Let It Be

by Marie Force

  Linc laughed. “I can live with that. You took care of Bill, right?”

  “Yep. He’s the only one who gets his own room.”

  “Excellent. Thank you.”

  “Let’s get some sleep,” Hunter said. “And just remember—no matter how difficult tomorrow may be, nothing that matters will change.”

  Linc squeezed his son’s shoulder. “That’s a very comforting thought, son. And it’s true.” Lincoln followed Molly and Hunter off the bus and into the hotel. They took the elevator to the fourth floor.

  “I hope we have this floor to ourselves,” Linc said when they stepped off the elevator into a low hum of voices and laughter.

  “I mentioned to the reservations people that they might want to give us our own area since we’re known for being loud.”

  “Good call,” Linc said. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Sleep well,” Hunter said.

  Linc opened the door, ushered Molly in ahead of him and carried both their bags as he followed her into the spacious room with a king-size bed.

  Molly sat on the bed to test its firmness.

  “How is it?”

  “Very good. You know how I feel about hotels.”

  “I do indeed. I believe Charley and Wade were the result of hotel stays.”

  “Remember how we used to leave the older kids with Mom and Dad and run for our lives to a hotel for the night?”

  “Do I ever. And wasn’t it just our luck that we’d come home with even more kids?”

  “It took us a while to figure out where they were coming from, and by the time we did, we had ten of them.”

  “And thank goodness for that. I can’t imagine life without any of them.”

  “You say that now that we’re empty nesters. For a while, you wanted to sell them all to the circus.”

  “That’s true,” Linc said, unbuttoning his shirt. “I would’ve actually given them away for a few years there.”

  “It was fun, though, wasn’t it? Even during the crazy years?”

  “Always fun, and even more so now that they’ve grown up to be outstanding adults.”

  “With the manners, at times, of the cows who used to live in our barn.”

  “That might be an insult to the cows.” Linc sat next to her on the foot of the bed and put his arm around her. “Despite the farting contest and the fact that Colton can sing the national anthem in burps, we did good, didn’t we?”

  “We did great, and that’s what your dad will see tomorrow, Linc. He’ll see a man who grew into a smashing success in all the ways that matter most. He’ll see an outstanding husband, father, grandfather, uncle and businessman. He’ll see that you thrived in spite of him.”

  “You always did make me look good, Molly Stillman.”

  “We make each other look good. None of this happens without both of us, and frankly, I can’t wait for him to meet our ten beautiful children and see what he missed out on.”

  Her fiercely spoken words made him love her so damned much. “Want to try for number eleven?” he asked, using his regular pickup line because it always got a laugh out of her.

  “Absolutely, but tell the boys no more doubles.”

  “I’ll let them know.”

  By the time the bus pulled up in front of Lincoln’s childhood home at ten o’clock the next morning, he felt ready for whatever was about to happen. Each of his children had hugged him after breakfast in a show of support that’d nearly reduced him to tears.

  Their message was clear: They had his back.

  And knowing that made this day a thousand times easier than it would have been without them following him up the stairs to the door, which swung open before he could ring the bell.

  Charlotte.

  He would’ve known her anywhere, despite the signs of aging that forty years wrought. She wore her silvery hair in the same short bob she’d favored as a younger woman, and her blue eyes sparkled with pleasure at the sight of him. Because he couldn’t remain aloof even if he wanted to, he hugged her.

  “It’s so, so good to see you, Linc,” she said before doing a double take at the crowd he’d brought with him.

  “This is my family,” he said as they followed him into a spacious foyer that brought back a thousand and one memories of his childhood in this house. “You remember Molly. And these are our kids.” He pointed to each of them, and they waved as he introduced them. “Wade, Colton, Lucas, Landon, Max, Hunter, Ella, Charley, Hannah and Will, and two of our grandchildren, Caden and Callie, our son-in-law, Gavin, and Molly’s father, Elmer. Everyone, this is my sister, Charlotte.”

  “I lost count,” Charlotte said, seeming stunned. “Eight?”

