“It’s more than loneliness for me,” Titan said. “But I understand your logic.”
“This way, we’ll see if it’s real.”
Instead, Kelly found out that Detective Sanders was interested in her. When the DNA testing came back identifying Kelly’s blood on the rock that had Dave Marks’s fingerprints on it, a warrant for his arrest was issued, and Marty Sanders called Kelly to tell her. During the same telephone call, he asked her for coffee, and by Christmas, they were serious about each other.
“I won’t say the thing between you and the detective doesn’t hurt,” Titan said. “But I’m happy for you. And I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said. “You’re my stepson.”
They’d discovered it was true when Titan’s DNA test came back six weeks after he spit in the test tube. He was Steve’s son.
“Now we can move on,” he said.
“Are you going to tell Steve and Lee?” Kelly asked.
“No, I don’t think so. It was never an issue for them. Steve says frequently he knew when he looked at me the first time that I was his son.”
“Yes, that was a shock,” Kelly replied, the words no longer having the power to hurt her.
“That would be difficult to recover from. I guess I’m not surprised you chose to move on,” Titan said, and it was the sadness in his voice that was difficult for Kelly to hear.
“Look, Titan,” she said, getting close to him, whispering. “I’ll love you as more than a stepson, okay? But it wouldn’t work. It’ll always be a thing with Steve and Lee and my children. The age difference, too. It matters.”
“Not to me,” he said.
“It does to me,” she replied. “Let’s just wait and see. We’re taking a break now, that’s all it is.”
***
Christmas was nice, albeit different, Steve participating as he never had before, due in part to his concern about Lee, who was having a round of chemotherapy administered. Kelly took her wig shopping as soon as Lee’s hair started to fall out.
“I don’t know why, but this the worst,” Lee said, fighting tears. “It shouldn’t mean a thing, but losing my hair upset me the most.”
“It does for most people,” Kelly said, helping her pull the wig on. “You’re not alone.”
“You don’t think I’m too vain?”
“No way! You’re just right. We love you just the way you are,” Kelly sang.
“Kelly Boyd, you too funny!”
“Look how pretty this one is,” Kelly said, smiling at Lee’s reflection, her hands on Lee’s shoulders. “Steve will like this, I bet.”
“I hope so,” Lee said, reaching up to grasp Kelly’s hand. “I get this one.”
With one shot at artificial insemination, Maxine became pregnant. For her Christmas gift, Steve made a beautiful cradle that would fit perfectly at the side of their bed in their narrow bedroom. Kelly had encouraged Steve to keep his woodshop set up at the house because there wasn’t a place for it in the apartment he shared with Lee, and while he worked on the cradle, Lee would rest on the couch with Kelly watching over her.
The family looked on in amazement as Maxine and Alice unwrapped the gift.
“I wondered why Dad insisted on measuring our bedroom,” Alice said, moved to tears that she wouldn’t shed until she was alone.
“I’m jealous!” Ben said. “Nicole needs something her grandfather handcrafted.”
“You wait and see,” Lee said, winking. “Stevie make everyone something special, even Kelly Boyd.”
Kelly’s gift from Steve was a baton of sorts, with a clip to be worn on her waistband. “If anyone attacks you again, now you have a weapon,” he said.
“I’ll look the other way,” Detective Sanders said.
“It’s for self-defense,” Steve explained, confused.
“I know, but I’ll still pretend I didn’t see it.”
So began the relationship between the boyfriend and soon-to-be ex-husband.
“Can anything go my way?” Kelly asked, jamming fistfuls of turkey stuffing into the turkey cavity. “Now they’ll be at each other’s throats.”
“Ask Marty to loosen up,” Karen said to Anne.
“I’ll do it,” Maxine replied. “He’s just being a show-off.”
Sandy didn’t attend either Thanksgiving or Christmas, which made the family sad. However, Augie had the children for both holidays, while Sandy took Christmas Eve for her holiday. Kelly kept them close by when she wasn’t busy with the meal. Lee and Steve took over when Kelly was busy, the children fascinated by Lee, who spent time teaching them Vietnamese words. Augie brought Kate, who stood off in a corner, wishing she could disappear.
Kelly couldn’t stand it any longer, and went to Kate, offering her a glass of wine. “At least come in the kitchen and keep me company,” she said. “You don’t have to say a word.”
“It’s just a little overwhelming,” she said, frowning. “Everyone’s talking at once.”
“Yep, that’s our family.”
“Not Augie,” Kate said. “He’s usually so quiet.”
Kelly peeked into the living room just as Augie held on to Ken’s ankles while he tried to do a handstand.
“Look. And they aren’t even drinking,” Kelly said, pointing.
Afterward, Karen and Anne made a point of talking with Kate so she wouldn’t feel left out.
Liz regaled Maxine with tales of pregnancy, heavily edited, while Lisa and Ben took turns on Kelly’s new treadmill, the safer alternative to running in the park. Titan hung around the kitchen, chatting with Kelly and Detective Sanders.
