Jennifer smiled, even as a painful shock ran through her stomach. How easily he told her about his wife. How plainly he acknowledged how hard it had been for him.
It was so refreshing.
He ran a hand through his black locks and said, “Would you like a glass of wine or something?”
Maybe with a bit of wine in her system, Jennifer would find a way to act and feel more normal. She hoped. She followed him into the kitchen, which was decorated with an old oil painting of a basket of fruit. Derek gestured toward it and said, “I’m just renting the place. The woman who lived here before had a pretty different taste than me. She’s probably a lot more cultured, though.”
“Naw. That painting is about as boring as they come,” Jennifer said.
“Right? It’s like, whoever painted it, had heard that all art was just boring still-lifes.”
“Maybe the occasional painting of a sailboat or a person on the beach,” Jennifer said with a laugh.
“Exactly. I mean, I don’t want to sound like a pretentious New York elitist—”
“Oops. You already do,” Jennifer stated, her voice brightening as she took the glass of wine.
“Shoot. Well, anyway. If I do end up staying in this house, I might have some of my art sent from the city.”
Jennifer arched her brow. “So, you’re still thinking of staying?”
Derek paused to lift his wine glass toward hers. They clinked glasses and studied one another for a moment. “To be honest with you, Jennifer, I can’t think of another place on the planet that I’d rather be. It just got a little complicated the past few weeks. That’s all.”
Jennifer had a hunch he spoke about the bakery, about his plans. She dropped her eyes and stepped back toward the living room. There was something about the intensity of these moments with him that made it difficult for her to know what to say next.
“Can I see the rest of your place?” Jennifer said suddenly. This was the kind of thing that normal people did; they walked around and complimented another person’s space. Before Derek had time to answer, she stepped out of the kitchen and entered the living room, paused for a second to watch a scene of Love, Actually, then walked back toward what seemed to be his office.
“You have a lot of space here for just yourself,” she said. This seemed like the kind of thing you were supposed to say.
“It’s much cozier than my place back in Manhattan,” he said. His voice was grittier, darker. “And not as filled with so many memories.”
Jennifer nodded. “I can understand that. I’ve lived in my place on Green Hollow Road for decades. I can still feel so many memories there, you know? When me and my ex-husband moved in, I was so sure we would grow old there together. And now?”
She trailed off as she entered the study. On the wall hung a large map of the world, one that Derek said actually did belong to him. “I like to look out across the planet, even from the safety of my own office,” he explained. “I’ve always loved to travel. Just haven’t gotten around to it in the past few years, I guess.”
“Neither have I,” Jennifer said. “And I miss it so much.”
She had the sudden, flashing image of herself next to Derek, maybe at the Coliseum, maybe on some Greek island. His arm wrapped around her shoulder, her voice explaining to whoever they’d gotten to take a photograph, “Just one more. Can you make sure to get my good side?” as Derek burst into laughter.
No. What was that? Daydreams did nothing for her.
Suddenly, Jennifer’s eyes found the trash can alongside the desk. In it, all stuffed on top of itself was what seemed to be architectural plans. Before Derek could stop her, she gripped the first few pages and placed them out across the desk.
Derek was speechless. Obviously, she’d crossed some kind of line. Slowly, she pieced together the plans for his elaborate hotel and event space, which he’d projected to have built over the top of the bakery and then stretch out toward the water. She clucked her tongue at the sight. She hadn’t visualized the place at all when she’d been at-war with it, and she was surprised to feel the beauty behind the finely-drawn lines.
It was clear he’d put serious thought into this.
“Yeah. Those are um. Yeah. Now-canceled,” Derek said clumsily.
“Wow. This ballroom....” Jennifer said, tracing the large room with grand windows that overlooked the water. “This would be so perfect for a wedding reception.”
“That was kind of the idea,” Derek murmured. “My wife and I kind of fancied ourselves wannabe architects. She helped me draw up a lot of these plans. It was always a pipe dream. And now that she’s gone—well...”
