Love Blooms

by Jamie Pope

  There were boxes everywhere. The life she had created here the past five years being packed away. She thought she would be more excited about this new turn in her life, but she was miserable. Her anxiety was nearly choking her at night, and more than that, she felt alone. There was no Tanner to turn to. His warm heavy body wasn’t in her bed at night. All she had was the kitten he gave her. And even though she loved his sweet little face and loved stroking his soft fur, he made her even sadder. She would never be able to look at the cat and not think of the man who gave it to her.

  “Hello, handsome.” She picked up Teo and kissed the side of his face. “I missed you.”

  “Did you?” He scrunched his forehead. “I wasn’t gone very long.”

  “It felt like forever to me.” She looked over to Wylie. “Can you stay for a few minutes?”

  He nodded, but Nova knew she couldn’t keep him here long because he didn’t like to be away from his wife and baby.

  “How was your man’s-only birthday dinner? I can’t believe I have a six-year-old now. I still remember when you were a tiny little baby like Sunny.” She sat down on the couch with him cuddled in her arms.

  “We had a good time, Mommy. We went to Oak Bluffs. Mr. Tanner said I could get whatever I wanted so I got two shrimp cocktails and chicken wings.”

  “Sounds amazing. Did you have dessert?”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “We went for ice cream. Uncle Wylie, give Mommy the bag.”

  “I almost forgot. This is for you.” Wylie handed her a small bakery bag, and without opening it, Nova knew exactly what was inside.

  “Mr. Tanner bought these for you. He says they are your favorite.”

  “They are the best cookies on the entire island,” she said, trying to keep her tears at bay. “You’ll have to tell him thank you for me when you go with him to the baseball game this weekend.”

  “You could come with us, Mommy. Mr. Tanner would let you. He still likes you.”

  “I still like him too, baby. But the baseball game is just for you and him. He wants to spend lots of time with you before we go, and now that school is over you’re going to get to do that.”

  “Okay,” he said resigned. Nova had been preparing Teo for the move for the past two weeks. She showed him pictures of the house they were going to live in. It had a huge pool complete with a slide. There was a park nearby that he could play in. She promised to take him to dozens of places before school started and told him that he could pick out whatever he wanted in his room. He seemed to be okay with it all, especially since Mansi was going to be out there with them for at least six weeks, but he didn’t understand why Tanner wasn’t going to come with them. He didn’t understand why he had stopped coming around just because they were moving.

  “Go get ready for bed. Make sure you wash your face really good tonight. I’ll be in soon to tuck you in.”

  He nodded and got off the couch and headed straight to Wylie. “Good night, Uncle Wylie. Thank you for driving me home.”

  Wylie picked him up and squeezed him. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  A few seconds later Teo went into his bedroom leaving them alone. “I’m going to miss the hell out of him, Nova. It’s taking everything inside of me to keep it together.”

  “Please, Wylie, don’t make me feel guiltier than I already do.”

  “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. You need to take this shot. You worked hard for it, but I’m going to miss having my family close. Hell, you’re even taking Mansi.”

  “She’s my grandmother,” she pointed out. “Plus she’s only staying with us for a little while. She’ll be back around Halloween.”

  “She’ll stay with you as long as you need her to. She might not want to come back.”

  “I’m not sure she’ll be happy there in the long run.”

  “I’m not sure you’ll be happy there in the long run, either.”

  “I owe it to myself to see, don’t I?”

  “Of course you do. But why won’t you let Tanner come with you and make that decision for himself?”

  “Because, again, I’ll feel too damn guilty. He’s finally found a place he loves, where he’s comfortable. I can’t ask him to give up his home and his career to follow me across the country. We haven’t even been together that long. I know what it feels like to give up things you’ve always wanted to make someone else happy. I can’t ask him to do the same for me.”

  “He’s miserable. I’ve never seen a man so low in my life. Why don’t you just go see him?”

  “I didn’t want for this to end right now. I wanted the summer with him. He ended it. He walked away from me. It was supposed to be easier. I would just get on the plane and we would go our separate ways. Now I have to worry about seeing him every time I leave the house. Now I have to make plans for Teo to see him so I don’t have to face my heartbroken kid.”

  “You can’t plan a breakup to go the way you want. Love doesn’t work like that.”

  “Apparently not.” She wrapped her arms around herself, wishing that this wasn’t so damn hard.

  “Tanner’s biological father is meeting him here on the island next Friday.”

  “He is? That’s huge for him.”

  “You’ve been with him through this entire journey of finding out who he really is.”

  “Yes.” From the moment he realized that the man who raised him wasn’t his father, to the showdown with his mother, who was the orchestrator of this huge family secret. It seemed wrong not to be there in the end. “Teo needs new sneakers. Do you think you could take him next Friday?”

  Wylie nodded slowly, his eyes widening with understanding. “Cass needs some stuff, too. We might have to go off island. Is it okay if we keep him overnight?”

