“Is this for Alfred or for you?” He wiped his hands on his jeans and stood up.
I didn’t know what to tell him, so I asked a question of my own. “What would you do if you were in my shoes?”
“Well, it depends.”
“Depends?”
He faced the bay window and shrugged. “If you’re still in love with him… Are you?” He turned and looked straight at me and, for a moment, it felt as if my legs had become liquid and I was overwhelmed with sadness. Was I still in love with Hans? If yes, why did his question make me feel so sad? Was I sad, not so much because of the question, but because he had asked me?
“I don’t know,” I finally whispered without meeting his eyes. I stood beside him and, for a while, we both just stood there, our eyes settling on Eleanor and her friend, Anna, on the swings, as silence stretched between us. It was the truth. I didn’t know anymore. I had been so in love with Hans, and right after I found out I was pregnant, I would often dream about how we would live happily ever after, get a house out on the countryside, and raise Alfred together. But after Alfred was born and we had become a family, I stopped thinking about it. Maybe it was because I knew it was never going to happen. Maybe it was because I had everything and everyone I ever wanted right here in Seattle with me—Alfred, Mom, Dad, Ava, Martha, Eleanor, and Thomas. But lately I had been longing for a different kind of love—the love Mom and Dad shared, my other half that would make me feel complete and happy. But that other half… was that still Hans?
“Well, you’d better find out before you go halfway across the world to find him. You need to know exactly what you’re looking for.” Thomas turned his back to me and started collecting crayons from the table. “Have you seen the old movie, Love Story with Ali MacGraw and what’s his name?”
“Yes, of course, duh! Look who you’re talking to?” I punched him lightly on the shoulder and he pretended it hurt. “His name is Ryan O’Neil.”
“Remember that famous quote?” He jumped up on the desk and looked at the ceiling. “‘Sometimes love means you have to let a person go. If she doesn’t come back, it wasn’t meant to be. If she does—’”
“‘—love her forever,’” we both said at the same time, in sync, as Dad would have observed.
“Yes, it’s very beautiful and true.” His eyes widened, and a small smile formed on his lips.
“It is, but that’s not really from Love Story.” I picked up a stray blue crayon under the desk and held it up for him to see. “She says,” I began, pretending to write it in the air, “‘Love means you never have to say you’re sorry. Period.’”
“You sure?” He held out his hand and nodded toward the blue crayon in my hand.
“I am.” I placed the crayon in his palm and he grabbed my hand.
“Well, it’s true all the same. And I’m sorry not sorry.” His wan smile reflected the melancholy note in his voice, and I had to swallow hard.
“Are-are you thinking about your wife—a-about letting her go back then?” I asked, my pulse picking up a little.
He looked down at our hands and, just above a whisper he said, “No,” and let go.
“What does that mean then?” I looked up at him, acutely aware of each heartbeat hammering in my chest.
He took in a deep breath and looked out the window again. “It just means that love is complex AF. Just because he’s Alfred’s dad … it doesn’t give him a free admission ticket to your heart, or whatever it’s called in German. Remember that and—” He was about to say something else when Eleanor and her friend Anna had rushed in the door, begging to do a lemonade stand.
That was the last time I had talked with Thomas about Hans—and it left me feeling even more lost and confused. And yearning for love.
***
“Anyway,” Dad muttered, pulling me back to the oregano-infused kitchen with my two half-full parents. “We need to decide on dates and a headcount. Tickets are going to go up soon—hundreds of dollars.” He clicked his tongue. “We can’t hold off much longer.”
I looked up at Mom and Dad, now sitting on the floor with Alfred and Ava, each moving along a wooden train.
He sure was right about that. I not only couldn’t hold off any longer about deciding my feelings for Hans and love in general, but I also couldn’t keep putting off Alfred meeting his father. He was turning three soon and had already confused Dad with “dad.” Before I knew it, he would be asking questions about the other half of him—the half with the blond hair and blue eyes—both alien objects in the Jensen family on Pinecone Lane. And when he did, I would like to be able to answer as honestly as possible.
