by Mae Wood
“What?” she said, glancing up at me before returning to her screen.
“You tell me,” I said, settling in on the sofa that Amy and I cuddled up on to binge on Sherlock. He wasn’t a spy, and I was surprised she hadn’t watched it from the beginning because she adored the show.
“What do you want?” Her tone wasn’t quite as friendly as it had been a half hour before when we said goodbye to Amy and Grady, but she wasn’t hostile. Amy was right. Lunch had been pleasant, but this in the sunroom, it wasn’t pleasant. It was tolerable and I hated it.
“I’ve invited Amy and Grady to come skiing with us over Christmas.”
She looked back up at me, jaw slightly dropped but she said nothing. I continued. “They’ve said yes.”
Cassie didn’t respond for what felt like a lifetime, she kept looking at me, blinking and staring. “What do you think about that?” I pushed, wanting to know.
She held up a finger. “Wait,” she said and she turned back to her phone. And I waited. And waited. Each second passing slower than the previous one. “Do you know where my tablet is?”
“Um, in the kitchen, I think?” I said, as she left me hanging and scampered out of the room. When she returned, the tablet was in her face and she was murmuring to it. She flopped on the sofa next to me and held it so we could both look at the screen. The same position we’d been in forty-eight hours ago when all four of us chatted for virtual Thanksgiving togetherness. And the same faces greeted me.
“Hey, Dad,” said Miller, his hair askew as if he, or someone else, had been running their hands through it not two minutes ago. Claire’s face filled the other half of the screen. It was almost lunchtime in Oregon, but this looked like the first she’d seen of the day.
“Morning,” she said with a yawn.
“So, like I didn’t watch enough mob movies, and I don’t know how to start this meeting, but as your consiglieri, I’m here to give you a full report,” said Cassie.
“You guys going to talk about me in front of me?” I asked, happy that I didn’t have to lurk and eavesdrop, but also concerned that this had the hallmarks of an intervention.
“I wouldn’t really say that we’re talking about you. You guys,” she said, turning her attention back to the screen. “Dad’s invited his girlfriend and her son to go skiing with us for Christmas.” There wasn’t a warm up. There wasn’t a breaking it to them softly, after talking it through with Cassie and then moving on to Miller to marshal my resources before trying to get Claire’s by-in. It was just out there. “And they’re coming to Deer Valley with us.” Boom goes the dynamite.
Claire woke up, her eyes big and dazed. Miller’s face jostled around on the screen as he left what I was pretty sure was his bedroom before settling in on his sofa, one of his mom’s paintings hung on the wall behind him.
“Yes,” I said to my children. “Amy and her son Grady will be joining us.” Miller and Cassie started talking at once. Cassie downloading everything she could think to share about Amy.
“She’s pretty and she’s not like super young. I mean, she’s younger but it’s not creepy. And her son was fine. A little quiet, but he’s funny and wants to be an aeronautical engineer. And she had a Tory Burch sweater on, and it was this season’s, so that’s a good sign.”
Miller launching into a string of targeted questions: “How serious is this? When you said she—and her son—were coming out for Christmas, you didn’t mean Christmas Christmas, did you? How well do you know her? This sounds intense, but have you run a background check on her?”
And Claire didn’t make a sound.
“Claire,” I said. “You want to talk to me alone?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s fine. It’s just what we were talking about before, isn’t it? My cognitive bias is showing. I mean, you’re a person. You’re not just my dad. I’ve got my life and you’ve got yours. I’m sure there’s some sort of fancy name for it, but it’s like a Venn diagram, you know? Our lives are our own and our lives overlap a lot, but I can’t ever know what’s really going on in your life and so I’m not really in a place to judge you or make decisions for you.”
“Claire Bear, I love you, but how much pot have you smoked this weekend?”
“Dad,” she said with an eye roll.
“She’s more into edibles,” said Miller, a naughty grin on his face. He always loved ratting out his sisters.
