“He?” Kristen grabbed her friend’s arm. She pulled her into an excited hug. “Mallory, it’s a boy?”
Mallory nodded against Kristen’s shoulder. She wiped at her eyes as she pulled away.
“We finally told the doctor we wanted to know,” she said. “Pete and Polly are over the moon. I’m already picking out blue things for the nursery. Online, of course. It was enough of a challenge just to get me here tonight. Long shopping sprees at the mall are definitely out until I can find my ankles again. But it’s impossible not to obsess about it. I want to make everything perfect for him…”
Kristen smiled down at one of the most beautiful pregnant women she’d seen. “It will be perfect, because you and Pete love each other. You’ve created a great home for Polly. That’s one lucky baby brother you’ve got growing in there.”
Mallory knew even more than Kristen did about how it felt for a child to be unloved and unnoticed—she’d grown up homeless with a mentally ill mother who hadn’t loved Mallory enough to get well and to make a safe home for her. That would never happen to Mallory and Pete’s baby. Just as Law had refused to let it happen to Chloe. And if he and Kristen were to have a baby of their own…
Kristen put her hand over her mouth to stop the thought, as if she’d said the words out loud.
She and Law were closer than ever since he’d said he loved her. It had been an incredible week. But they were just finding their way, their start. Babies? Family? There was no way either one of them was ready for something that long-term. She couldn’t even get herself to say she loved him.
“What’s wrong?” Mallory asked, her voice filtering through the buzzing in Kristen’s ear.
“Nothing.” Kristen shook her head. She focused on the happy activity around them. Law understood that she needed more time. She wasn’t going to ruin a beautiful, fun evening by worrying that their time might be running out.
The song the DJ played next made her smile. “I love this ballad.”
“Jim Croce?” Mallory asked.
“ ‘I Got a Name’ is one of my favorites.”
“I remember you saying that once. Someone was playing it on the radio in the school office, and I thought you were going to melt into a puddle and we’d have to shampoo the carpet.”
“I love all his music.”
As a writer and a performer, Croce reminded Kristen a little of what she thought Law might sound like, if he’d ever let her listen to him play. She’d told him that the other night, when they’d had dinner at Dan and Charlotte’s. But he’d refused to perform for them even though his guitar had been sitting in the corner of the living room, no matter how much she’d tried to wheedle something out of him.
“I especially like his songs that talk about time and change and learning to grow and looking back at how far you’ve come so you can move forward a little more. A lot of Croce’s work is about time. ‘I Got a Name’ is one of his best.”
The ballad swung into its final stanza. Croce was learning how to dream about tomorrow when the DJ cut the recording and Walter took over the mic, asking for everyone’s attention again. Kristen and Mallory turned toward him, along with the rest of the crowd. Law was standing there, too, beside a stool, holding his guitar and two long-stemmed red roses.
Mallory surprised Kristen by handing over a wad of fresh, folded tissues.
“What’s this for?” Kristen asked.
“You. A little bird’s told me what’s about to happen. And if watching Walter and Julia renew their vows got to you, you’re going to be bawling your eyes out for sure in a few minutes.”
“We have a little surprise for you all,” Walter said, while Law set aside the roses he’d ordered from Hearts in Bloom florists, to be delivered along with Julia’s bouquets.
He tuned up his guitar and told himself to calm down. He’d done this hundreds of times before. He could do it at least once more—for his daughter and Kristen.
“Julia and I wanted to have a dance,” Walter continued. “And Julia always gets what she wants. My only job was to pick the music. So I asked someone I hear is one of the finest musicians any of us will ever know for his advice, and he up and volunteered to play for us. Well, my wife kinda talked him into it, but he seems to be warming up to the idea. So, ladies and gentlemen, help us make Law Beaumont feel good about kicking off tonight’s Valentine’s fun.”
Applause started slowly.
No big surprise there.
Law figured most everyone knew he’d played something at some point, just like they knew he’d been convicted of something. But telling his own story about his past—about who he’d really been and who he’d once wanted to become—had never been all that important to him. Not enough to share with neighbors he’d thought of as strangers.
When he’d first moved here with Libby, he hadn’t let himself feel connected to Chandlerville or Dan or the people who’d tried to befriend him. But because this was Kristen’s community, his daughter’s community, it was now becoming his. It was past time that he gave something back to this place and the people who’d welcomed him long before he’d appreciated it.
He started playing the opening chords of the song he’d selected for Julia and Walter, thinking of what he wanted it to mean to them…and to Chloe. He hoped, once he was through, that his daughter would understand a little better how much he’d loved her every moment of her life—even the ones he hadn’t been there to share.
He nodded as Walter placed the microphone in its stand in front of Law. He made himself more comfortable on the stool. Thanks to the DJ’s amps, his music was being projected throughout the bowling center.
But for Law, this was about more than the crowd eagerly pushing closer now. It was about connecting. Music had always been his way to do that. It was about everything he wanted to say but too often couldn’t, until a song pulled the truth from him.