As for me, I had to figure out who my half was—my true love. The one that never had to say, “I’m sorry.”
CHAPTER 3
A day in the life
“I said no gifts.” Martha’s eyes darted to the little pink present in Mom’s hand. “And where are the babies?”
“In the car, still napping.” Mom held up the baby monitor and nodded toward the driveway. It’s your birthday, Martha. Eighty is a pretty big deal.” She almost shoved the gift into Martha’s old and gnarled hand. “It took me a long time to find it, so you’d better just open it, wear it, look pretty and smile.”
“Oh dear.” Martha looked up at Mom and giggled, and I caught a glimpse of the young woman I imagined her as back then, sitting by the antique desk, writing all those beautiful letters.
“Come on in.” She looked over her shoulder and continued with a low whisper, “Thomas has brought a… lady with him tonight. Now, that’s a first.” For a moment, her eyes settled on mine. “Her name is Jennifer, and she’s quite entertaining and on her third glass of Chablis. She owns a couple of pet parlors, called The Pet-a-Cure.” She raised an eyebrow at Mom and nodded, a mix of wonder and amusement on her face. “Come on now, I have two dishes of the gluten-free lasagna in the oven and it smells delicious.” She linked her arm with Mom’s and I watched as she steered her toward the living room.
I always felt weird entering Martha and Frederick’s little cottage-like house. The grandfather clock, the antique desk, the gold photo frames—displaying faded old pictures of Frederik, Martha, and Thomas on their trip to Denmark—the porcelain figure of The Little Mermaid … it was as if the letters almost came to life right in front of me. This was how I had imagined Martha and her world before I had even met her or seen how she lived. Obviously, I had seen her belongings beforehand—living with half of their furniture for a few months—but I never connected the dots. I had no idea we were living in her old house, with her stuff. Whenever we came to visit—which had become almost a weekly ordeal, now that Mom and Martha had become best of friends, or, as Dad called it, “Mom’s surrogate mom”—I would always gently place my hand on the clock and feel the small vibration. Next, I would run my fingers on top of the old out-of-tune piano and I swear I could almost see Martha sitting right next to a five-year-old Thomas on the bench, teaching him the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” song.
But, this time I didn’t. Jennifer—the pet parlor owner and apparently Thomas’s new date—was sitting on the bench, balancing a glass of wine on her crossed legs. She looked impeccably groomed, her long light-brown hair gathered in a loose bun on one side of her head. She looked stylish and yet casual, wearing a pair of jeans, a nice wool sweater, and long knee-high boots. She was looking up at Thomas, her eyes full of admiration … or maybe it was love?
I cleared my thought and stepped all the way into the living room and waved.
“Hi, y’all,” I said with a voice that hardly sounded like mine. Why did I sound so weird?
Thomas and Jennifer both looked up at me at the same time.
“Oh hi.” Thomas placed his glass on top of the piano and looked down at Jennifer and was about to say something when Eleanor came rushing in from the kitchen.
“El.” She threw her arms around my waist and whispered behind my back, “She’s kinda weird, don’t you think?”
I kissed her head a
nd whispered back, “Don’t say that. Give her a chance.”
“I did,” she whispered back through ventriloquist-like lips. “She only seems to care about Dad. This is exactly what happened when Derek’s dad got a new girlfriend last year. Derek’s mom calls her ‘the leech.’”
Nonchalantly, I peeked at Jennifer over Ella’s head. She was laughing at something Thomas was saying, gesturing with her hands. “You’re just being silly. I think she looks, um, cute.”
Eleanor took a small step back and looked up at me with squinted eyes. “Well, duh,” she said a little too loudly, then, with a lowered voice, she leaned over and whispered, “Of course, you’d say that. She totally looks like you.” She giggled, then took off to the kitchen again, leaving me in the middle of the living room floor, gazing at Jennifer, wondering. She looks like me?
“I would like you to meet Jennifer.” Thomas made a gesture down at Jennifer, who gently placed her glass on top of the piano and got up.
