sarah called me.” He took his cap off. The top of his head was thinning even more than Ethan remembered and Ivan rubbed his hand over it, as if self-conscious. “She said you were packing up and that she’d been by. She thought I might want the chance to speak with you before you leave again.”
Oh Sarah. Ethan sighed. His ex was always quite fond of Ivan, since her own father lived overseas.
“Funny how they can still meddle in your life even after they’re not in it anymore,” Ivan said gruffly.
“That’s the bloody truth.”
“But she was right, though. I did want the chance to talk to you.”
What could Ivan possibly have to say? They’d never seen eye-to-eye, never been close or had any kind of real connection. But Ethan could readily admit that Ivan had loved Marcie and they’d had a good marriage. And he worked hard to provide for their family, put food on the table, and he’d been tender with his wife when he thought no one was looking.
He was a decent man. Just not the father Ethan had hoped for.
“So talk,” Ethan said.
Ivan toyed with his cap. “You know I loved your mother more than anything on this earth, right? She was my sunshine.”
“I know.”
“I knew her before she went overseas and came back pregnant. I’d always loved her, ever since we were kids in high school. When she came back from the States, she was…” His eyes were haunted for a moment. “She was broken. There was no sunshine in her smile anymore.”
Ethan didn’t want to imagine his mother like that. Even after the lies she’d told, he still loved her.
“She told me about the pregnancy and I said I’d marry her. We could pretend we’d been dating and we’d lie about how far along she was so people didn’t know, since she was only seven or eight weeks pregnant at that point.” He sighed. “Then a few months later, I hear the man who got her pregnant suddenly wanted to come back. She told me that she couldn’t marry me because she still loved this bloke who’d…”
Ivan bit back a curse.
“She still loved him,” he said. “Anyway, she left to go and meet him at the airport.”
“But he never showed.” The words popped out of Ethan’s mouth.
“That’s right.” Ivan looked at him curiously but didn’t question how Ethan knew that detail. “She waited there overnight. Some security guard found her sleeping on a bench. She was dehydrated. Hadn’t eaten. I drove all the way to Melbourne to convince her to come back to Patterson’s Bluff. I forgave her, and we agreed never to talk about it.”
“That seems to be the Hammersmith MO,” Ethan said bitterly.
“When you were born, she wanted to put all that pain behind her,” Ivan explained. “And I said I would do whatever she felt was right. If she wanted to raise you knowing I wasn’t your dad, then fine. If she wanted me to be your dad, then I was also willing to do that. I just wanted her to have her sunshine again.”
Ivan’s voice caught. Grief flashed across his face like lightning, but he took a moment to compose himself and fought it down.
“As you got older I asked her if we should say something, but she was always too afraid. She worried that you would want to go and find your father and that you’d end up like him—a troublemaker.”
“Did he ever try to contact her? Or me?” Ethan asked.
“Yes. But after the airport incident, your mother changed the home phone number and put his letters straight in the rubbish without opening them. I would find them in there sometimes and frankly, that made me happy.” He shrugged. “I know it probably makes me sound like a prick, but it’s the truth.”
“I can’t blame you for that,” Ethan replied. He certainly wouldn’t want to be in Ivan’s position.
“It was hard to know what role I had to play. Especially since you were the smartest little ankle biter I’d ever met. Always asking questions, always wanting to know everything, getting into stuff and running circles around everyone.” Ivan shook his head. “I knew you didn’t get that from me and…I always wondered how much of your real father you had in you. You didn’t look like me, of course, and you didn’t think like me. It was like being reminded every day that this man who hurt your mother still lived in our house in some form.”
That would explain the resentment Ethan had always felt underneath everything. He’d been a very empathetic person, even as a kid, picking up on things that no one else could see.
“That wasn’t my fault,” Ethan said.
“No, it wasn’t. I’m not proud that I felt that way.” Ivan looked down at his boots. “I’m not proud that we lied to you, either. But I promised I would love and support your mother no matter what, and I didn’t break that promise the entire time she was alive.”
