by L. J. Evans
When I refused to rise to Margery’s bait, she continued, “The real problem is you not being here on a day-to-day basis. Instead, you’re in the States, trying to manage the company from a subsidiary. It can’t last that way, Garrett. You know it can’t.”
I did know it. But I’d promised Edie I’d try. I’d promised her the day she’d accepted my engagement ring, knowing full well her family, and her home, and the place she belonged was in Tennessee. Knowing full well I was needed in Scotland. But I’d been unable to walk away from her without doing everything I could to mold us together.
I’d kidded myself into thinking she needed me as well as her family, when it was clear she didn’t. Those thoughts pounded through my brain on a vicious replay of the scene we’d performed as I’d left for the airport.
All those thoughts and feelings had me growling a retort my grandmother was unaccustomed to hearing.
“You’re here. Couldn’t you have handled it?”
“That’s quite uncalled for,” Margery snipped back at me, putting me in my place. I deserved it, but it still rankled. It was rare moments like these I envied my dead father and my environmental activist of a mother who were free of the ties that bound me to this place.
She stared at me, and my frustration with her ebbed away. She was the one person who’d stood by me my whole life. She’d worked herself to the bone, managing the company single-handedly, and then still spent time with me when the day was done. She’d spent the majority of her life running this company, living and breathing it. She deserved to escape its bonds and just enjoy the rest of her life. It was why we’d agreed she’d step back from the company this winter.
I looked out the window and could just make out part of the beautiful old distillery that had been part of my family for almost two hundred years. It now housed the general store and tourist facilities. The stone building was covered in moss and ivy. Majestic against the mountains and the sky of the Scottish highlands. I loved it. I loved everything about it, and Margery was right. I needed to be here.
But I also needed to be with Edie, my very pregnant wife who couldn’t have gotten on the plane to come to Scotland at the moment even if she’d wanted to.
I stared at the picture of Edie and me from our wedding that sat on the desk. My gorgeous, ballerina-limbed wife in lace and tulle, looking even more beautiful than the first time I’d seen her, which seemed almost impossible. That first night, I’d been struck dumb, unable to look away. Her strawberry-blonde hair had been up in a pile of curls on her head, her graceful neck left bare over pale shoulders that shimmered as if someone had sprinkled pixie dust on them. She’d been in a black, strapless dress that hugged her curves above a pair of royal-blue stilettos that drew my eyes to the muscled shape of her calves.
I knew she’d been a dancer in some former life. You could tell it by the way she carried herself. I’d surprised my marketing manager by stalking across the ballroom, introducing myself, and then barely letting her out of my sight for the rest of the evening. Not quite a stalker. Not quite a ridiculous caveman behemoth. But something close. I’d been unable to restrain myself as a feeling that everything in my life had just changed washed over me in her presence. As if I’d walked through an invisible wall that divided my past from my future.
From that night forward, I’d courted her relentlessly, because I’d been unable to escape the feeling that she was mine. That our souls were tied together like the heather on the hillsides back home. And Edie had come along willingly as if she couldn’t deny it either.
Margery coughed, bringing me back to the office at the distillery and away from the woman I loved. Back to the cold that had taken my grandmother far too long to get over and was one of the reasons I’d left my pregnant wife behind. My grandmother had needed me in a way she rarely needed anyone.
“I’m here. I’m here for a while,” I said, watching her carefully as she put a hand to her chest.
“And when the baby is born?”
I couldn’t answer that yet. The part of me who’d asked Edie to marry me, the part who had promised to be there for her in sickness and in health, was screaming at me to get on the goddamn plane and go back to her. To not spend Christmas without her. But the part of me that hadn’t wanted kids—who hadn’t wanted that kind of family—needed to be exactly where I was, doing the thing I loved. That part of me wanted to stay right where I was at.
It was fucked up. It was a disaster. And I didn’t have an answer.
Edie
I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
“I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.”
Performed by Aly & AJ
Written by Gannon / Kent / Ram
When I pulled up to Marina’s house, the driveway was already populated with a couple of cars, and I groaned. I’d hoped to be the first one here, because Marina was good at listening to me as I talked through my problems. She didn’t even need to say anything half the time. I’d simply find the answer as I told my story. All of us kids had found that in her—a person to listen and keep our secrets until we were ready to spill them.
As I got out of the car, my purse vibrated as my phone buzzed again.
GARRETT: I miss you.
GARRETT: Please pick up when I call tonight. We need to talk.
His insistence was something I’d loved about him when we’d first met at a black-tie fundraiser to support the public library system in the United States. His shiny, caramel hair slicked back, his blue eyes, and the way he’d filled out his tuxedo like a Bond hero had made my heart stop and start. And then he’d spoken… His Scottish accent filling the air had made my body burst into goosebumps. Goosebumps that had turned into full-on shivers every time he’d found me whenever I’d drifted away that night. He’d made me laugh, asked a million questions about me, and left only after securing my phone number and a date. A date that had started a whirlwind romance I hadn’t known I wanted but had ripped apart my soul and put me back together.
Now, I was just being pulled apart with no promises of healing.
