Dad wasn’t there either. He and Mom weren’t divorced, but they had been living apart since that day she showed up in Seattle at our door. She had moved to an apartment in Tacoma to be closer to her granddaughter. The bank my parents worked for had a Tacoma branch, and she had taken a job there, and came by each week for a Sunday afternoon babysitting stint. Between her, a couple of nannies, and creatively juggled work schedules, we managed to cover all our childcare hours.
My understanding was Mom and Dad were talking to each other, more so recently. I’d spoken to Dad on the phone a couple of times in the past year, and we hadn’t argued, at least. He clearly wasn’t comfortable with my setup, but was also shaken at Mom abandoning him, and seemed to be getting increasingly frustrated that he still hadn’t met his granddaughter when Andy’s parents and Mom had.
He was welcome to see her, I’d told him. But he had to come up to Seattle. She was a complete pain to drive long distances with these days—and anyway (this was unspoken, but I think he got it), he had to be the one to make the effort this time.
Last time we spoke, a week earlier, he said, sounding as awkward as humanly possible, that he would try to come to the wedding. Depending on work. And traffic. And stuff. We didn’t really expect him to show, so I shouldn’t have felt that twinge of disappointment as I took my place beside Andy in our receiving line.
Then it vanished as my attention turned to all the lovely people stepping up to hug us.
Including Fiona and Sebastian.
Fiona held out against officially dating Sebastian for months, apparently. But, much like Andy and me, they finally acknowledged that all their constant hanging out together and being BFFs who, oh yeah, by the way, were completely in love with each other, probably did count as a relationship. So now they were in one, in a rock-and-roll, film-directing, child-free kind of way that I did sometimes envy. But I wouldn’t have traded Verona for it, so I could live with that level of jealousy.
Fiona had met Verona in person just one other time, when Verona was a few months old and we flew over to attend the BAFTAs. New Romantic was up for screenplay and direction awards. Fiona won the latter, and was too happily swamped with flashbulbs and journalists to hang out with us much, but we were still delighted to have been there. Andy and I were exhausted, however, what with traveling the world with a baby—we’d just come from Tokyo, where Verona and I spent a month with Andy while he worked on the Empress Miyoko project. All of that was exciting, but it was good to settle down in our modest Seattle household. Andy let his Capitol Hill apartment go, and the duplex had become our home.
Since that one visit, Fiona and her parents had been getting by on photos and emailed news, and seemed content with it.
After hugging Andy and me, Fiona looked at Verona, who was standing on my foot, and told her, “I love your shoes.”
Verona beamed and stuck out a ruby-red-spangled flat, clinging to my leg to keep from falling over.
“Those are from a very famous film,” Fiona added. “Did you know that?”
Verona nodded. “Dor-fee,” she said, her version of “Dorothy.”
“That’s right,” Fiona said with pride.
Fiona and Verona still acted a little awkward with one another, but I detected a fair amount of fascination on both sides. They’d be all right from their interested distance, and who knew? Maybe even friends someday, when Verona grew up.
Sebastian shook Andy’s hand, hauled me into a hug, then stood back and checked me out with a scowl. “Honestly, who dresses like that for their wedding?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, should I have dressed like a freaking snow leopard?”
Because, seriously, he was wearing an animal-print button-down shirt, along with suit jacket and jeans and a dragon-themed belt buckle the size of Birmingham.
He clapped me on the arm. “He stands up to me now!” he told Andy. “About bloody time.”
The line shuffled along. Family members, coworkers, and friends embraced us. Mom coaxed Verona out of the way, taking her to the food table for cake. Daniel and Julie darted around snapping photos on their phones, apparently not trusting our actual wedding photographer to do the job.
I was so busy nodding and listening to Andy’s grandfather, who wouldn’t let go of my hand while he gave me a speech on how fabulous it was that society had changed so much, that I didn’t notice who was next in line.
Andy nudged me in the side, pointedly. I glanced at him, then followed his gaze to the man standing a pace away. My eyes met an older version of themselves.
My father said, “I guess I’m late. Traffic was horrible.”
He had a beard—the reason I hadn’t recognized him out of my peripheral vision. He wore a suit, and folded his hands patiently in front of him.
Andy’s grandpa let go of my hand and moved along, and I instinctively reached out. Dad shook my hand. That, I decided, was insufficient. I stepped closer and hugged him. It was clumsy, given we hadn’t done it for longer than I could remember. But I said, “Glad you made it,” and we both smiled as we stepped apart again.
Andy shook his hand, beaming. “Good to see you. Don’t worry; you didn’t miss much. The food’s the best part anyway.”
Dad nodded and glanced around. “So.”
I knew who he was looking for. I tipped my head toward the table across the room. “Mom’s got Verona over there. Looks like they found some cake. Go say hi.”
He spotted them and instantly seemed entranced by the two-year-old granddaughter he’d only seen pictures of so far. She had dark-brown hair that liked to flip its ends up messily, like Fiona’s, and, like the rest of the females in our wedding party, she wore a shimmery dress in silver-and-white taffeta. She and Mom sat with Andy’s parents and Emma. Verona was swinging her ruby-red shoes under the table and getting frosting all over her face, while Mom did damage control with a napkin.
Verona was leagues cuter than I ever was. She’d win him over in a snap.
“Yeah,” Dad said. “Think I will.” He glanced at us again with a nod—not one of those chilly Good day, sir nods he used to give me, but one with more respect. Gratitude, even. He walked toward them, threading through the crowd.