“She was lucky to have you,” Ethan said, and he believed it. For the first time he saw Ivan for who he was—a man who was deeply in love with a scarred woman, who likely wasn’t equipped with the emotional tools to handle it all. But he had tried his best.
“I’m sorry about all the lies, Ethan. I knew it was wrong.”
Ethan opened his mouth to say that he wished they’d told him before Matthew Brewer died, but…did he wish that? From all accounts, the man wasn’t the kind of father Ethan would have wanted. And going through every single bit of paperwork Lottie had given him—a few more letters, some photographs, legal documents—didn’t do anything to prove otherwise.
“I forgive you,” Ethan said, realizing that for the first time since it all happened that he didn’t blame Ivan. Or his mother. They did the best with what they had—and Ethan had been raised in a home with love and without chaos, even if there were a few skeletons buried in the closet.
In a very uncharacteristic gesture, Ivan pulled Ethan into a hug and squeezed him tight. A second later he released him, stepping back as though he wanted to make sure the moment was over.
“Your mother loved you very much,” Ivan said. “You were her whole world.”
“No, we were her whole world. She loved you, too.”
Ivan’s eyes grew misty, but the muscles in his jaw moved as if he was trying to grind the feeling away. “Did you find him over there? I mean, we knew he was dead, but…”
“Yeah. I found him.” Ethan sighed. “And yet, it feels like I found nothing.”
“What are you doing next?”
“I wanted to get rid of this place, since I knew I wouldn’t be moving back here but beyond that…”
He was drifting. Aimless. Going through the motions one day after the next without any real goals in sight.
“Don’t waste all this,” Ivan said, gesturing to the empty apartment around them. “You’ve always had a bright future ahead of you and none of this information changes that. You can do things, Ethan. Things a lot of other people can’t.”
Ethan made a scoffing sound.
“Really.” Ivan looked him dead in the eye. “If I learned one thing from loving your mother it was that sometimes you have to set your ego to one side. I could have very easily not have gone to the airport that day, stroking my wounded pride at home. I could have walked out on her anytime I found her pining over him. But I didn’t, because loving her was more important than my ego.”
This was the first time Ivan had ever given Ethan any sort of fatherly advice. Growing up, Ethan had always
gone to his mother when he had an issue to talk through, but now he saw that perhaps the rift between him and the man who raised him wasn’t only Ivan’s doing. Ethan had played a role in it, too.
“Don’t let your bruised ego stand in the way of the life you want.” Ivan clamped a hand down on his shoulder and Ethan felt, for the very first time, the true strength of a father-son bond. “I know you’re angry and hurt. You have every right to be. But don’t let that hold you back from the things you really want.”
As soon as Ivan said that, Ethan’s mind flashed to Monroe. To standing in her bedroom doorway, watching her bake. To holding her hand as she dragged him into her bedroom. To sitting around her sister’s table, delighting in how close and kind her family was. They were the same images that bubbled up when he’d talked to Trent.
And there was part of him that thought about Lottie, too. How satisfied he’d felt helping her bring the inn back to its former glory, even if that end state was a long way off. How he’d felt seeing the appreciation in her eyes as she appraised his work, even if she didn’t always have the words to speak her praise out loud.
He’d felt an inkling of a life in Forever Falls. Like a glimmer of a dream he was trying to remember, that flickered in and out of his consciousness. There might not be any more blood relatives alive there for him to call family, but he’d always wanted to build one of his own. Monroe’s words echoed in his head:
Maybe this is a chance for you to build what you’ve always wanted. Start fresh, choose the people to be your family based on the kind of people you want in your life. You have that control.
He did. And he could.
“I wondered if you might tell me it was time to come home, to Patterson’s Bluff,” Ethan said.
Ivan shook his head. “That’s not for me to tell you. Now you have all the information you wanted, it’s your decision what to do next.”
“I have a clean slate,” he said, almost to himself.
“That’s right. But I will ask one thing. If you go back there or off to somewhere new, will you come visit every so often? I know that maybe I wasn’t the best father for you growing up, but I still consider you my son.”
Forever Starts Now Page 26