I threw my phone back into the depths of my purse. Garrett hadn’t asked about the baby once since he’d left on Sunday. It was now Wednesday. What kind of father didn’t even ask about his baby, regardless of the fact he hadn’t wanted one?
I hadn’t wanted one either. I hadn’t wanted to risk bringing more mental illness into the world with my mixed-up DNA. It was one of the things we’d both agreed upon when he’d proposed. No kids. It was a broken promise. But it wasn’t one that had been exclusively mine or even an intentional break. It had surprised me as much as him.
Whereas his promise to run the company from a subsidiary office in Knoxville had been exclusively his to make and break. He’d believed it could be done, and I’d wanted to believe it, too. But I thought we’d both known the truth: his grandmother, his business, and his soul were in Scotland. He belonged with the two-hundred-year-old buildings on land that had been in his family for even longer. It was somehow twined into the very makeup of his being.
I walked up Marina’s porch steps, knocked, and let myself in. I heard her voice before I saw her in the kitchen. “You’ll have to tell them at some point.”
When I rounded the corner, Khiley and Stephen were sitting at the golden marble bar, heads close together, bodies twined, Khiley’s blonde hair standing out against Stephen’s strawberry-blond. They’d been this way their whole life. Twined. Inseparable.
“Tell who what?” I asked, setting my purse down on the counter.
The silence that followed my question was charged, and I looked over at my brother to see his face a wall of concern. Khiley shook her head at him, looking so much like a blonde version of her mother, Aunt Cam, that it was sometimes eery.
“It’s just Edie,” Stephen said, tugging at Khiley’s hand, pulling her fingers into his.
Stephen and Khiley had been born a few months apart and had learned to talk and walk tog
ether, had played together, gone to school together, and then fallen in love together. Or maybe they’d never not been in love. You rarely saw one without the other, as if they were more twins than our almost-cousins, Ginny and Ty.
I knocked Stephen on the shoulder, squeezed Khiley’s arm, and then hugged Marina. “These two giving you a headache?” I asked Marina.
Marina’s hair was mostly gray now. She didn’t bother dyeing it because she said it rarely lasted, but her eyes were still warm in her wrinkled face. She was the epitome of a Southern grandmother. All sweet tea, cookies, and friendly ears to listen.
“When’s Garrett getting into town?” Marina asked, rubbing my belly.
Khiley watched Marina’s hands on my stomach for a second and then took off out of the room like a frog who’d been startled by a cat. I frowned at Stephen. “What’s wrong with ‘Ley?”
He shook his head. I could tell he wanted to spill his guts, but instead, he turned to Marina and ratted me out. “Edie’s been spewing some bullshit about Garrett having to be in Scotland with his grandmother.”
I wasn’t surprised that Stephen thought it was bullshit. In the four years since Garrett and I had started dating, he’d never once gone to Scotland for the holidays. So, regardless of what I’d said, my family was having a hard time swallowing that he’d suddenly disappear in our first official year of marriage with our baby due in a matter of days.
I turned away, grabbing one of Marina’s famous chocolate crinkles off the cooling rack, so I wouldn’t have to face any of them as I continued my lie. “His grandmother hasn’t been feeling well. She’s his only family. How could he not go?”
“But you’re about to burst,” Stephen said, just as Khiley walked back into the room. Her face crumpled like she was going to cry, and she shot back down the hallway to the bathroom.
“Christ,” Stephen said, rubbing his hand over his face in a way that was so like our dad that it made me smile. Then, he took off after her.
I sat on the stool he’d vacated.
“So want to tell me the real reason Garrett isn’t here?” Marina asked.
I ignored her question. “What’s going on with the lovebirds?” I asked.
She wagged her finger at me. “You’re avoiding my question.”
“Margery’s been sick. She needed him, and she’s never once asked him to come at the holidays, so he knew it had to be pretty bad,” I told her. None of it was a lie. Margery had been sick, and she had asked, but with her, it was more of a demand. More of a test.
I understood why Garrett felt the need for her approval. Having a mom who abandoned you left those kinds of holes. Even after more years of love than abandonment, my psyche still felt it at times. It was one of the things that had drawn us together. The matching set of scars dug into us by our real mothers.
Marina eyed me, waiting for the truth I was aching to share.
The front door burst open, leaving the moment behind as Ty and Ginny walked in, bickering. They shared more than just their dark, wavy hair and gold and green mosaic eyes. They shared words and moods in that crazy way known only to twins, but when they disagreed on something, it was like water and fire—completely opposite. Just like their parents, Mia and Derek, seemed like opposites until you got to know them and saw how similar their hearts were.
“I smell chocolate crinkles,” Ty said, kissing his grandmother on the cheek and then reaching for four cookies.
I watched as Marina took in Ty with a flash of heartache, which she quickly hid with a warm smile. I couldn’t begin to imagine how hard it was to watch her grandson when he was so much like the son she’d lost. Looking at the pictures on the wall of Jake and then seeing Ty was like looking at the same person. With Ty’s god-like football status mimicking Jake’s, the similarities were even more pronounced.
“Geez, pig, leave some for the rest of us,” Ginny said, grabbing one of the cookies from his hands.