On Tet, the same guests crowded into Steve and Lee’s small, overheated apartment; in January, the door to the balcony left open to allow the cold air in.
“Titan isn’t really going to stay away, is he?” Steve had asked.
Traditionally, if someone had experienced a death of someone close, they weren’t supposed to visit on Tet. But they’d decided it had been long enough since Jean died that Titan wouldn’t be cursed.
“No, he be here. He don’t have far to walk,” she said, cackling.
Ken and Augie took turns manning the grill, and Kelly and Alice took over the kitchen. Sandy did come to Tet after Lee begged and cajoled her.
“You don’t want the Kitchen God to tell the Jade Emperor that you been mean to Kelly Boyd,” Lee had admonished.
The way it came about, Steve and Lee were at the store, the same one where Kelly had run into them months earlier while they bought rice. Steve looked up as a young woman examined cans of bean sprouts nearby.
“That’s my daughter-in-law,” Steve whispered.
“Which one? Augie’s wife?”
Lee didn’t wait for an answer, but hustled right over to Sandy.
“You know me, right? I’m Lee, Steve’s favorite wife,” she said. “You come to Tet this Saturday, okay?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sandy said, shocked, noticing that Lee did not look well.
“Tet Vietnamese New Year. Everything that happen on Tet make good luck for the next year, or bad luck. It up to you. You come to Tet.”
“I’ll let Augie take the children, but I don’t need to come,” Sandy replied, the schism their separation had made growing wider.
“You family,” Lee said passionately. “You come. Everyone miss you if you don’t come. ‘Where’s Sandy? Sandy no like us. I wish Sandy here.’ You come, they be happy, and you have good luck next year.”
“They don’t care if I show up or not,” Sandy said, a sob catching in her throat.
“Who say that?” Lee asked. “Kelly call you on the phone. Liz and Terry call. Everyone call Sandy but think you don’t like us.”
“I like you,” Sandy said, searching her purse for a tissue, but Lee beat her to it, dabbing under Sandy’s eyes with a tissue scented with whatever perfume Lee used, something lemony.
Bending down, Sandy embraced Lee and began to cry in earnest, Steve watched, broken-
hearted and uncomfortable, wishing he could run away, wishing he could turn back time and undo all the damage he’d done.
“Okay, I’ll come to Tet,” Sandy said, sniffing. “I’m sorry. I’m mad at everyone these days.”
“That okay,” Lee said, patting her back. “It take time to get over. But don’t wait too long. Life is too short. You come to Tet.”
Sandy, Terry, and Liz sat side by side on Lee’s new couch, Sandy holding up baby Nichole so she could kick her legs. “She’s so cute! She’s getting so big. I’m so happy I showed up today.”
“I know, me too,” Liz whispered. “What’s Steve and Augie whispering about?”
“Steve is in denial about Lee,” Terry said. “It’s so sad. Everyone knows she’s dying and he just refuses to accept it.”
“I didn’t recognize her when she accosted me in the grocery store,” Sandy said. “How could I turn her down?”
“By the way, you noticed my husband and his sister left to find the gym in the next building,” Liz added. “For all the exercising those two do, you’d think they’d be in fabulous shape.”
“You have to admit, Lisa looks great. The nightly walk with Steve and Ben is really helping her,” Terry said.
Across the room, Maxine sat in the recliner with several pair of hands palpating her still flat belly.
“Fourteen weeks you may start feeling life,” she read from a book Liz had lent her. “If you’re patient, maybe you’ll get lucky. It feels like a butterfly’s wings.”
Sandy and Augie’s oldest daughter was on her knees in front of Maxine, both hands on her body, waiting patiently.
“I felt it!” she screeched. “Oh my God, Aunt Max, I felt it!”
Reggie and Belinda were there, too, Belinda’s hands rarely moving from Maxine’s belly.
“Do you regret this?” Reggie whispered. “Are you sorry now?”
“Oh, no,” Belinda said. “I have no desire to have a baby. Knowing that’s your little son or daughter, it’s just as nice. All the joy with none of the mess. What about you?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he said honestly. “I’m excited, which I didn’t think possible. I’ve never had one bit of interest in being a father. But I don’t know. I might change my mind.”
“Steve, Augie, you should feel this,” Maxine said, calling them over. “It’s so cool!”
Steve laid his hands on Maxine, joining an odd mélange of people intimately crowding around her, exclaiming in delight as the baby fluttered on demand.
“Wow! That’s incredible!” Steve said, remembering with sad regret that Kelly had tried valiantly to get him to feel their babies moving, but he never would relent. Well, he’d make up for it somehow.
“What’s going on in my living room?” Lee asked, sitting with her feet up on a stool while Kelly took direction as the kitchen help. Lee’s decline in the last few days was obvious to everyone, their sadness indescribable.
“Oh, the same old thing,” Kelly said, peeking out of the kitchen. “Our family being a family.”
“Then the Jade Emperor happy,” Lee said, smiling, her eyes closed. “We have a good year ahead of us.”
“I hope so,” Kelly replied. “A good year for all of us.”
