It was the longest Sunday morning of my life. But when it was over, I had a plan.
36
Forced March
Addison
We spent the rest of the day lounging, watching Netflix and enjoying doing almost nothing at all. But in the back of my mind I felt the pain of losing the life I’d begun to live, the ache where Michael had been, and the detached aimlessness of being dropped back into a world where I no longer seemed to belong.
Janet answered her phone late in the day, and went to her bedroom to talk, Allen giving me a shrug and a head shake to tell me he had no idea what she was up to.
She came back out, dressed to go out and grinning. “We should go to the park,” she said.
Allen and I exchanged a look and I considered my sweat pants and long T-shirt. In unison, we said, “nah.”
“Well you don’t have to come,” she told her boyfriend. “But Addie and I are going to take a walk.”
“We are?” I asked from where I lay, a tub of popcorn balanced on my stomach.
“We are.” She walked over, took my tub and pulled me to my feet. “Quick shower now. Just put your hair up, I guess. No time to fix it.”
“What? Who cares about my hair?” Janet must have thought I was really in danger of severe depression or something.
“Go on. Get dressed. Go!”
Fifteen minutes later, I was being dragged downstairs and out into the crisp November air of a late afternoon in the city.
About a block from Janet’s building, we turned right on Central Park West and strolled along the outer edge of the park. I pointed to a vintage Corvette parked on the other side of the street. “We found one of those in that old house I told you about,” I said, unable to keep my mind from lingering on the house, on Michael.
“Oh yeah? Like in the house?” Janet was glancing around nervously.
“No, there was the garage we couldn’t get into forever, and it was so funny because all Michael’s son could think about was that there might be a Corvette in there—he loves Corvettes. And when we finally got the thing open, it was a Corvette.” Tears threatened and I fought them down. Daniel was not mine, I had to let them both go.
We were much closer to the car now, and I was surprised to see it had Maryland plates. “It actually looked exactly like that one.”
“How strange,” Janet said, her voice taking on a very suspicious tone.
I stopped walking, feeling the signs of a setup. “What are you doing?”
“Walking by the park with a friend.”
“Where are we going?”
“Just walking, Addie. Come on.” She pulled me by the hand and we continued on, but seeing the car had me thinking about Michael, about Dan. My heart hurt. I didn’t want to walk at all.
Janet’s phone buzzed and she glanced at it and then slipped it back into her pocket. “Let’s sit.” She pulled me suddenly to a bench and forced me onto it.
“Hey!”
“You know what? I have to go,” she said, and she began backing away, grinning at me. Janet was abandoning me in the middle of the walk she forced me to take?
“What? No!” I started to stand, but noticed Janet was looking past me, toward someone coming down the sidewalk from the other direction.
I looked to see Daniel and Michael. It took me a moment to understand it was really them, they seemed so incongruous here in the city. But it really was. My heart thumped madly.
“Addie!” Daniel called, breaking into a run and then flinging his arms around me.
“Dan, I . . . I’m surprised to see you.” Emotion pushed up my throat and I fought for control. I looked past the tall boy in my arms to see Michael walking toward me, his hands shoved into his pockets and a tentative smile on his face.
“Hi,” he said, as he neared.
Janet turned and trotted off toward the apartment, and I realized that somehow she and Michael must have been in touch. I suspected Lottie. She was the only one who knew where I was.
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked.
Michael opened his mouth, but Dan spoke first. “We drove all the way here. In the Corvette!” His cheeks glowed and his smile was contagious. He kept one arm around my waist as he talked, and Michael stood in front of me, smiling uncertainly.
“Really?” So that was the Corvette parked over there.
“Yeah, Dad realized he was a moron and so we jumped in the car as soon as we figured out where you were and drove all the way here so that he could tell you how much he loves you. And how he wishes you’d come back to the house and how maybe you guys should try being serious and stuff.”
Uncertainty fluttered inside me. I met Michael’s eyes for a brief moment, and while he hadn’t said the words, I could see the truth of them in the deep blue depths.
I laughed, still not sure I could trust the happiness that wanted to blossom within me and hugged Dan, my heart speeding around inside me so fast I couldn’t really tell how I felt. “Really?”
“Totally!” Dan cried.
“Addie,” Michael said, stepping close enough to take my hand. “Daniel kind of stole my thunder there. But maybe that’s good, I don’t know if I was going to be able to get the words out.”
I looked into those eyes that held my heart and realized it was possible nothing had really changed. If he couldn’t say the words, did he really mean them?
“I think maybe you should try,” I told him.
Daniel moved away from us, and climbed up onto the retaining wall at the edge of the park.
Michael nodded. “Yeah. You’re right.” He took my other hand in his, and the warmth of our touch seemed to steel him for what he wanted to say next. He squeezed my hands and met my eyes. “Addie, this has been the whole problem. I’ve been stuck. I had this image of what my life had to be, what it was supposed to be. And it was all about paying some kind of penance for the mistakes I made before I was old enough to know better.”