“Hi,” she said with an accent I quite couldn’t place. “I’m Jennifer, but people always call me Jen.” She crossed the room in two big strides and placed herself right in front of me. She was a lot taller than me, a head at least, and had a long, almost unnoticeable scar on her slender neck, but Eleanor was right. She did look a little like me. She didn’t have the same red curly hair—it was shiny and dark—but her eyes had the same shade of deep forest green and her face was square with a small forehead. But instead of a face generously sprinkled with freckles—or “fairy dust” as Dad would always call them when, as a teenager, I would complain about the ridiculous number of freckles I had been given at birth—her skin was flawless and porcelain-like.
Unsure whether to extend my hand or give her a hug, I made a clumsy attempt to do both and we almost bumped our heads together, which made her laugh out loud.
“I’m Ella, um, Eleanor.”
“I know who you are.” She looked over her shoulder at Thomas, still a big smile on her face. “You’re the Eleanor who read the forbidden letters,” she announced, winking at me.
“The-the letters?” I looked over at Thomas and felt my stomach hardening. “You, um, told her? You told her about the letters?” I asked, not able to hide the disappointment in my voice. Up until this day, I was the only one who knew. He swore he hadn’t told anyone else, not even Martha. And, of course, my lips were sealed. And I had kept that promise for over three years now.
“I did.” Thomas leaned against the piano and twirled his wine around. “I was explaining who would be here tonight and I told her about how we came to know each other.” He looked up and his eyes met mine. “It’s really no big deal. Mom would probably have figured it out eventually.”
“No, of course it’s not,” I lied, thinking at the same time how I sucked at lying, how my voice gave it away. I knew Thomas heard it too. I could see it in the way he looked at me when he spoke again.
“Anyway, the cat’s out of the hat now.”
“The cat? He got out again.” Martha stepped into the living room and placed a tray of what looked like her signature sausage rolls with sweet chili dip on top of the piano.
Thomas smiled at Jennifer. “Actually, Mom’s cat’s name is The Cat in the Hat,” he explained to her as she joined him and Martha by the piano.
“For real?” Jennifer threw her head back and laughed. “Martha, that’s too funny.” She rested her hand on top of Martha’s shoulder and continued, “I’ve heard many weird and creative names in my line of work, but that beats them all. How on earth did you come up with it?”
I didn’t hear what Martha answered back. I was too occupied observing the serious family bonding happening right before my eyes. I looked back and forth between Thomas and Jennifer and Martha and had an epiphany. Maybe Eleanor was right after all: maybe Jennifer was a leech.
***
“Tell me again about this lady.” Frederick limped across the dining room with a fresh bottle of wine in his hand. “Who was her husband again?” He sat down and rested his legs on the little stool Martha had placed right next to him. It had only been two weeks since Martha had wheeled him into the hospital for his knee surgery, but he was already up and moving. When Dad asked him earlier how he felt, he said he felt his age. “Not fun getting old.”
“Older,” Thomas had corrected him, adding that age is just a number.
“Huh,” Frederick had sputtered, “that’s what people who are getting older say.” The three of them laughed, but I traced a collective sadness in their eyes. It had me longing for Grandma, sitting so many miles away, on her front porch alone. Grandma had looked old for as long as I could remember—with her gray hair, always gathered in a thin braid, swept to the side, and pale weathered skin. She always said that it was not so much getting old that bothered her, or to see the passing of time on her face. It was the pathetic stares from other people she couldn’t stand. “It’s not like old wrinkled people are contagious,” she would always joke, but I couldn’t help thinking that, in a way, she was wrong. It was contagious in the sense that we would all catch it. Eventually.
Dad cleared his throat right next to me.
“His name was Richard Rock. A rich asshole,” Dad explained around his food, which earned him a look from Mom.
“All rich people are assholes in Frank’s world,” she explained to Jennifer, who seemed quite amused by Dad’s remark. “The word ‘rich’ is Frank’s least favorite word. It’s his grammatical weapon.” She looked over at me and winked.
“It sure is,” I agreed. “It’s also what brought us here—to Seattle.”