  “Ten,” Linc said with a proud smile. “Including two sets of twins, Hunter and Hannah and Lucas and Landon.”

  “Wow.” Charlotte seemed overwhelmed as she shook hands with her nieces and nephews, while Linc wanted to wail at the absurdity of her meeting them for the first time as adults. “It’s so nice to meet you all.”

  The kids were too polite not to return her handshake, but their responses were muted and lacked their usual enthusiasm for new people. Of course, only Linc, Molly and Elmer would know that.

  “We weren’t expecting a crowd,” Charlotte said, retaining her friendly, welcoming demeanor. “I had no idea… The website for the store only shows five.”

  It pleased him greatly that she’d cared enough to look.

  “Five are actively involved in the day-to-day operations. Hunter is our CFO, Will oversees our Vermont Made line, Wade is our health and wellness expert, Charley is in IT, and Ella manages the sales team. The others contribute products and services to the family business. Colton and Max run our maple syrup operation, Landon oversees the Christmas tree farm, Hannah makes jewelry, and Lucas makes furniture and other designs that are sold in the store. Everyone contributes to the business Elmer’s parents founded.”

  “You had said it was a store… I had no idea it was so much more than that.”

  “It’s a ten-million-dollar-a-year operation and growing thanks to the addition of a catalog earlier this year that’s exploded our revenue,” Hunter said.

  “Hunter is the CFO for all our businesses,” Linc said proudly.

  “You named your son Hunter.”

  “I did. And my daughter Charlotte and my other sons Will and Max. I never forgot about any of you, Char, even if you forgot about me.”

  She gasped. “We never forgot about you.”

  “Where’ve you been all this time, Charlotte?” Molly asked, because Linc was too tongue-tied to do it. “You’ve known where to find Lincoln. What kept you away?”

  “I thought… We were sure we wouldn’t be welcome.”

  “You knew that wasn’t true,” Linc said.

  “We should’ve stopped what happened that day,” Charlotte said. “We should’ve marched in there and told him if he was kicking you out of the family, we were going with you. But we didn’t do that. We let him do what he did, and after that…” She shrugged. “We wouldn’t want to see us, so we figured you didn’t either. Max and I always regretted that we didn’t do more that day.”

  “But I wrote to you. All of you. For years. I told you I wanted to see you.”

  Her expression flattened with shock. “You wrote to us? Here?”

  He nodded. “Every month. For ten years.”

  “I never… I didn’t get those letters. None of us did.” Her eyes filled with tears. “How could he do this to us?”

  “We may never know that,” Linc said, “and frankly, it doesn’t matter now. What matters is we both know that the other always would’ve been welcome, and that’s all we need to know.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true, although I find it hard to believe it could be that simple.”

  “It is that simple, Char. We’ve been denied each other’s presence for forty years. That’s long enough, isn’t it?”

  “More than long enough.” With tears sliding down her cheeks,
she hugged him as two other men joined them in the foyer.

  Linc pulled back from his sister to greet his brothers, Will and Max, both of them sporting the same gray hair and blue eyes he had and wide smiles for their older brother.

  “Is it really you?” Will asked.

  “It’s me.” Linc hugged them both. “And I’m so happy to see you.”

  “What’s with the baseball team you brought with you?” Will asked with a teasing grin.

  “He has ten children,” Char said.

  “That’s our Linc,” Max said. “Always the overachiever.”

  “This is my family.” Linc went through the introductions once again. “I only brought half of the immediate family.”

  His siblings’ laughter took Linc right back to a thousand memories of growing up with the three of them as well as their Hunter. “Does Father know I’m coming?”

  Char shook her head. “We didn’t tell him in case you changed your mind at the last minute. None of us would’ve blamed you if you had.”

  “It’s incredibly good of you to come,” Will said bluntly. “I’m not sure I would have.”

  “Time has a way of dulling the edges of things that happened decades ago,” Linc said. “He asked me to come. I came.” He put his arm around Molly. “He doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. As you can see—and he will see—I’ve never once regretted the choice he forced me to make, even if I missed you all very much.”