“You thought, what the heck? Time to implement them yourself?” Jennifer asked.
He nodded somberly. Jennifer’s heart dropped further into her stomach. She traced a finger along the road that normally held the Frosted Delights Bakery and swallowed the lump in her throat. “You know, now that I actually see the plans... I have a few suggestions.”
Derek’s laugh was ironic but not unkind. “I told you. It’s over, now. I was completely selfish about it. I didn’t understand what kind of heritage this place holds.”
“But Derek, look.” Jennifer grabbed a pencil from the pencil holder and began to sketch. “This space where the bakery is? You don’t have it totally zoned off. You have a garden and a fountain here, see? But there’s no reason — at least in my mind that you have to tear down the bakery at all. This can still work without tearing it down.”
Derek stepped forward. He tilted his head as he watched her draw out the delicate form of the tiny Frosted Delights Bakery.
“I think if you’re willing to restructure your plans, just the tiniest bit... You could include my mother’s bakery on your grounds.”
Minutes ticked past as Jennifer continued to sketch and re-align various elements of his design. Several times, Derek made a light sound in his throat, one that was difficult to read. She felt his eyes on her as she grabbed the tape from the side of the desk and splayed several pieces over where he had ripped up the map. She then lifted it to show him the finished product. Her tongue confident from the wine, she said, “I have a hunch about you, Derek Thatcher.”
“What’s that?” His eyes tore through her. She yearned for him to bend her backward and kiss her, the way all women really want to be kissed deep-down.
“You’ve never belonged to a community before. You’ve never even considered the idea of working together with people for a better result,” she said. “It’s that New York elitism all over again, isn’t it? But why don’t you let a Martha’s Vineyard born-and-bred help you out? No reason I can’t bake my Frosted Delights alongside your beautiful property. No reason we can’t meet right here at this fountain on particularly beautiful autumn mornings for a croissant and a coffee and some peace of mind.”
Jennifer knew she’d gotten him. He looked to be swimming through a number of different emotions and thoughts. He placed a hand on the back of his neck and tilted his head as he studied it more.
“It’s all so clear now,” he finally said with a laugh. “Thank you for showing this stubborn New Yorker the way. I think this could work.”
Chapter Twenty
Amelia stood with both arms outstretched over the top of the mantel. It was her job to secure the holly while Jennifer rustled through yet another Christmas box, hunting for the appropriate attachments.
“My arms are going to fall off,” Amelia said with a laugh. “Any sign of them?”
“Still nothing,” Jennifer said with a sigh. She yanked her head back to make her red hair billow down her back. With her hands on her hips, she scrunched her nose and said, “Well, let’s drop it for now. I need a glass of wine. How about you?”
“I thought you’d never say that,” Amelia said. She coiled up the holly-like a snake toward the left of the fireplace and turned to look out across the Conrad’s living room. It was now three days before Christmas, and Jennifer had decided to throw herself into still more
decorating. It was kind of a bandage over everything that had gone wrong over the years. Beyond that, it was also a distraction from whatever the heck had happened with Derek Thatcher the previous evening.
As Jennifer poured wine for the two of them in the kitchen, Amelia placed her chin on her fist and gave her a big-eyed look. “Come on, Jen! You can’t be tight-lipped about this forever. What happened over there! You said you stayed at his place for three hours?”
“Until Emma came back from the bar, yeah,” Jennifer said. “But it’s not like we did anything but talk.”
And talk they had: endlessly, about every topic under the sun. Jennifer hadn’t felt such a unique connection with someone in years. Toward the end, she’d felt herself lean away from him, terrified that he would kiss her. How could she possibly kiss anyone? Besides that brief, meaningless fling over the summer, it had been Joel Porter and Joel Porter alone since her early teens.
She was inexperienced, and that was putting it lightly.