I nodded, it was good to hear that he recognized all this. But I hoped he hadn’t come here just to tell me he’d finally seen that he was an idiot.
“But being with you these last months made me realize something else. It made me realize that there are things I still want. Things that will make me happy. And I realized that I deserve to be happy—and that it isn’t a failing to need that, to want that. I figured out that it’s actually better for Daniel if I’m not just some dad automaton, going through the motions of life. It’s better if I’m really living.” He paused, swallowing hard. “And I’ve never felt more alive than when I was with you.”
A tiny laugh escaped my lips and I sealed them shut. I needed more.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I love you, Addison. You make me ridiculously happy. And I hoped that maybe you’d consider coming back home. With me. With us.”
I sniffed, and realized with some surprise that I’d begun to cry. This. This was what I wanted too, it was all I’d ever wanted. To be a part of something, to be wanted, to have a family. “I’d like that,” I whispered.
Michael stepped closer, slipping his hands around my waist. “I hated it when you left,” he said, his voice a rasp.
“Me too,” I said.
Michael pulled me close, our chests meeting and our faces inches apart. “God, I love you,” he said.
And in the space before our lips met, I told him the truth as I’d just come to realize it. “I love you too. Both of you.”
My arms wrapped around him, and I kissed Michael Tucker for a long time there on that New York City sidewalk as leaves drifted on the autumn breeze around us.
As my mind began to settle, I realized there were two people standing next to us, staring. One of them was Daniel.
And because this was how my luck seemed to work, the other was Luke.
“Addison?” His beard had grown in thicker, and he wore a flannel shirt that did nothing to hide the softness that had increased around his middle. He looked worn and pale.
I kept Micha
el’s hand in mine as I faced the man I’d believed I had loved. And I was almost relieved to find that I felt nothing. Maybe a distant fondness for an old friend.
“Luke,” I said, unable to keep the giddy feelings for the man at my side from coloring my voice. “How are you?”
“Um. I’m good,” he said, looking uncertainly between me and Michael.
“This is Luke?” Michael asked, his voice low, angry.
“I’ve uh, I’ve been meaning to get in touch,” Luke said, ignoring Michael. “I’ve missed you.”
“Oh,” I said, realizing a bit late that this was probably not what Luke had been hoping for. “Yeah, you should give me a call sometime,” I told him. I turned and reached for Dan’s hand, and he stepped near to my other side, squeezing my fingers. “But right now, we have to go.”
“Oh,” Luke said, taking a step back, almost as if I’d slapped him. “Okay.”
“Good to see you,” I called over my shoulder as we turned. “Should we get ice cream?” I asked Michael and Dan, pulling them south toward my favorite tiny dessert place.
“That was your ex, right?” Michael asked. “And you want to get ice cream?”
“More than anything,” I said. “As long as it’s with you guys.” A warm reassuring happiness was blooming inside me, expanding and swelling until it seeped through my limbs and filled me completely. I felt more full and happy and complete than I ever had before.
37
Tween Truths
Michael
My plan had been to drive us all back to Singletree that night in the Corvette, to take Addie back to the house, and to show her what she meant to me in every way I possibly could.
But a Corvette really only has two seats. And Dan wasn’t a little kid anymore. He couldn’t really huddle in the back for the five-hour drive back to Maryland.
So we ate ice cream and pie at Cafe Lalo, walked slowly back to where I’d miraculously found parking for the car, and said goodbye. And then Dan and I had driven home, the mood in the car far more upbeat than it had been on the drive there.
“Are you going to marry her?” Daniel asked me as we neared the big house I now considered home.
“I don’t know, Dan,” I told him. “For now, I’m just going to do my best to show her that I care about her.”
Daniel grinned on the other side of the car as he gazed out the window.
“It doesn’t bother you?” I asked him. “To see me with someone?”
He turned and gave me a serious look. “It might have when I was a little kid. When I thought that if you and Mom were together, my world would be perfect. Now I know it doesn’t work like that. And Mom could never make you happy, not like Addie does. You guys are good for each other. I think you make her happy too.”
“I hope so.”
Addie returned three days later, after meeting with Luke to retrieve some of her things from storage and giving her final notice at work.
And when she pulled into the driveway in a little U-haul truck, I felt my heart grow wings and do its damndest to escape my chest.
We moved her things into the house, making it feel even more like home to us all. And then Daniel, Addison, and I watched a movie and ate pizza, enjoying the warmth of a fire in the grate and the feeling of things being complete and whole.
When we said goodnight to Daniel, there was no pretense. We went together into the master bedroom and shut the door. And when I took Addison into my arms in our house, in our room, and made love to her over and over in our bed, I felt the circle of my life close with a resounding click.
This.
