“I still can’t believe Will’s hug this afternoon,” Kelli said softly. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt such tenderness from a child before. When my babies were eight, they were playing in the dirt and coming up with new ways to insult each other.”
Trevor chuckled. “That’s not totally true, you know. Your kids were kind, considerate, creative...”
“They once threw dirt at me when I told them to come in for dinner,” Kelli countered.
Both Trevor and Andrew laughed raucously.
“Well, you’d never know that, now,” Andrew said.
“I guess they grew into themselves,” Kelli affirmed.
“Beth spoke to me quite a bit about Will,” Trevor said. “She mentioned that he understands the depth of emotion a bit differently than other kids because of his autism. Normally, people think that autistic people don’t experience emotion, but it’s just not true. Maybe he couldn’t have translated what you were going through using words. But he saw it all over your face, and he knew exactly what to do.”
Kelli nodded contemplatively. “I’ll remember that hug for the rest of my life.”
“That Beth really knows what she’s doing,” Trevor said. “I think she’s had a lonely life, but she hasn’t let Will know that. She’s given him so much.”
“And even this afternoon, I heard him telling one of the kids about you,” Kelli said, her eyes pointed toward Andrew.
“What? What could he have said?”
“He talked endlessly about the toy you got him,” she said with a laugh. “He said that between Santa and Andrew, he wasn’t sure who was better at gift-giving. I’m trying to remember his exact words, but it was something like: ‘I guess I’ll have to tell Santa that his were better, but that might be a white lie. It’s his job, and I don’t want him to feel disheartened about his career.’”
Both Trevor and Andrew laughed outrageously at that.
“He’s such a sweet kid,” Andrew said. “I count myself lucky to have met him.”
“I have a feeling this meeting will lead to many, many more,” Kelli said with a crooked smile.
“Don’t jinx me,” Andrew said, although his heart ballooned with it: the knowledge that she was right.
He and Beth were on a journey now.
And Will was on that journey, right alongside them.
He wouldn’t have had it any other way.
AFTER ANOTHER COOKIE, Kelli bid Trevor and Andrew goodnight and padded upstairs to her childhood bedroom. This left father and son in a silence that was much different than the silences of seventeen years ago. It was a silence of comfort and understanding. It was a silence of forgiveness.
Finally, Andrew spoke.
“Maybe I really needed all that time away to see what I had left behind. Right now, it feels like none of that other life really existed. I was born on Martha’s Vineyard and shoot. Maybe I want to stay.”
Trevor’s eyes were bright with happiness. He dropped his chin to his chest as he heaved a final sigh.
“I’ve never appreciated my life, or my wife, or my children more than I do right now. I know I went on and on about it in my toast, but it’s true. I keep looking at this house, at all your mother and I have built together, and also at you—my son—a son who went off and fought for our nation. A son who has so much empathy and understanding, a boy with autism immediately sees him and loves him like the role model he is. Andrew, I can’t thank you enough for coming home and forgiving me. I was such a damn stubborn fool.”
Andrew’s eyes welled up with tears. Immediately, he reached for a napkin and dabbed at his eyes. Long ago, his father had chided him for crying; it wasn’t something men were meant to do.
But suddenly, his dad’s hand-stretched over his. His eyes were urgent.
“Don’t,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Again, Andrew worried he’d done something wrong.
“Don’t dry your eyes,” Trevor said. “If there’s anything I’ve learned in my old age, it’s that crying is sometimes the only thing you can do. It’s more than necessary. It clears out the old to make way for the new. And, with all the goodness we have in our family, there is so much new coming our way. You can bet on that.”
AS ANDREW SETTLED INTO his bed for the night, a text came in from Beth.
BETH: Will won’t sleep. He thinks your family is full of magic. I can’t understand it. Normally, he gets a bit panicked in groups he doesn’t understand. With yours, he fell in love.
ANDREW: We fell in love with him, too. Kelli couldn’t shut up about him.
BETH: I hope she finds a way through this. She’s such a kind, good-hearted soul.
Outside, a Christmas moon hung low in the sky. It seemed to twinkle out the wisdom of its centuries of overseeing Martha’s Vineyard and all the tiny people who lived and loved there.
BETH: Will just asked me what he should call you. That is if you’re sticking around the Vineyard.
Andrew’s smile was enormous in the dark.
ANDREW: Oh, I’m not going anyway anytime soon. Tell him to call me Andy. Everyone else does.
BETH: Andy. Andy Montgomery. That rascal. I’ve missed him so.
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A Vineyard White Christmas (The Vineyard Sunset Series Book 5) Page 16