“Nothing but talk? Talk is the best kind of foreplay,” Amelia teased.
“Ugh, Amelia. I don’t know.” Jennifer shook her head. “I told myself that I could be like you. Responsible. Throw my whole life into my career. Become the kind of woman who gets things done and doesn’t fall into whatever depth of emotion.”
Amelia’s cheeks reddened. Jennifer immediately regretted her words. She knew better than to think that Amelia’s “choice” not to marry and have children wasn’t exactly something that gave her pleasure.
“I just respect you a lot, that is all,” Jennifer said clumsily. “I think you’re probably the strongest woman I know.”
Still, the words sounded flat. Amelia cast her eyes toward the counter. She grabbed a cut-out Christmas cookie, smeared with yellow frosting, and chewed slowly.
Finally, Amelia spoke. “We’ve all been through a lot. But if you have a chance to build something with someone...” She gave a light shrug. “Why wouldn’t you?”
Later that evening, Amelia, Nick, and Stacy stood in the kitchen and ate snacks and waited for the clam chowder to finish up on the stovetop. The television remained on in the living room, blaring out whatever basketball news New England had to offer. Annoyed, Jennifer stepped into the living room to ask her father to turn it off. Unfortunately, he was nowhere to be found.
“Dad?” She lifted the remote control and snapped off the television. Immediately, it stopped screaming.
Ariane had spent the afternoon and evening in her bedroom after a particularly grueling day at physical therapy. It wasn’t like Jennifer’s father to head into Ariane’s new bedroom; he’d kept a wide berth, probably because the “sick room” reminded him of all the time that had passed, all that had gone wrong.
Jennifer approached her mother’s bedroom. The door was cracked just the slightest bit, and out of the crack came the most beautiful Christmas music. Jennifer furrowed her brow and hovered outside. She was reminded of long-lost afternoons when she and Michelle had attempted to spy on her parents with the hope to discover what they would get as Christmas presents.
But what she spotted in her mother’s bedroom shocked her to the core.
Her father had helped her mother to her feet. His strong arms wrapped tightly around her, and her cheek was pressed tenderly against his wide chest. Her left hand was splayed in his as they slowly swayed back and forth in time to the music. John Conrad—who’d never been a romantic, not once—had his eyes closed. If Jennifer wasn’t mistaken, he looked on the verge of tears.
There was so much love between them at that moment. Two people, who’d lived through enormous heartbreak, who had passed through time side-by-side and now found themselves here, in their late sixties, sick and tired of everything life had thrown at them.
Slowly, Jennifer stepped back. She pressed her hand across her chest to feel the aching beat of her heart. A million memories flooded her as she felt a tear slip down her cheek. She felt the lump in her throat as the mixed emotions threatened to consume her. She felt a surge of happiness, seeing her parents love for one another, but also felt the sadness of so much heartache that her family had to endure for so long. Something had to give.
It was true what they always said. You always hurt the people you love the most. You can’t help it because you’re just as fallible as everyone else. Your heartbreaks shatter you and heartache ripples through the rest of your family, like an earthquake. It’s up to you to pick up the pieces. It’s up to you to figure out how to stride forward, to build one another up again and to find ways to make amends of the situation.
It’s up to you to never give up.
It looked like at that moment that her parents had done just that.
JENNIFER STEPPED OUT on the back porch. She’d wrapped herself up in a sweatshirt and one of her father’s old hunting coats, and she placed her phone to her ear and waited as it rang out through the night. Joel answered on the third ring. He always answered. He was good like that.
“Hey there, Miss Conrad,” he said.
“And hello to you, Mr. Porter,” she said. She checked herself: did it hurt her to hear him call her by her maiden name? She decided that no. It didn’t.
“Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve,” he said.
“Some people are calling it December 22,” Jennifer corrected. “Seems easier.”
“They’re fools,” he said with a laugh.
Gosh, she missed him. And also, she didn’t.