This was all I needed. All I wanted.
This was completion.
Epilogue
Addison
Thanksgiving
Michael and I had the biggest house, so we agreed to host Thanksgiving for both families. It was the same crowd we’d come to expect for Sunday dinners, which had become a tradition at the house too. Only at this dinner, we welcomed Shelly and her new boyfriend Liam, who possessed unusual expertise and knowledge of the world of raccoons.
Thaddius had appeared in the garden Thanksgiving morning, and it felt like the exact perfect thing, given the combination of Tuckers and Tanners we’d be hosting.
We all sat around the table in the dining room, with a few folks around an extra table Michael had made for the occasion. His custom-furniture efforts had expanded, and he’d dedicated a full half of the farm supply store to building and selling custom items. We’d set that smaller table up next to the main one, and Michael stood between them to make a toast.
“I’d like to thank everyone for coming tonight,” he said. “This year, I think we all have a lot to be thankful for, mostly the fact that we get to share time like this together. We’ve put aside differences and painful feuds and realized that the Tanners and Tuckers are more family than we are anything else. We have common roots, many of them planted right here in this house. And all of you are welcome here any time.”
“Thanks,” Liam said, and Shelly elbowed him in the ribs.
Michael sat, and Daniel said, “I think we should all be thankful that Dad didn’t tell a joke this year.”
Michael stood back up. “I almost forgot.”
I rolled my eyes, but inside I was giddy with love. The dad jokes were corny and awful, but they were so much a part of the man I’d fallen in love with. “Go ahead,” I said.
“I almost forgot to tell you about when I was buying the turkey for dinner. There was this lady at the store with me, and she kept saying she couldn’t find a bird big enough for her family,” he said, looking around at the family. “A stock boy wandered by, and she goes, ‘excuse me, do these turkeys get any bigger?’ And the stock boy said, ‘no ma’am. They’re dead.’”
Daniel beat a little da-da-dum on the table as Michael sat down.
“Terrible, as always,” Shelly said, but even her jab felt good natured.
“Addison, how is business?” Victor asked as we served ourselves from the heaping plates in the center of the table.
“Just getting rolling really,” I said. I was finishing the interior design degree I’d started, but Michael had agreed to let me set up a little office in the front living room of the house, using it as a showroom and a client meeting space. I was going to be designing interiors for other people. “Helen Manchester dropped by, asking if I could give her a better gaming space.”
“Oh my God,” Mom laughed. “She is addicted to that game she plays!”
“Seems to be keeping her young,” Victor laughed.
So my first client was a video-game-playing grandmother, and I was thrilled about it.
Dinner went smoothly after that, everyone eating and drinking and laughing. I found myself sitting quietly, enjoying the feeling of family all around me. And at one point, I looked down the table to find Michael smiling at me as our families laughed around us.
“I love you,” he mouthed, and I felt my heart expand inside me.
“I love you too,” I mouthed back.
“I have something I need to say,” Victor announced suddenly, standing up and upending his water glass on the table.
“Oh!” Lottie cried, mopping up the spill. But Victor stilled her hand, taking it in his own.
“Lottie Tanner,” he said, and then he dropped to one knee. “You’ve made me a very happy man these last few months,” he said. “Happier than I thought I’d ever be again. And while I never could have imagined this, I believe now that I cannot live without you. Will you marry me, Lottie?”
My mother fell to her knees in front of Victor and kissed him with a passion that had most of us averting our eyes. When she disengaged, she breathed, “Yes. I will!”
And then Victor presented her with the ring, the same one we’d found hidden in the walls of the house where we now sat. Michael had asked me about it when he’d learned of his uncle’s intentions, and I couldn’t think of anything more fitting. A family ring to unite the family. It was perfect.
>
Mom cried as everyone admired the ring and clustered around her.
And there, surrounded by the impossible togetherness of the Tucker and Tanner families, with Whitewoods and Blanchards and exterminators and ex-wives sprinkled in among us, I found the thing I’d been looking for my whole life. I found my own version of family.
THE END
Also by Delancey Stewart
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* * *
The Singletree Series:
Happily Ever His
Happily Ever Hers
Shaking the Sleigh
Second Chance Spring
Falling Into Forever
* * *
The MR. MATCH Series:
Book One: Scoring the Keeper’s Sister
Book Two: Scoring a Fake Fiancée
Book Three: Scoring a Prince
Book Four: Scoring with the Boss
* * *
The KINGS GROVE Series:
When We Let Go
Open Your Eyes
When We Fall
Open Your Heart
Christmas in Kings Grove
* * *
The STARR RANCH WINERY Series:
Chasing a Starr
* * *
THE GIRLFRIENDS OF GOTHAM Series:
Men and Martinis
Highballs in the Hamptons
Cosmos and Commitment
The Girlfriends of Gotham Box Set
* * *
Falling Into Forever Page 24
