Single in Sitka

by Katy Regnery

  “Are emeralds green?” asks Meghan.

  “They are,” says Amanda. “They’re beautiful green gemstones. My favorite, actually.”

  “My mom’s favorite was rubies,” says Gillian, “because she was born in July.”

  “Put them together and they’re Christmas colors,” says Amanda. “Green and red.”

  “I love Christmas,” says Meghan. “Do you love Christmas, Amanda?”

  “Mm-hm,” she hums, grinning straight ahead as she drives. “It’s my favorite time of year.”

  “Me too!” says Meghan. “Know why?”

  “Tell me!”

  “Because Santa comes and brings me lots of stuffed animals, and that’s what I love the most after Daddy. And Chad and Gilly. And Aunt Bonnie. And—”

  “We get it, dumbbell,” says Chad. “You love dollies.”

  “Chad,” I warn him. I don’t condone name-calling, especially when it’s my oldest making fun of my youngest.

  “No,” says Meghan, “I love stuffed animals. And don’t call me names.”

  “I was born in January,” says Gilly, “so my birthstone is the garnet. It looks just like a ruby. Just like my mom’s.”

  “Isn’t it interesting,” asks Amanda, “that there are ruby slippers and an Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz? No diamonds. No sapphires. I guess the author chose his two favorites.”

  “They’re my favorites too,” says Meghan. “You can’t have Christmas without ’em.”

  Gilly sighs, and I hold my breath, waiting for her to comment.

  “They’re both really pretty,” she says softly.

  “I agree,” says Amanda, putting her right hand on the bolster between us and driving with her left. I cover her hand with mine, because it feels good to share a nice moment with the woman I care for and my daughters. I just wish—

  “Whatever,” says Chad, his voice tight and angry. “You think you’re being clever, but you’re not.”

  “That’s enough, Chad,” I growl.

  I’ve had it with his snark. It’s been nonstop attitude since the moment I announced we were coming to Seattle, and I’m almost out of patience. Not to mention, he’s embarrassing me in front of Amanda, who’s been nothing but nice since the second we arrived. “You’re being—”

  “Chad,” says Amanda, gently squeezing my hand, “I’m not trying to be clever. I promise. Your mom’s birthstone was a ruby. Mine’s actually an amethyst. I was born in February. I’m not trying to make any comparisons here. Truly.”

  “Oh,” he mutters, clearing his throat.

  When I look at him in the rearview mirror, he’s looking out the window, blinking his eyes like crazy, and it occurs to me he’s trying not to cry. I remind myself that his mother only died a few years ago; it still hurts like hell. And no matter how many times he acts out, he deserves my patience and love.

  I’m grateful to the woman sitting next to me, for the way she gently reminds me of this. I lift her hand to my lips and rest them against her skin for a second before letting her go.

  She reaches forward to turn on the radio, and we drive the rest of the way to her apartment listening to music rather than talking.

  ***

  “Dad,” says Gillian, standing in Amanda’s living room with her hands on her hips, “not to be rude, but this is the smallest place I’ve ever seen. Where are we supposed to sleep?”

  Amanda dropped us off at her apartment and gave us a quick tour before returning to work. She said she’d see us later at the carnival and to help ourselves to anything in the fridge.

  The last time I was here, it was just me and Amanda, and her apartment, though small, seemed perfect. In fairness, for two people who were only interested in being together in her bed, the apartment was actually pretty big. But for a family of four? Not so much.

  I point to the three blow-up air mattresses sitting in the corner beside her TV credenza. She told me that she borrowed them from friends so that my kids would be comfortable.

  “We’ll move the coffee table and blow those up.”

  “Then what?” asks Gilly. “Sleep like sardines on the floor?”

  “This is ridiculous. Can we get a hotel, please?” asks Chad.

  “No, son. We’re staying here. But I’ll move the couch back a little,” I say, “to give you some extra room.”

  “I like it here,” says Meghan, looking out the window. “We’re high up. And Amanda said there’s a pool downstairs. It’s like a hotel.”

  I position myself beside the couch. “Get the other side, Chad. Help me slide it back.”