Epilogue
“Are you okay back there?” Kelly called out, Beaver straining at the leash to keep going.
Detective Marty Sanders pedaled harder going up the slight incline of the hill. “I’m okay,” he said, out of breath. “How is it that you’re running faster than I can ride this bike?”
“That hill is torture,” she said. “You’re doing fine.”
Pointing to a ring of crocuses sprouting up around the base of a crab apple tree, its leaves just beginning to unfurl, she slowed her pace.
“It’s spring already,” she said, looking up at him, sadness unmistakable. “Time is going so fast, my head is spinning.”
Marty stopped next to Kelly, looking down at the purple and yellow just visible under leaves left from the previous year.
“We might still have snow,” he said, frowning. “I feel bad when spring flowers are covered with snow.”
Reaching for Kelly, he pulled her over, and in the circle of bicycle handle bars, embraced her. “Let’s get married,” he said, kissing her. “As soon as your divorce is final. I don’t want to wait one minute longer.”
“Okay,” she said, kissing him back. It felt so wonderful having someone who loved her and wanted her. “I’m ready.”
“Do you want to keep running?” he said. “Or do you want to hop on?”
Hoisting herself up on his handlebars, she started to laugh, feeling her rear end hanging over. “If you think it was difficult pushing this thing with only your weight on it…”
“You’re as light as a feather,” he said, getting started pedaling again with a grunt.
A horn honking scared them both, and alongside came Steve and a radiant Lee in their new Mercedes-Benz.
“Hey, Detective, aren’t you a little old to be riding a bike?” Steve asked, chuckling.
“Kelly Boyd, you look like teenaged girl sitting up there,” Lee said, stretching over Steve, purposely contradicting him. “We take Beaver with us. He look like he ready to drop.”
Steve opened the back door of his new car and let the dog jump in back in his usual place.
“Where are you headed?” Kelly called out, trying to balance. “You should meet us for coffee.”
“We go help Alice and Maxine,” Lee said. “They want garden this summer before baby comes.”
Kelly knew that the garden was really for Steve and Lee, who were still in the apartment until Baker’s house in Chicago sold. “Help yourself to the garden tools in the garage,” Kelly called out. “There’re two of everything.”
“Thanks,” Steve said, waving. “We’ll let you get back to your ride.”
He drove off, Lee turning around in her seat, smiling and waving through the back window.
“Every time I speak with those two, I’m suspicious,” Kelly said.
“Ha!” Marty laughed out loud. “There’s no love lost between Steve and me, but Lee loves me.”
“As long as you’re in the picture, she doesn’t have to worry about me. Not that it was a concern in the first place,” Kelly said.
“Well, I think you’re amazing,” Marty said, wanting to hug her again, but afraid to let go of the bike. “I’ve never witnessed a divorcing couple up close like this, but I doubt what you and Steve are doing is the norm.”
“Steve and Lee are not my best friends,” she said. “But I’m fond of them both. And as long as they’re good to my kids, I can be nice.”
“Everyone seems to be doing well,” he said. “You can be proud.”
“I know! I’m holding my breath. Maxine only has four months to go before baby Jessica is born. Lee’s in remission, thank God. Augie’s back home with Sandy and the kids, Reggie and Belinda are getting married this June, and Ken is out of rehab. Everyone else is status quo.”
“You forgot Titan,” he said, fishing.
“Titan will be fine,” she replied. “He’s grieving. He might never get over Jean, but he’ll move on. And my sister, let’s not forget my sister.”
“Karen and Anne,” Marty said. “Now there’s a contradiction.”
“Don’t let Karen hear you say that,” Kelly said, giggling. “They think they’re perfectly matched.”
“Everyone at work loves to remind me that Anne will be my sister-in-law,” he said. “I have to be nice to her now.”
“That’s true,” Kelly replied, laughing.
“Are they meeting us for coffee?” Marty asked.
“Not today. They went to Algonac to open the summer house. Believe it or not, Anne is replacing the windows on the second floor,” Kelly said. “Talk about luck having her in the family. She said she would have been a carpenter if she didn’t get into the police academy.”
“I’m excited to see the place,” he said. “I love that part of
the state.”
“We’ll go next weekend if you can get away. Today we’re meeting Lisa and Ben and Liz and the baby. If we’re lucky, everyone will join us.”
“There’s your family,” Marty said, pumping the pedals. “Look how happy they are to see you.”
“Aww, that’s so nice,” Kelly said. “I’ve never been happier. Being together is all it takes for me.”
Putting the brakes on, Marty waited for Kelly to hop off the handlebars. “Is it?” he asked, leaning over to kiss her before he put the kickstand down.
“Yes! I can finally say I’ve achieved my childhood goals. I wanted my own home, a husband to love me, and a nice family with lots of children. Now that I have you, I have everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Is that right?” he asked, placing his arm around her shoulders as they approached the coffee shop.
A joyful tear escaped Kelly’s left eye which she quickly brushed away.
“Absolutely,” she said, watching her family smiling. “It just took a little longer.”
The End
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