“I was calling because I felt like it’s been a little while since we talked,” Jennifer said finally. “And I wanted to ask you something.”
“You can ask me anything,” Joel said. “I’m a bit slower these days in my old age, so I don’t know if I’ll have the answer. But I’ll do my best.”
Jennifer chuckled. She thought back to her mother and father; she thought back to the day she’d discovered her pregnancy and showed Joel the pregnancy test; she felt the enormity of their story, fleshed out between them. So much had happened.
“Do you think we did the right thing?” she finally asked.
Joel paused. The silence was deafening.
“You mean, getting divorced?” he finally asked.
“Yeah.”
Joel pondered this for a long moment. “To be honest with you, Jen, I’ve asked myself this a few times over the past year.”
Jennifer’s heartbeat drummed as quickly as a rabbit’s.
“But I always come to the same conclusion,” Joel said.
“And what’s that?”
“We gave each other all we could,” Joel said. His voice broke slightly. “I don’t know if you remember those last few years so well, but we were exhausted. We needed some kind of a new start—a new direction. And maybe that was the most beautiful gift we could give one another, you know? Space. Time. And now, I have to say, I love you that much more. You gave me my son. You gave me so much of your life. The stuff I learned from you, I could have never learned from anyone else. I don’t know if this is the answer you want from me, but I hope it’s enough.”
Tears shimmered down Jennifer’s cheeks. She choked a bit as she tried to speak again.
“Thank you. Really. You said all the right things,” she breathed.
“I love you, Jen. I really do. I always will,” he murmured.
“I love you, too,” Jennifer whispered. “I’ll miss you for the rest of my life.”
“And yet, I’m only a few miles away,” Joel said. “You’ll be sick of me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
It was December 23. Derek stood in his office with a mug of coffee in-hand and again analyzed the rough sketch he and Jennifer had put together a few nights before. After a few too many glasses of wine, Jennifer had drawn out the words: FROSTED DELIGHTS over the little building in the corner, along with two stick people — meant to be him and Jennifer. She had teased him and said, “I guess you’ll have to see my face a lot more often, huh? Won’t that be difficult for you?”
And all he’d wanted to say
was, ‘Actually, I could see your face every day for the rest of my life.’ But he’d kept the sentiment to himself. It had felt a bit too heavy.
Emma appeared in the doorway of the study. She held a plate with two cinnamon rolls on it, both glazed with copious amounts of gooey icing. “I made a stop at the Frosted Delight this morning,” she said as she placed the plate on his desk. “I keep going for runs to try to work off all these treats, but I don’t think it’s working very well.”
Derek laughed and took one of the cinnamon rolls. The icing crafted a little gooey line up from the plate, and he swiped his finger through it, then licked the sweetness off of it. After he took a bite and chewed, he moaned, “These are sinfully delicious. They shouldn’t be allowed to make them.”
Emma giggled. “To answer the question I know you’re dying to ask, Jennifer wasn’t there. Connie said that she had to work at her other job today. Something to do with social media?”
“Yeah. The woman works herself to death, I think,” Derek said, leaning back in his chair.
“Sounds a bit like someone else I know,” Emma said, giving him a pointed look. After a pause, she said, “You guys were laughing so much the other night. I felt like I’d come home to a couple of teenagers.”
Derek rolled his eyes. “It was a professional meeting. We’re two business-oriented adults, trying to wage war on our differences. That’s all.”
“Yeah. Sounded like it,” Emma said with a laugh. She paused and ruffled her hair, which was still coated with a layer of snowflakes. “Are you going to see her again?”
Derek had considered calling Jennifer. She had given him her number—a necessity, since they discussed working together now and maybe, just maybe, he could be brave enough to ask her for a walk or a drink or something like that. He knew she was busy with her mother’s stroke and her two difficult jobs. Still, the memory of her made him feel as though he floated on air. He wanted to feel that way all the time.
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