  “Yes. I think that would be for the best.” She stood up and hugged her brother tightly. “Thank you, Wylie.”

  “Why are you thanking me? I love to spend time with him.”

  “Thank you for being my big brother.”

  * * *

  Tanner didn’t know what kind of food to put out for his lunch meeting. He had gone to the store and bought a roasted chicken, fancy cheese, crackers, olives, and three kinds of salad. He bought beer and wine, a cake and a pie. He just kept buying food. Enough for a party of at least ten. There were no rules to this kind of event. No etiquette to follow when you are meeting your biological father for the first time.

  What the hell would he say to the man? There were so many questions he could ask, but as the hour drew near, they all went out of his head. Other thoughts clouded it.

  Would he recognize himself in the man? Would he feel a connection with him? Feel like the man was his father? Feel that feeling he had been searching for his entire childhood? Or would he dislike the man? Would this entire meeting be a huge waste of his time?

  The doorbell sounded and Tanner glanced at his watch, seeing that his guest was a few minutes early. He opened the door, trying to calm the pounding in his chest, but he didn’t see a man who looked like him standing on the other side. His heart pounded harder. Nova was there, wearing a pretty pink sundress on her curvy body. She looked so uncertain.

  He hadn’t seen or spoken to her since he walked out of her apartment that day. He had seen Teo. Wylie had been their go-between arranging it so they never had to see or speak to each other. It had been beyond painful to do it that way. He was happy to be with Teo, but being with him and being without Nova felt wrong. It felt like half his family was missing.

  “I’ll go if you want me to. I heard that your father was coming today and I . . . I don’t know why I’m here.” She paused for a long moment. “I thought you might need me today.”

  “Today and every day,” he said. He wanted to touch her. To kiss her. To smooth his hands all over the body that he thought about so much. But he wanted to talk to her, too. To ask her how she had been. To know what she was thinking. How she was feeling.

  He didn’t do any of that. His biological fath
er’s car pulled up and he grabbed Nova’s hand, pulling her inside to stand beside him as he got out of the car.

  Richard Powell was just as tall as Tanner. His skin darker. His clothing well-fitting. His stride confident.

  The instant rush of emotions Tanner thought he would feel didn’t come. It was simply odd seeing the man who helped give him life. It was almost like watching a video instead of seeing the real thing.

  “Tanner.” He extended his hand; his shake was firm. “I’m glad you reached out.”

  “It’s good to meet you, sir.”

  “Sir? I know you have spent most of your adult life in the military, but you don’t need to call me sir.”

  “Father seems too much and Richard seems too informal for the man who gave me life.”

  Richard nodded. “I see your point. I was surprised the words deadbeat and asshole didn’t come flying at me as soon as you saw me.” The corner of his mouth curved. The man had a sense of humor. Tanner knew he wasn’t going to be able to hate him.

  “I wouldn’t ask you to come all the way over here just to curse you out. I would wait until the holiday, like all families do.”

  He laughed that time. It was a deep, warm sound. He had some charm. Tanner knew immediately why her mother threw away her marriage for him. He was the exact opposite of the man she had married. “Is this beautiful woman your wife?” he asked, looking at Nova.

  “No,” Tanner said, and it actually pained him. Technically she was nothing to him anymore. He couldn’t bring himself to say “ex.” Because everything thing he felt about her was just as strong and present as always. “This is the woman I’m in love with. Nova, meet Richard Powell, my biological father.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Nova.”

  “You, as well. Please come in.”

  Nova took over the hosting duties as soon as they got inside. She sat them outside on the deck overlooking the ocean, pulled the food out of the cartons it all was still packed in, and placed it on platters. Tanner had been too nervous to even think to put it on the fancy china his grandparents seemed to have an abundance of.

  “I had forgotten how beautiful the Vineyard is,” Richard said to him as he stared out at the ocean.

  “You’ve been here before? To the house? You didn’t ask for directions.”

  “If you want to know if your mother and I used your grandparents’ home as a love nest, the answer is no. I respected your grandfather far too much. This was the campaign headquarters for his second reelection. We used to gather around the formal dining room table and strategize.”

  “How did it start between you two?”

  Richard looked at him for a long moment. “You don’t really want to know the answer to that one.”

  “I guess I don’t. Give me the abbreviated version.”

  “I feel like you want a black and white response, where one of us is all good and the other is all evil. We had an affair. It’s something I am ashamed of. Even more now because I have a wife. If she’d had a child with another man I would have been angry and devastated. I wish I could say I was a big enough man that I would forgive and not hate, but I can’t say that. There is no excuse for what we did.”

  “But if you didn’t do it, then I wouldn’t be here.”

  “I didn’t say I regretted it.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “I did, but even in a perfect world with all the societal problems gone, it wouldn’t have worked out between us. Your mother wanted a great romance and in the end I want what I have. A dedicated wife. A family. A quiet life.”

  It struck Tanner the similarities between them. That’s all he wanted too, but Nova wanted more. She wanted off this island. She wanted out of island living, and this quiet life was the thing he had craved the most.