“That was a joke, you guys,” I said, with a warning tone. If Claire smoked pot, and I was pretty sure she did, I didn’t want to know. Call it willful blindness, or bad parenting, but she was twenty-one and doing just fine, as best I could tell since her school didn’t hand out grades. “And, Claire, honey, really, don’t do this to me. Please be safe.”
“No really, Dad. I’m fine,” she assured me, twisting her long blond hair up into a bun. “We were up late last night and it’s still early out here.”
“Will you guys listen to me?” Cassie whined and I ceded her the tablet. Whatever she had to say, there wasn’t anything I could do but listen to it and hope I wasn’t going to be made to choose. Because as much as I’d like to choose Amy, I’d choose my kids every damn time.
And even though I joked with Amy about accepting tolerable, that wasn’t true. I wasn’t looking for tolerable. And Amy didn’t deserve that either.
The week after Thanksgiving, I begged out of Thursday night pizza with Amy and instead met Grady for dinner. It was awkward. I’d gotten his number from Amy under the pretense of passing it along to my kids so they could text and stuff ahead of the trip. And I did pass it along. But I also wanted it for myself. Because I needed some one-on-one time with him. To feel him out. To see if he might be open to the idea of me having more with his mom or if I needed to be satisfied with what I had.
I was waiting at a table when he arrived. I’d never felt nervous with Amy, but here, at dinner with Grady, I was fucking jumpy.
“Thomas,” he said, nodding at me while taking a seat across the table.
“Hey, Grady,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course,” he said with a shrug. “Are you going to marry my mom?”
“Okay,” I said, steadying myself. “I thought we might order pizza and chat about basketball or something for a bit as a warm up, but let’s dive in. If your mom wanted to get married again, I would.”
His face twisted up in confusion. “Why would you think she didn’t?” he asked. Before I could answer, a waiter stopped by and we ordered an extra-large supreme, breadsticks, and two Cokes.
“Because she told me so,” I said, continuing the conversation.
“When?”
“Sometime over the summer.”
“Yeah, so I don’t know about that, but that isn’t what she and I talked about at Duke.”
“You talked about me at Duke?” Grady’s expression morphed into the classic adults are too stupid to breathe teenage look that I’d seen each of my own kids wear for a few years. “But, yes. I love her very much and I realize that’s probably really weird for you to hear, but I’d like to marry her.”
Our Cokes arrived, and I watched Grady as he unwrapped a straw and took a sip of his drink.
“She’s my mom, not my best friend, okay?” he said, keeping his eyes downward.
I nodded and waited for him to give me more words. To give me some confirmation that maybe she wanted to be with me in the same way I wanted to be with her, but he didn’t say more.
“What can I tell you? What do you want to know?” I asked.
“That you’ll be good to her,” he said, his voice earnest and firm as his eyes rose to meet mine. “That you’ll never hurt her because she’s my mom and while I’m not talking to you about my parents, they both did some shitty stuff. And neither of them deserve that. They are good people.”
It was my turn to be quiet and listen as he continued to speak. “Look, I get it. I can do math. I was a surprise. They probably wouldn’t have gotten married if it hadn’t have been
for me and I’m going to college next fall. And she seems really happy right now. Don’t fuck that up.”
“I won’t, Grady. I promise you that.” Of the vows I’d made over my lifetime, I meant the words I spoke.
“Mind if I sit over next to you so I can see the TV? The Grizz game tips off in a couple of minutes.”
“Sure,” I said, scooting my chair more to the side of the table to give him plenty of space.
The next afternoon, I swallowed my pride and walked into Pig and Barley before happy hour. Bert was wiping down liquor bottles. I sat down on a barstool and waited for him to approach me. I was in his turf and at least I owed him the respect of letting him come to me. I knew he saw me, but he let me stew for a few minutes while he finished his task. I wanted to check my phone, to check my watch, to do something that would give me some relief from his coolness, but I also knew I needed to take my lumps like a man. So, I sat. And I waited.