  He rolls his eyes at me before doing what I ask. But when we start to move it, the couch leg catches on the carpet. Trying to maneuver it, my son bangs his butt into an end table, knocking a ceramic lamp to the floor. It shatters into pieces that scatter all over Amanda’s living room floor, skidding under her small, four-person dining room table.

  “Great!” yells Chad. “Look what you made me do!”

  He throws up his hands, then walks through the mess, beelining for the bathroom in the back hallway and slamming the door shut.

  “I’ll find a broom,” says Gillian, ducking into the kitchen.

  I plop down on the couch, and Meghan sits down beside me.

  “Chad’s not mad at Amanda,” says Meg.

  “I know.”

  “He’s not mad at you neither,” she says.

  I don’t know about that.

  “He’s mad that Mom’s dead.”

  “She’s right,” says Gillian, wheeling a small vacuum cleaner into the living room and looking for an outlet. “Amanda’s really nice, Dad.”

  “I love her,” says Meghan solemnly, staring at me without blinking.

  “That means a lot to me, girls,” I tell them, “because I like her a lot.”

  “I know,” says Gilly. “Chad does too. It’s scaring him.”

  “It shouldn’t scare you guys,” I say. “You’re the most important people in my life. In my whole life. Nothing can ever change that.”

  “What about Amanda?” asks Meghan.

  “She’s important to me,” I tell her, “but she’s a grown-up. She’s not my child. The way I care for her is totally different from the way I care for you.”

  “You’ll always love us, right, Daddy?” asks Meghan. “Even if you love Amanda too?”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell my girls that I don’t love Amanda. Not yet. But when I direct my lips to form the words, I can’t. I can’t form them, and I can’t say them. I don’t know if this is because my feelings for Amanda are nearing a place a love or if I just want to leave that door open, but I’m past a place where I can tell my kids that loving her is a nonissue. Loving her is...possible. It might even be probable.

  Anyway, what matters most in this particular conversation is reassuring my daughters. They need to know that no matter who might one day fill the role of “wife” in my life, it won’t affect my feelings for them. There is—as Gillian and Amanda observed about rubies and emeralds—room for both.

  I put my arm around Meghan’s little shoulders, then reach out for my older daughter, who sits down on my other side and lets me squeeze her close too.

  “Listen up, girls. Nothing in the world—in the entire universe—could ever change the way I feel about you,” I tell them. “The love I have for the three of you—for you two and Chad—is timeless...and deathless...and everlasting.” I search Meghan’s eyes until she grins, then look at Gillian until she nods back at me. “I promise.”

  “I love you, Daddy!” says Meghan, snuggling against my side.

  “I’m glad we talked,” says Gilly, leaning her head on my arm.

  “Me too,” I say, kissing the top of her head.

  But down the hallway, in my girlfriend’s bathroom, my son is alone and in pain. And until I can have a similar conversation with him, my heart can’t totally celebrate this victory.

  ***

  Amanda

  With Leigh and Jude picki
ng up Luke and the kids and bringing them to the fairgrounds to meet me, I can focus my attention on schmoozing donors with Steve Halloran before the gates officially open to the public.

  “This,” he says to a small group of people drinking champagne in a fancy, cordoned-off area near the Ferris wheel, “is the reporter who wrote the story! Amanda McKendrick!”

  “Oh, I just loved your article,” says an older woman with blingy diamonds on four of her ten fingers. “Aren’t bears the cutest?”

  “It was heartbreaking,” says her friend, who wears a silk jacket with a bear cub repeat pattern, “what you wrote about them being orphaned!”

  “They’re being crowded out of their natural habitat,” I say. “I’m so glad the story resonated with you.”

  “We booked a cruise on Holland America!” she informs me. “It makes a stop in Sitka, and we’re going to spend some time at that place you wrote about, the Habitat of the Bears.”

  It’s actually the Fortress of the Bear, but I don’t want to ruffle their feathers when they’ve given heavily to this fundraiser and may be moved to give more once in Sitka.

  I smile at them. “Say hello to Toby for me! She’s a character.”