“This is for Walter and Julia,” he told his audience. “And I understand it’s a favorite of a friend of mine.”
He caught Kristen’s eye, finally, and winked. Mallory nudged Kristen’s arm with her elbow. Chloe had found them. His daughter was standing in front of Kristen. Kristen’s hands settled on her tiny shoulders, and Chloe relaxed into her.
“This one’s been on my personal playlist for a long time, too,” he said. “When I suggested it to Walter, he said it would be perfect. And tonight, I wanted to dedicate it to my daughter, Chloe, as well as the Davises. You’re every wish I’ve ever had come true, darlin’. Never forget that.”
His hands stilled as he finished the instrumental for the song’s chorus.
A murmur began moving through the crowd, picking up speed and intensity. Heads were nodding as people guessed what he was about to sing. Smiles popped up—none bigger nor more excited than his little girl’s and Kristen’s. Law’s stomach knotted. Sweat broke out everywhere a man could sweat. He closed his eyes regardless, listened to the music still filling his thoughts, and then began to play.
Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” came to life as his fingers moved over his guitar strings and his voice filled the bowling center. The melody and lyrics were so simple, timeless, deep. Their message was bottomless, what it meant to him every time he heard it: dreams, wishes, yesterday, forever. The songwriter introduced his themes, and then he stripped them bare. He showed the listener the heart of each truth he’d magically set to verse. It was a ballad. It was an endless love song. It was the beating soul of what every couple, every parent and child, every friendship, and every community could be.
Law gave himself to singing it, feeling the connection deeper than ever before, washing over him, through his voice and the instrument in his hands…and between him and the audience listening to him, silent and transported. When he opened his eyes at the end of the song, he found everyone’s attention riveted to what he’d done.
Julia was crying, like most of the
other female faces in the crowd. She kissed Walter, thrilled. She rushed to Law’s side and kissed his cheek, too. But Law couldn’t look away from the two beautiful faces he needed to see most as he played his next song.
“I’m going to be a little selfish here,” he said into the mic as Walter drew Julia away, “and snatch the limelight from the DJ for another minute or two. It’s been a long time since something’s inspired me to want to arrange something new. But Kristen, I’ve been hearing pieces of this for close to three months now. And in the last few weeks, it’s let me know exactly who it was for, and what it needed to say, so I finally wrote it down. This is my heart, Kristen, and it belongs to you, whenever you come back to me...”
He’d decided on “Come Back to Me” as the title, thinking of how she’d accepted his apology that afternoon at the Y, no matter how angry she’d been, and then she’d shown up at soccer practice the next day. She was still nervous. Maybe she didn’t know how to completely believe in them yet. But she’d come back to him and given him another chance. He’d never let her down again.
And as he sang, he was picturing them running in the park, or him and Chloe teaching Kristen to play soccer, or her teaching Chloe basketball, or them playing on her piano, all three of them sitting together in front of her sparkling bay window, or eating together, or living together as the family he knew they could become. Or maybe Kristen and him even bringing a new life into the world.
A new family. New love. He and Kristen making their way, and no matter the challenge, Kristen always coming to find him.
When he finished for the second time, the crowd applauded again, and it was his daughter he looked to first. She and Kristen had begun to become friends, but was this too much for Chloe, too soon?
She ran to him and gave him her biggest hug, and said, “I love you, Daddy.”
He handed her one of the roses. “I love you, too, darlin’.”
Only then did he lift his gaze to the woman he’d just announced to all of Chandlerville that he wanted to love forever. Kristen joined him more slowly, took her flower more hesitantly. A tear slipped from her eye as she smelled the fragile bloom. But her smile was radiant.
“That was beautiful, Law,” she said. “I—”
“I’m going to puke,” a sarcastic voice cut in, flashing Law back to another night at Pockets, and another confrontation in nearly the same spot.
Kristen and Chloe turned toward the rest of the bowling center—and toward an obviously drunk Libby. Law stood up, setting aside his guitar. The place had grown freakishly quiet after his ex-wife’s scathing comment.
Libby crossed her arms, missing the gesture the first time, her limbs slipping away from each other until she tried again and managed a pose that she probably thought looked intimidating. In her current state—hair a mess and no makeup, when she usually took such pains with her appearance, and her clothes so wrinkled she’d likely been sleeping in them for days—she looked pathetic.
“What a pretty little family.” She zeroed in on Kristen. “Too bad it’s not yours, Ms. Assistant Principal.”
“Dad?” Chloe said.
“It’s okay,” Law said.
Of course her mother had found the most self-destructive way possible to implode again.
By publicly blowing her sobriety, Libby had to know she was torching her chances to win back even partial custody of Chloe. Law’s lawyer had a petition ready to send to the court that Law had told him to hold off on, asking that a stint in rehab be added to the judge’s final ruling, plus mandatory regular drug and alcohol screening once Libby was out, before she was allowed unsupervised access to their daughter. Law had let himself hope his ex was finally seeing reason, and that he wouldn’t have to take things that far.