“Thomas,” he said, finally walking over to me. “Heard you took my son out for pizza last night.”
“Yeah. I did. We watched the Grizz game. He’s a good kid.”
“That he is.” Bert’s words were short, succinct, and dead serious as his eyes drilled into me. We both knew I wasn’t sitting at his bar to talk about his son.
Early birders filtered into the restaurant, ready for a happy hour, and conversations began to swirl around us as we stood off in silence.
“Look, I’ve got a bar to tend, so let’s cut to the chase,” he said, with a slight shake of his head. I prepared for the worst, for a blow to the face, for being thrown out of his restaurant. I watched him closely as he neatened a stack of cocktail napkins. “My divorce?” he said, again setting his eyes on mine. “That was a choice she made. And you damn well better make sure it’s a choice that she never makes again.”
“Done,” I said with a nod, and without another word, I went home to Amy.
Epilogue
Thomas
I rolled away from her, and quiet as a mouse, slipped out of bed. I grabbed my pajama pants and scrambled into my long-sleeved shirt, the warmth from the toasty nest of a down duvet we’d been sleeping under dissipating into the cool Utah morning. The snow-covered peaks of the Wasatch Range were framed in the bedroom’s large picture window.
We’d celebrated Christmas Eve in style, curled up in front of the fireplace in the great room, and stayed fully clothed until the kids left to explore Park City. Mine had sworn to me that no matter what they were doing last night, they would not take a seventeen-year-old drinking. I could only hope that was a promise they kept. I scrubbed hand through my hair and padded into the kitchen, in search of coffee.
The chalet was quiet and I wondered whether we’d see the kids before noon on Christmas. Maybe Amy and I could get some time on the slopes and we could do presents in the evening.
The coffee maker whirred and, as I fixed my first cup, Grady walked in.
“Mornin’,” I said. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“Nah, I’m good.” He rummaged around in the fridge and poured himself a glass of orange juice.
“Thanks for coming skiing,” I said, as I sipped my coffee. We hadn’t had any one-on-one time since I’d taken him out for pizza. Without Amy or basketball as a buffer between us, I wasn’t sure how this was going to play out.
“Absolutely,” he said, taking a swig from his glass. “What’s the plan for breakfast?”
“I ordered what your mom asked me to, so whatever you put on the list should be in the fridge or pantry. I usually make pancakes and bacon, but we’re not picky,” I said, speaking for me and my crew.
“We always have biscuits on Christmas morning,” he announced, setting his empty juice glass by the sink and disappearing into the pantry.
“The grocery delivery service may have missed them because I don’t think I saw any biscuits in the fridge. I’m sorry.” And I was sorry. He had given up Christmas with his dad to be here, to let his mom be here with me.
“Canned biscuits?” he called from the walk-in pantry. He emerged a moment later, his arms full of baking supplies. “We don’t do fridge biscuits for Christmas. Or anytime, really. Those things are awful. Help me find a measuring cup and two mixing bowls.”
And that is how Amy found us, me playing prep cook to the young man who I hoped would become my step-son.
“Merry Christmas, Amy,” I said, loading the dishwasher.
“Grady, should I even ask or should I just have my coffee first?” she said. Her hair was down and wild and with her warm, languid smile, I knew I was right. That this was right.
“Get your coffee, Mom. They still have to rise. Thomas, can you get a clean dishcloth so we can cover them?”
“Angel biscuits?” Amy asked, blinking to clear the sleep from her head.
“Of course, Mom. It’s Christmas,” he said with a shrug as the explanation. Bypassing me, she gathered him in her arms. This was completely right.
“Merry Christmas, Miller,” I greeted my son, who had bypassed the cozy scene without a glance as he bulldozed his way to the coffee maker. He grunted in reply. While Grady didn’t show any signs of a bender in Park City, Miller was obviously in pain. And Claire Bear and Cassie Lassie weren’t in much better shape.