Martha rested her old hand on top of Mom’s and smiled. “Well, I’m glad it did. If a rich asshole is what it took, I’m grateful to him, asshole or not.” She grinned and picked up her glass. “I think this is a good time to say cheers. And welcome to our home.” She nodded at Jennifer, sitting right across from her.
“Cheers.” Jennifer held up her glass, and the rest of us followed.
“To friends—the family we choose.” Martha looked at me next and nodded.
“Hear hear,” Dad said in a sing-song voice as we all clinked our glasses together. “And here’s to Frederick’s new knee and to growing old with grace … among family.” Briefly, he looked over at Mom, his eyes clogged with emotions, before he emptied his glass in one big mouthful. I peered at Jennifer across the table. Her eyes were locked on Thomas in front of her as she sat biting her lower lip in a sexy way. I followed her stare and, for a moment, my eyes locked with Thomas’s.
“What?” he mouthed to me, slightly raising an eyebrow, smiling.
“Nothing,” I mouthed back. I tried to smile, but instead I felt a pit open in my stomach. Why was I feeling so emotional all of a sudden? Maybe I was just jealous. I was not used to being the only one at the dinner table without a significant other, without a half. Thomas and I had always been the two odd ones out, the two halves. And now he was here with Jennifer.
“So, um,” Jennifer began, her voice sounding a little hoarse, like it had been worn out for talking too much or trying too hard. “I hear you’re going to Europe this summer. How exciting and romantic.” She smiled at Mom and clapped her hands silently together.
“We are. In May. I can’t wait. Although, it’ll probably be more of an eating-croissants-and-drinking-coffee kind of trip than romantic, with Frank working and me bringing a couple of jetlagged toddlers in tow.” Mom’s eyes settled on the blanket in the corner of the living room where Alfred, Ava, and Eleanor were lying, cheek to cheek, watching a cartoon on Martha’s old box TV—or, as Frederick called it, “the metal detector,” referring to the amount of weird humming noises it would spit out when you plugged it in.
“How lovely. I wouldn’t know about the toddler part. We, um, I never had any kids, so um…” Jennifer’s eyes dropped to her plate for a moment and when she looked up, I’m sure Mom was reading a lot more into them than they were willing to tell. Mom always connected with people this way. It was as if she, just by l
ooking at them, could feel their pain, their heartache, and it gave her instant access to their hearts and souls and they loved her for it. They loved her, period.
“Anyway,” Jennifer continued, now looking at Thomas, “I sure can relate to the eating croissants part.” She giggled and looked at Mom again. “We-we actually talked about going, too. To Europe. To England and maybe Scotland. I have family there.”
“We—as in you and Thomas?” Martha inquired, her eyes burning holes in her son’s nice pleated shirt. “Well, that’s all new to me.” It was all new to me, too. He was going to England with her? He had known her for, like, a Seattle second!
Thomas put his fork down on the table and shrugged.
“We talked about England and it came up. Why not? I always wanted to show Eleanor where Louise used to live, and show her that, um, famous bench with her name on it and, um, yours, too,” He looked across the table and offered me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Remember how she’s always been wanting to go?” It was a silly question, really. He knew all too well that I remembered. Ever since Eleanor and I had become name-buddies, she had talked on and on about the Eleanor Rigby bench in Liverpool. She even had a water color painting of it with the words “our bench” nailed to the wall, right above her bed. “If we go,” she had said once, “we could maybe make a quick stop and drive one of those red double buses in London, or maybe even go to Abbey Road and have someone take a picture of us as we cross the street—you, me, Thomas, and Alfred, totally Beatles style. You can be Lennon, I’ll be McCartney, Dad can be Harrison—because of the hair—and Alfred could be Ringo. You think he would mind being Ringo since he was not the most famous Beatle and all? But, at least he’s not dead.” I told her that I didn’t think he would mind. He was almost three and had no clue who the Beatles were. That was only half the truth. He probably knew all the Beatles songs by then and he had once pointed at John Lennon on the cover of one of the Beatles CDs and said, “Mom” (as any other baby, he was pretty gender-discriminating and was convinced that every person with long hair was a mom or a least a woman).
Lost in Love (The Miss Apple Pants series Book 2) Page 3