  “I need to steal our star writer,” says Steve, taking my arm. “I want to introduce her to Elizabeth and Miles Hamilton. Excuse us, ladies?”

  Steve is over the moon about the feedback he’s gotten about the event, preening like a peacock as we approach the well-connected Hamiltons.

  “Betsy, Miles, this is Amanda McKendrick.”

  “How lovely to meet you,” says Mrs. Hamilton, the toast of Seattle society. She regularly appears in the Seattle Sentinel’s Out and About section, sitting alongside Melinda Gates or Gert Boyle at various posh philanthropic events. “What an interesting cause you’ve championed.”

  “Protecting our wildlife is historically important for Seattleites.”

  “You’re from the area then?”

  “I’m not, actually. I moved here for college.”

  “Ah,” she says, smiling at me. “Where are you from originally?”

  “Delaware.”

  “You’re far from home.”

  “No,” I say gently. “I am home. In fact, I think an argument could be made that someone who adopts a city as her own is probably more fervently attached to it than a native.”

  “Well said.” Her eyes slide to my boss. “Steve, give her a promotion. She’s bright as the sun.”

  “Don’t steal my thunder, Betsy,” he chides her, gesturing to a small stage set up with a microphone. “Announcements will be forthcoming.”

  I whip my eyes to Steve, wondering what he means.

  What thunder? What announcements?

  “I believe your writing partner is the wife of a Seahawks player?” asks Mrs. Hamilton.

  “Jude Stanton,” say Miles Hamilton. “Only Kiwi in the league. Built like a boulder.”

  “Yes,” I say, still wondering what announcement Steve plans to make. “Jude and Leigh recently had a little boy. My godson, Kai.”

  Betsy Hamilton nods at Steve with a demure smile. “Mm-hm. Perfect.”

  What’s perfect? What announcement?

  A bell sounds to warn partygoers that the carnival will be opening to the public in half an hour, and I look up to see Leigh, Jude, Luke, and his children stepping into the back of the tent.

  “Will you excuse me?” I ask the Hamiltons. “My friends are here.”

  “Of course,” says Steve. “That’s my cue to make a speech anyway.”

  I weave through the crowd to greet my friends, hugging Luke as the kids scurry over to a popcorn machine to grab a free box. Leigh looks stunning in a bright-red Empire-waist sundress, and Jude is handsome in jeans and a polo shirt beside her.

  As Steve stands up at the microphone, I sidle next to Leigh, leaning close to her ear.

  “Did Steve say anything to you about an announcement?”

  “Huh? No. About what?”

  I shrug. “I have no idea. We were standing with the Hamiltons when Betsy Hamilton mentioned promotions and Steve said something about making an announcement tonight.”

  “Well, I guess we’re about to find out.”

  “Welcome, honored and esteemed guests,” Steve begins, “to our First Annual Carnival of the Bear, sponsored by the Seattle Sentinel. We are thrilled to see you here tonight and grateful for your donations on behalf of a cause close to the hearts of two of our most valued reporters.”

  Luke threads his fingers through mine, and I look up at him, the stress and pressure of the last few hours melting away. He’s wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt, cuffed midarm, and he’s so tan and handsome, I could swoon.

  “Do I look okay?” he asks me, no doubt feeling my eyes linger.

  I sigh. “Yep.”

  “I approve of that short skirt,” he answers.

  “I wish I could ditch the heels,” I gripe. “But Steve asked for business dress during the donor reception.”

  “You look hot in heels.”

  “You’re just trying to get lucky later,” I whisper, trying unsuccessfully not to smile at his compliment.

  “Is it working?”

  “A hundred percent,” I assure him. “Though the kids will be in the living room, and my apartment’s the size of a shoe box.”

  “I can be quiet,” he says.

  “How quiet?”

  “You’ll find out later,” he says, his voice low and sexy.

  This man. I have fallen so hard for him this summer; I can’t even envision my life anymore without him in it. And that’s when I realize it. Standing in a circus tent, surrounded by Seattle society types as my boss drones on about the importance of wildlife preservation, I have a sudden yet certain epiphany:

  I’m in love with Luke Kingston.