I don’t think any of the kids minded when Amy and I left them to go skiing, agreeing we’d punt on presents until the afternoon. I’d expected the kids to balk at that, to demand that we cut into the big brown shipping boxes filled with gifts, but they hadn’t. They were growing up, or grown up, or they were painfully hungover. Regardless, the weather was clear and I wasn’t going to let them take this day away from me and Amy.
As the mountain truly woke up, we settled onto the lift for our first run of the day. About halfway up, the lift paused and the chair rocked. “Wanna make out?” she said in the faux husky voice she used when we talked about hard boiled detectives.
“Always,” I said, placing my one free hand on her thigh. “But I’m going to hold that marker until we’re on the ground. No way am I explaining to Grady why either one of us fell. I already know I’m not his favorite person.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because last night at dinner, he asked if there was anywhere he could chop some firewood. I thought maybe he wanted to work out some anger or something.”
“Oh, no. You read that wrong. That’s probably his favorite part of camping. He’s cool with you. He cooked with you and we’re here, so you’re definitely okay. Me? I’ve gotten the stink eye a few times, especially last night when you were too handsy for his taste, but fully clothed cuddling by the fireplace on Christmas Eve is not a capital offense. What’s the report on me?”
“Report on you?”
“Yeah, from your kids. How am I doing?” I heard the nerves in her voice as a gloved hand rose to play with an earring.
“Well so far I haven’t heard any gnashing of teeth. I wasn’t expecting us all to sing camp songs and make s’mores, you know? But, it’s tolerable,” I said with a smirk. “I think they like the idea of me with someone more than actually seeing me with someone. It’s not about you, Amy. It’s just. I don’t know. That you’re not Laurie, I guess.”
“Yeah, I can’t imagine what that would feel like, seeing your living parent with someone else. My dad never dated that I knew of.”
“Really?”
She nodded, and the world as reflected in her goggles danced up and down. “He finally told me this summer that he’s been having dinner with my mom’s best friend for a few years. I think he didn’t want to upset me and then he just didn’t know how to tell me.”
“You okay with that?” I asked, truly curious about how she felt.
“More than okay actually. I can’t tell you how bad I’ve felt, living so far from him for so long. And I like Mrs. Lennick. She would take me shopping and taught me how to fix my hair.”
“You can fix your hair? Could have fooled me. I thought it was just these ponytails and brai
ds and bun things,” I teased her, running my gloved hand along the top of her head, nudging the giant ponytail that poked out around her earwarmer.
A sharp jab to my bicep was my reward for the tease, a stuck-out tongue, and then a smile. I lived for those smiles.
“Anyway, but you don’t think they hate me. Right?” she asked, her voice becoming soft.
“They don’t hate you at all. Trust me. If they hated you, we’d both know. Cassie Lassie doesn’t pull her punches. Claire would have been dismissive of you. And Miller would have told me to move along. I didn’t tell you about our family conference call after we had lunch at Corky’s did I?”
“No,” she said, drawing the sound out and I knew beneath her purple goggles that those green eyes had just gotten big.
“It was good. All good. My kids talked like I wasn’t there and they decided that they were okay with this.” I waved my gloved hand between us.
“Sound like we’re both going to get passing scores.”
“That’s much better than tolerable. I can live with that. Can you live with that?”
“I can live with it.”
We reached the top of the lift and exited onto the hard-packed snow. She bobbled a bit before righting herself and one of her giant smiles appeared beneath her purple goggles.
“Hey,” she said laughing, as we made our way to the runs.
“What’s funny?”
“You, on those pain meds when you got hit in the jaw. I mean, I shouldn’t laugh about it, but you were really insistent that we go skiing. You had a busted jaw, so it was mumbly and there was blood, but you were trying to sell me on skiing with you. How we’d get married and how there’d be a bunch of penguins.”
I hadn’t thought of that. About how I’d made good on taking her skiing. Here was the opening I’d been waiting for.
“We’ve got penguins, Doctor Dentist Angel. Four of them,” I told her as we shuffled toward a nice, easy green circle run that we could both enjoy.