“It’s okay,” she mimicked. “What’s okay? That my life is over, and you get to start a new one? Is that what you’ve been waiting for all along? You get me back for all the years you’ve hated me, by finding someone else? Singing to everyone that you love her, right under my nose?” She glanced at Kristen and then back. “Did you tell her? Have you told everyone now, that this is all because it should have been me, not you, and even before that you didn’t want me?” She was babbling and not making sense—to anyone but Law…“Does your new muse know that you’re the kind of man who marries a woman you don’t love and goes to prison for her when—”
“That’s enough.” Law stepped in front of Chloe and Kristen, blocking their view of his ex-wife. Never in a million years had he thought she’d ever bring up his conviction. There was no reason to. Not this way, in front of Chloe, making her hear about it along with the entire town. “Stop it, Libby. Why are you doing this?”
“Why not? You never loved me. You never wanted me. Why not tell everybody just how much you’ve hated me from the start, and why?”
“Dad?” Chloe was crying. A minute ago she’d been over the moon. She was pulling on his pants leg, trying to pull him away from her mother.
“Outside,” he said to Libby while he cupped Chloe’s head. “You’re drawing a crowd. Come talk with me outside.”
He glanced an apology to Kristen. She seemed as afraid as his daughter. There was something broken about the way she was looking back at him, something he refused to accept. He could still hear her asking him to be sure, before they’d made love their first time—to be free of all the mess he’d thought he’d left behind. She’d been skittish ever since. But he’d been okay with giving her time, trusting her to trust him. With this latest outburst from Libby, what if Kristen had decided she couldn’t?
“I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll explain everything. But—”
“You need to deal with your wife first?”
“Ex-wife.” He bit the words out and grabbed Libby’s arm. This was supposed to be his and Kristen’s night, the night he showed her how committed he was to the life he wanted them to have. “Please wait here for me. Keep an eye on Chloe, and try to help her calm down.” He looked down at his daughter, hugging her close, letting her go. “I’ll be right back, darlin’. Wait with Kristen.”
Without pausing for either of them to respond, not wanting to give Libby a chance to start ranting again, he dragged his inebriated ex toward the side door, to the alley where they’d had their last fight—the night Kristen had stuck by his side, instead of looking like she wanted to run from him as much as his daughter did.
Chloe watched Kristen stare after her dad and mom. She watched her parents walk out of Pockets. She threw down her rose and slipped away before Kristen could notice, not that Kristen seemed to be looking at anything but Chloe’s dad walking away from them both, after singing the most beautiful song Chloe had ever heard.
Not that Chloe cared. All she cared about was getting out of there before her mom started yelling at her dad again.
“Where are you going?” Fin asked, stopping her from running toward the front door.
“I don’t care,” Chloe said. “Anywhere but here, with my parents. My mom’s—”
“A train wreck,” Brooke said from behind Fin, with Summer standing right there next to her. “I can’t wait to hear whatever crazy, drunk thing she’s going to say next.”
“Leave her alone,” Fin said. Thomas and Jake from their soccer team were there now, too.
“Yeah,” Thomas said. “It’s not Chloe’s fault her mom’s the way she is. It’s not like your parents are normal or anything.”
Brooke pouted at Thomas, the way she did at school a lot now, whenever Thomas hung out with Fin and Jake and Chloe, instead of Sam and Brooke and Summer. Brooke and Summer turned their backs and left. It should have made Chloe feel better. The DJ started playing again, and the adults started dancing or doing stuff with their kids, forgetting what had happened this time instead of following her parents and trying to listen in.
Only Chloe couldn’t forget.
Chloe looked at Fin. “Where did my dad and mom go?”
Fin pointed toward the side entrance on the other side of the bowling alleys. Chloe took off through the Valentine’s party, with him running behind her. She hated the party now. It had felt perfect for a while, her dad singing for her and Kristen, while everything was so sparkly and pretty around them. Now she had to get out of there. But first she had to know what was going on with her family, once and for all.
“Wait.” Fin grabbed her arm by the side door.
“I can’t,” she said, crying again. “I have to know. I have to know what my mom meant.”
“Are you sure?” Fin asked. “Your dad said he’d be right back.”
“My dad says a lot of things, but he never tells me anything. Not really. Not the important stuff.”
“What if it’s something you don’t want to know?” Fin asked over the sound of the party and people laughing all around them. “Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell you.”
“He made me talk about my mom. He said we have to be honest with each other to be happy.” Except she felt like she knew even less about her parents now than she ever had. “I have to do this.”
Fin shook his head. But he let her go, and then he followed her. Chloe checked behind them to make sure no one was watching as they left through the door, cracking it open just enough for them to slip through. As soon as they were outside, Fin dragged her behind one of the Dumpsters, where a lot of the boxes and wrapping for the Valentine’s decorations had been tossed.
“You’re going to stop this,” her dad was saying halfway down the alley and away from the door, by the corner of the building that led to the parking lot. “You’re going to stop right now, and give me time to tell Chloe myself, the right way. I can’t believe you want to do this after all this time. It doesn’t matter.”
Love on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Page 25