  I don’t know exactly when it happened, and certainly it’s a very new love, but it’s there, and it’s real, alive inside of me. I know it in my marrow. In every synapse of my brain. In the pumping ventricles of my heart.

  It makes me gasp lightly as the words pass through my consciousness, only for me to approve them wordlessly.

  I love him.

  He hears me gasp and leans down. “Everything okay?”

  It’s knocked the wind from my lungs a little to realize the depth of my feelings for him. I love him, but so much else about our relationship is up in the air, and I have no idea if he feels the same.

  I clear my throat. “Mm-hm.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yep. It’s just—”

  “...would like to invite Leigh Stanton and Amanda McKendrick to join me up here on the stage. Please, ladies!”

  Hearing my name snaps me out of the trance I’m in, and Luke lets go of my hand as Leigh grabs my arm and pulls me through the crowd. We walk up the three steps to the stage and stand to Steve’s right, side by side. In the back of the tent, I see Jude and Luke standing together, with Luke’s kids gathered around him.

  “These are the ladies responsible for shining a light on the plight of the Alaskan bears! And this marvelous weekend-long event that we’re kicking off tonight was their brainchild!”

  The crowd of about one hundred patrons claps politely, with Jude doing some sort of “Hoot, hoot, hoot” from the back that makes Leigh cringe at him.

  My partner and I wave to the crowd, then head for the stairs to escape as the applause dies down, but Steve stops us. “Wait, ladies! There’s more!”

  Steve turns to the back of the stage and grabs at a white sheet that merely looked like a backdrop, but when he tugs it away, it’s a twelve-foot-long, life-size poster of a bus with Leigh’s and my faces on the side. It reads, Leigh + Amanda: The Voice of Seattle!

  I stare at my larger-than-life face for a long moment, then slide my wide eyes to Leigh. “Did you know this was happening?”

  “Uh...nope,” she says, staring at her own face and shaking her head back and forth slowly.

  “Surprise, ladies!” continues
Steve. “Going forward, you will be the face of the Seattle Sentinel! Your column, renamed as ‘The Voice of Seattle,’ will now be our premiere offering!”

  The applause starts up again, and I turn around to look at the audience, fully aware that there’s a massive picture of my face right behind me. It’s surreal to the point of obnoxious, and I really wish Steve had mentioned it to us before deciding that our faces would be the public “face” of his newspaper.

  “What do you think?” Steve asks us in a normal voice as the clapping continues.

  I clear my throat. “Ah...um...”

  “Does it come with a raise?” asks Leigh, cutting to the chase. “Using our faces like that?”

  “You signed a waiver when you started working,” Steve reminds us. “All staff likenesses are fair game for use in conjunction with advertising your writing. Your face is mine to use.” Then he grins. “Of course it comes with a raise, Ms. Stanton.”

  “A big one?” asks Leigh.

  “Steve,” I interrupt, “are you really putting us on the sides of buses?”

  “Yes! We’ve got momentum with this bear thing,” says Steve. “People are picking up a newspaper for the first time in years to read your words. Even older columns written by you two are being pinged on the website. Gotta capitalize on it while you’re hot. Now how about a smile and wave, ladies? Huh?”

  Leigh grabs my hand and raises them over our heads, waving at the donors, and I do the same, but my heart’s not in it. I’m not sure I want my face on the sides of buses or the backs of park benches. I recognize that Steve has the right to use my likeness for promotional purposes, and I get it that our story and fundraiser was a success, but privacy means something to me, and I feel like mine was just snatched away without permission.

  “Well, everyone,” says Steve into the microphone. “Keep reading the Sentinel, and enjoy the carnival!”

  The crowd claps, and the murmur of conversation begins again as Leigh and I make our way back down the stage. Several people want to chat with us, but I leave Leigh to do her share of the schmoozing while I head back to Luke and the kids. They’re standing together, looking at me with varying degrees of surprise.

  “That was cool. I didn’t know you were famous,” says Gilly. “Can we get a selfie?”