“There are, like, six dozen over there. Get your own,” Ty said, stealing the cookie back.
Marina smacked Ty on the shoulder. “Don’t steal from your sister.”
He looked at Marina, mouth dropping. “You saw she stole from me first, right?”
“But she’s your sister and younger.”
“By, like, all of five minutes,” Ty groused.
Ginny grabbed a cookie off the rack and sat on the barstool next to me. “Where’s Khiley and Stephen? I saw the truck in the driveway.”
“Solving some unknown crisis,” I said.
“Wait. The lovebirds have a crisis? How is that even possible?” Ty asked.
“Just because you think you’re the only one with issues, doesn’t mean that’s true, Tiras,” Ginny snapped at him.
He groaned. “Don’t use that name.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “It is your name.”
“Because Mom read it in some dumbass book,” Ty groaned for the millionth time in his life about being named after a fantasy hero in an Amy Harmon novel.
“Don’t swear,” Marina said. It was the only thing she really ever scolded us about.
“Sorry, Grams,” Ty said, but he didn’t look sorry. Ty rarely looked sorry about anything. His ego was about as big as his throws. Hundreds of yards long. “But you have to admit, Stephley rarely have problems. They’re like the golden children of the family.”
“Don’t use that stupid ‘ship name. You know they hate it as much as you hate Tiras,” Ginny defended the absent couple.
Khiley and Stephen made it back into the room. Khiley’s gray eyes looked like she’d been crying, and Stephen’s were full of sadness and regret. When I tried to catch his gaze, he purposefully avoided me.
“If we’re the golden children, what does that make you?” Stephen snorted. “Some platinum god? Because I think you’re the only one the town named a park after.”
“Everyone, please, can we focus? We only have a few minutes. We need to finalize the details for the surprise party.”
“Mayson texted me. He said he’s almost here.” Khiley gave her update on her brother’s location in a monotone voice so unlike her it only emphasized what we all saw: something was terribly wrong. Khiley and Stephen weren’t known for having issues, especially not ones that would make the sassy, nonstop Khiley burst into tears. I itched to get my brother alone to make him spill his beans but was afraid it would backfire on me.
For now, I was going to have to let it all be. We’d each have to keep our secrets until they spilled out on the front lawn like the garbage on trash day.
TO BE CONTINUED…
While it’s sad to leave Edie and Garrett in this torn apart state, they both need a few days before they can make things right in their world. So, while we wait for them to stew and brew and come to the realization they can’t live without each other, we’ll have to move on to Khiley and Stephen and just what could be bothering the soul mates.
Cover Images: © Deposit Photos | VitalikRadko and iStock | Antonel
Stephen Brennan and Khiley Abbott
A long time ago, a girl named Cam fell in love before she was born with her neighbor, Jake. My Life as a Country Album shared their coming-of-age tragedy and the story of the man who made Cam feel whole again after losing her soul mate. What could be more fitting, then, for her daughter, Khiley, to have that same soul mate experience, but with a different ending? Khiley’s soul mate is the son of Cam’s best friend, Wynn, who found her happily ever after in My Life as a Mixtape. Khiley and Stephen were born a few months apart and were raised hip to hip, much like Cam and Jake once were. But now they’ve got something pulling at the fabric of them…
Still confused? Check out the “My Life as an Album Series Who’s Who.”
Stephen
NOT THIS YEAR
“When I look into the mirror
No happiness is present here.”
Performed by Aly & AJ
Written by Price / AJ Michalka / Armato / Michal
ka
Khiley was aching to leave. I could feel it in every breath she drew next to me. I’d had a hard time convincing her to come in the first place. Only the fact that if we hadn’t shown up, it would have raised more suspicions had pushed her to come. But once Khiley’s brother, Mayson, had arrived, and Edie had handed out our assignments, Khiley was done. She whispered, “Let’s go.”
And I did what I’d done my whole life, which was to follow where she led. Because I could never, ever not go where she went. Even though I was older, she was the one who usually showed me the way. She was my world. Had always been my world.
We spent the normal forever it took to say goodbye to the crew, put on our coats, and finally escaped. The sky was full of clouds, and the air was freezing. It felt like snow, but the peace and calm that normally came with that wintery blanket would be lost on me. My feelings were too much a jumble of mixed emotions. Excitement. Apprehension. Desire. Anguish.
“I’m not ready to go home,” Khiley said. Her wavering voice made me ache to the depths of my soul. She’d cried more in the last three weeks than she had in the twenty-one years I’d known her.
“The lake?” I asked, and when she nodded, I opened the passenger door of my truck for her. She didn’t even fight me about driving, which almost spoke more about her state of mind than the tears.
We drove just past the shared drive that led to my home and the Waters’ house, taking the road to the lake instead. Once we’d parked, Khiley made her way to the tire swing that had been hanging in the tree past the picnic tables for as long as I could remember.
She shoved off with her toes, and I went behind her, pushing her higher, trying to remember the joy we used to have in this simple act. The silence between us was echoed in the hush that surrounded the lake in the winter. Barely any life showing amongst the frozen grass, bare trees, and rippling water.