  “We never forgave him for what he did to you,” Max said fiercely. “It wasn’t the same between us and him. We refused to work for the company, and he ended up selling it about twelve years ago.”

  Linc took an almost perverse satisfaction in hearing that his siblings had taken that stand, but it pained him that his father’s line in the sand had been for nothing. So many people hurt for no good reason.

  “He wrote to us,” Char told their brothers. “Every month for ten years.”

  Max’s mouth fell open before it snapped shut. “God damn him.”

  “I would’ve liked to have gotten those letters,” Will said softly, his devastation apparent.

  “Let’s put it in the past where it belongs,” Linc said. “He took us from each other for forty years. What happens next is up to us. And to start with, I want to know about you guys. Married? Kids? What’ve you done with yourselves?”

  “Let’s go sit so we can talk for a minute,” Char said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Take these broken wings and learn to fly.”

  —Paul McCartney

  His sister led the way into the family room, which had been redone since Linc was last there. The fireplace and built-in bookshelves were as he remembered and still full of books. Both his parents had been big readers and had passed the hobby along to their children.

  His family surrounded him, some sitting on sofas and chairs, and others standing behind him.

  “I married Andy Higgins,” Char said.

  “No way!” Andy had been one of Linc’s closest friends as a child. “When did that happen?”

  “A few years after…”

  After his banishment, she meant. “Kids?”

  “Four,” Char said. “Two of each, including a son named Lincoln.”

  “Oh,” Linc said, incredibly moved. “Well… That’s lovely.”

  “We never forgot you either,” she said with a sigh. “I’m the executive director of a nonprofit that helps to place formerly homeless women in new careers.”

  “I can see that for you,” Linc said. His sister had always been tuned in to the needs of those less fortunate than they had been.

  “I’m a dentist,” Will said, “married to Kendall, and we have three daughters.”

  “My wife, Courtney, and I have twin sons,” Max said. “I work for a tech company that supports cell phone networks.”

  “Wow, three sets of twins between us,” Linc said to his brother. “I want to see pictures of my nieces and nephews.”

  “We could use your services in Butler, Vermont,” Landon said to his uncle Max. “The place cell service went to die.”

  “You don’t have cell service there?” Uncle Max asked, seeming stunned that anyone lived without such a modern luxury.

  “Nope,” Linc said. “I’ve never owned a cell phone.”

  “I can’t wrap my head around this,” Uncle Max said.

  “You sound like my wife, Cameron,” Will said.

  “And mine,” Colton added. “Cam and Lucy lived in New York City until they moved to Butler. It was a bit of an adjustment, to say the least.”

  The conversation took off from there as his siblings shared photos of their families with him, and his kids conversed with their aunt and uncles, who’d apparently said enough to earn the forgiveness of his crew. That made Linc happy. He was ready to forgive and move on, even if he’d never forget.

  A short time later, Linc looked over at his sister. “I suppose I should see Father.”

  “I can take you up.”

  “I want him to see Molly and the kids.” He borrowed Hunter’s words when he said, “I want him to see what came of the ultimatum he gave me.”

  “I think he should see that, too. Let me take you to him.”

  As they followed Char up the stairs, Molly took Linc’s hand and gave it a squeeze. He glanced at her, and the warm smile she directed his way calmed and settled him. No matter what happened in the next few minutes, when he went to bed tonight it would be with her, and forty years of sleeping next to her was worth any sacrifice he’d had to make.

  More memories flooded his mind as he went up the familiar stairs to the second floor. At the landing, he looked to the closed door on the left that had been his bedroom. He wondered what they’d done with his things.

  “Let me tell him you’re here,” Char said, stepping into the master bedroom at the end of the hallway.

  From outside the door, Linc could hear his sister say, “Father, Lincoln is here. He’s come to see you.”

  He couldn’t hear his father’s reply, but while he waited for his sister, he leaned his forehead against Molly’s.

  “Right here with you, pal.”