  She walked out on the deck with a tray of food in her hands. He stood to help her, struck again by how stunning she was.

  “Sit. Sit. I’ve got this.” She put everything down. “I need to go get the drinks and silverware. Keep talking.”

  She left them alone again.

  Richard watched Nova as she left. “I’m starting to remember that your mother did tell me about Nova.”

  “You spoke to her?” He didn’t know why he was surprised by this. His mother had admitted that she called Richard when Tanner went into the army, but he was surprised that this married man was still communicating with the woman he’d an affair with so many years ago. “You still speak to her.”

  “We don’t really speak all that often. And when we do it only concerns you. She told me about the troubles you were having as a teenager, and when you went into the military. She told me every time you were being honored. She called me when you finally got out. And she called me after you two spoke about me in D.C. She was very upset that night.”

  “She doesn’t even speak to me that often.”

  “No?” He seemed surprised. “She speaks of you as if you were the most important part of her life.”

  Tanner laughed but there was nothing funny about it. “She’s the most important thing in her life. What did she tell you about Nova?”

  “She said something like you were shacked up with a single mother divorcée who wore too much makeup. The picture your mother painted of her is in vast contrast to the woman I see here today. She seems lovely.”

  “She is.” He nodded. “When exactly did you find out about me?”

  “I think you were six. It was time for your grandfather’s third reelection campaign to start again and she called me to see if I would be willing to run it. By that time, your grandfather was so well established and so popular, he didn’t need my services. But your mother was insistent and she seemed hurt that I didn’t want to come back to Boston. She wanted to pick things up where we left off. I had moved on by then. I was seeing someone seriously. My focus had changed. I told her that, and then she dropped the bomb on me. I had a son and he had no idea that the man he called Dad wasn’t his father. We went back and forth for a while trying to figure out the best thing to do, but in the end we decided it was for the best not to rock your world then.”

  “I wish you had. I felt like an outsider in my family. I knew I didn’t belong with them, but I didn’t know why.”

  “We didn’t know what to do. There’s no handbook for that situation. I thought it would be best for you to continue to grow up with the man you thought was your father. When you were a teenager, I regretted that decision and your mother and I had a big argument when I told her I was coming to get you and knock some sense into you.”

  “You, a stranger to me, were planning to come take me from the only parents I have ever known and raise me?”

  “I realized how stupid of a plan that was. Luckily your grandfather made you join the army after you were arrested.”

  “Why didn’t you ever try to contact me after I had straightened out? I was old enough to decide what was best for me.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you would want to have anything to do with me. I’m still not sure if you want to have anything to do with me.”

  “What were you hoping would come out of this?”

  “I’m not asking to be your father. I lost out on that, but I would like to hear from you from time to time. Know that you are well. It’s a hell of a thing for a man to have a little piece of him walking around on this earth. There’s a natural need for me to want the best for you.”

  It was nice hearing that. For so long he just wanted to know that there was someone in his life who cared and now, as he took stock of all the people in it, he realized that he did have a lot of love in his life. It just took going through hell to realize it.

  Nova walked out again with the things that she gone in to get. It took longer than it should, but he knew that she was giving him the time he needed to speak to his father in private. She hadn’t been able to say it yet but he knew that she loved him, too. He wouldn’t have been able to get through this journey without her.

  Was she put in his path just t
o get him through this point in his life, or was the rest of his life meant to be spent with her?

  Chapter 19

  Nova stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes as Tanner and his biological father said their final good-byes. They had had a pleasant lunch with Richard, and Nova had to stop herself from staring at the man. The resemblance was strong between father and son, even the way they held themselves. They sat tall, their backs straight. Their smiles were the same. The shapes of their heads. They had similar senses of humor and that made Nova wonder how the hell Tanner’s family could keep such a huge thing from him.

  He must have felt like an alien among them and it made her sad for the boy he once was who never knew his place. When she first saw him today she had been so happy, so filled up that she wanted to throw all her common sense out of the window and tell Tanner to come along with her to California, but she would be doing that for her comfort, for her security. It wouldn’t be for him at all, because after so long not knowing his place in the world, he had found it here on Martha’s Vineyard.

  She was going to have to stay strong. She was still going to follow her dreams. And she was going to make it easier for Tanner to make new dreams of his own. Ones that didn’t include her.

  She heard the front door close and Tanner’s heavy footsteps as he walked back into the kitchen. “You don’t have to hand wash dishes. The dishwasher works.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “I want to.”

  “You were giving me time with my father. I appreciate that.”

  “Things seemed to have gone well.”

  “They did.”

  “You didn’t need me after all.” She felt shy around him now that they were alone. It was the last feeling she expected. He was the person who knew her the best. He knew all of her dark secrets, her insecurities. He could read her emotions before she could even process them. It was scary to have someone be that inside of her head and heart, because he could truly hurt her if he wanted to. He had the power to devastate her. “Let me finish cleaning up and I’ll get out of your hair.”