  From behind, someone squeezed his shoulder.

  Ella curled her hands around his arm.

  Surrounded by the ones he loved most, in the home where he’d grown up and later been banished from, he was struck with profound sadness at the futility of it all. His father had lost one son tragically and had exiled another—and for what? It had all been such a terrible waste of energy.

  “Linc?” Char said. “He’ll see you now.”

  “You want me to wait out here?” Molly asked.

  He tightened his grip on her hand so she couldn’t get away. “Absolutely not.”

  Linc and Molly went into the room together, while the others waited in the hallway. Even though he’d known his once-robust father was seriously ill, seeing him sitting upright in a hospital bed, surrounded by oxygen tanks and beeping monitors, was still shocking. His dark hair was gone, replaced by thin whisps of white hair, and his mouth and nose were covered by an oxygen mask.

  His father’s eyes, however, were still sharp, even if they seemed sunken into his gaunt face. “Linc,” he said. “You came.”

  “Hello, Father. You remember my wife, Molly?”

  Carlton gave a nod to her before shifting his gaze back to Linc. “You look good.”

  “Thank you.”

  Carlton pulled at the oxygen mask.

  Charlotte helped him remove it. “Just for a few minutes.”

  “Thank you for coming,” he said to Linc, his voice soft and his breathing labored. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”

  “I was raised to honor my father and mother.”

  “Even when they don’t deserve it?”

  “Even then.”

  A faint smiled played at the older man’s lips. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”

  “Thank you for apologizing.”

  “I wish… I wish it
hadn’t happened.”

  “I do, too.”

  Char sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

  “I brought some people I’d like you to meet,” Linc said.

  “He has ten children, Father.”

  Carlton’s eyes went wide. “Ten?”

  “That’s right. Would you like to meet your grandchildren?”

  “Yes, please. I’d like that very much.”

  While Linc went to get the others, Char replaced the oxygen mask on his face.

  He introduced them all and mentioned the grandchildren who weren’t with them.

  Carlton pulled aside the mask. “You have a beautiful family.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Tell me…” Carlton took a breath. “Tell me about them.”

  “They all work in one way or another for the family businesses. Hunter, who’s married to Megan, is the CFO of all our businesses, including the diner his wife, Megan, runs. Megan is also an amazing writer who’s working on her first novel. Hannah was married to Caleb, but we lost him in Iraq. She’s remarried to Nolan, who owns the auto repair garage in our town, and she makes beautiful jewelry that we sell in the store. Their daughter Callie’s full name is Caleb, and she’s going to be a big sister in the new year. Will oversees our Vermont Made line and is married to Cameron. Chase is his son. Ella is engaged to Gavin.”

  Gavin raised his hand to wave.

  “He’s Caleb’s brother and owns a logging outfit in our area. Ella oversees the sales team in the store, among many other things. Charley, who lives with Tyler, is in charge of the inventory systems and all things technical, and Tyler is a very successful day trader and investor. Wade is our fitness and health guru. He oversees our wellness line, and his wife, Mia, works at the warehouse overseeing shipping and fulfillment. Colton manages our maple syrup operation with Max’s help. Colton’s wife, Lucy, is our webmaster along with Will’s wife, Cameron.”

  Carlton seemed to be committing each detail to memory as Lincoln filled him in.

  “Lucas and Landon are both lieutenants in the Butler Volunteer Fire Department. Lucas, who’s engaged to Dani, is a master woodworker, and he sells his creations in the store. Dani, who’s Savannah’s mom, runs our warehouse. Landon is in charge of the family Christmas tree farm with Max’s help. Landon is engaged to Amanda, who’s Stella’s mom. Amanda is in charge of our new catalog. Max is our youngest, but he was the first to make us grandparents with Caden, who turned one in November. He’s an awesome single dad to his son, and we’re super proud of him. We’re proud of all of them.” Linc gestured to Elmer to come closer. “This is my father-in-law, Elmer Stillman. His parents founded the business he entrusted to me when he retired.”