As we went on greeting guests, I kept twisting around to see how they were getting on. He said hello to the others. He sat down. They began talking. He smiled at Verona, who examined him warily, still more interested in cake. I hoped she wouldn’t pull one of her rude or shy moods. But then she said something and held up a frosting-smeared blob of cake to show him, and Mom and Dad laughed.
Andy glanced over at them too. I caught his eye, and we exchanged a smile and turned back to the receiving line.
“There,” he said. “All better.”
“I don’t know about all better.”
Mom and Dad still might not get back together. My dad and I could easily lapse back into annoying the hell out of each other. Verona could become an even more rebellious teenager than I was, and antagonize not only us but her grandparents. A car could veer around a garbage truck and smack into any of us, any day. Still …
“Better than it was,” Andy said, and he was entirely correct.
Though we had six more people to greet, if I counted the line correctly, I cupped the side of his face and invested several seconds in giving my husband a long kiss on the mouth. In front of the world. Proudly.
THE END
AFTERWORD
When I first created Sinter Blackwell, he and I were the same age. It was the 1990s, and I was an eighteen-year-old student at the University of Oregon. Sinter first appeared, complete with eyeliner and black clothes and Robert Smith hair, as the dorm roommate of Daniel, whose story I was writing at the time. There was a guy I sometimes saw around campus who looked like my description of Sinter, and his appearance fascinated me. I never met him or learned his name, but I feel I owe him a long-delayed “Thanks, man!”
As for Sinter’s name, I was taking a geology class at the time, and learned that sinter is a sedi
mentary deposit left by springs or geysers. I thought it was a cute name that I ought to give to a character. It’s probably not a choice I would have made these days, but by now, having come back to Sinter again and again in attempts to retell his story, it simply is his name and cannot be changed. Oh, and my geology professor’s last name, which I also thought was cool? That was Blackwell.
People who have read some of the iterations of Sinter’s story (or Daniel’s, in which Sinter is a supporting character) kept telling me they liked him and wanted to see more of him. So even though it took me over twenty years, and I’m now almost old enough to be Sinter’s mom rather than his contemporary, I hope I have given him the update he deserves. Writing his story always was and has continued to be a sweet, delightful experience.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My own parents are virtually nothing like Sinter’s, thank goodness. (Except that they have accidental-Facetime-called me. Twice. It was hilarious.) They are much more like Andy’s parents: they support and love all their kids, despite our flaws and foibles. I don’t like to even believe in the existence of parents who would shun and scorn their children, but friends and strangers alike keep assuring me they do. So I send a hug to all who have been afflicted with that type of familial unhappiness, and a heartfelt thank-you to my own family for not being like that. And as always, I thank my immediate household—husband and kids—for living gracefully with the strange melodrama that is the life of a writer, and for loving me despite it.
I owe immense thanks to my beta-reader team too:
Melanie and Sophia, for listening to me babble about the story before it was even done, then reading it as soon as it was ready, drawing hearts in the margins, and providing enthused feedback, as well as tons of insight on how the acting world works. (Caveat: we might still have gotten some things wrong.)
Tara, for fabulous eagle-eyed edits that verified the suspicion in my head that some of these phrases weren’t right somehow, and for ensuring we saw enough of Andy and his darling geekiness.
Dean, for insider medical details (the scary induced-coma idea was his!), reflections on the male point of view, and always being ready to support me with kindness and humor during my grousing-novelist moments.
Annie, for so many sweet messages, and for realism-and-sensitivity checks on LGBTQ experiences as well as the modern twenty-something voice—I cannot overstate my huge sigh of relief at every one of those “SO TRUE” comments in the margins.
Jennifer, for yet more realism-and-sensitivity checks, making sure my name choices weren’t too crazy (“Sinter” being enough craziness for one book, really), and loving this story through many iterations over the years—I appreciate the support more than I can say!
Addie, for sending wonderful, positive, lol-worthy remarks, and for boosting me on crabby days, as she is one of those people who comes across as positive even when she professes to be crabby herself.
Naomi and Brian, for being my lifesaving Britpickers in the UK, making sure dialects and London details weren’t too terribly wrong, and teaching me new slang, which I always love.
Tracey, for her first-draft insights, and of course for photos of cute cats and beautiful Italian views.
May, for excellent and detailed editorial thoughts, which helped spur one of my biggest and fastest rewrites ever, reshaping this story into a proper romance while still, I hope, keeping what we loved about these characters.
Jessica, for a superb final round of typo-catching and fact-checking, including correcting the vital difference between “Adam Ant” and “Adam and the Ants.” Sublimely done!
In addition: thanks to Sue Romeo for answering my child-custody law questions (from the US lawyer point of view, at least) and being so wonderfully friendly about it, and to Tracey for connecting me with Sue.
My generous law-professor friend, Aaron Schwabach, also weighed in with thoughts about likely legal complications and proceedings in a situation like this. I’m always cheered up when I see an email from him. Our online correspondence over the years has been a true delight, not to mention often educational, as in this case!
I owe thanks as well to many webpages drawn up by lawyers, government agencies, and various helpful individuals regarding parental rights and the termination thereof, taking home a baby to the US who was born abroad, second-parent adoption, LGBTQ rights, and related topics. I tried to make those details more or less true to actual laws as of 2018, but I am not a lawyer nor very skilled at understanding law, so any remaining inaccuracies are my fault, and/or might be there for the sake of story pacing.
My editor, Michelle, is practically also a literary agent in terms of how thoroughly she looks after the careers and books of her authors, including me, and I am so grateful for her patience and support in the twisty path this book has taken me down!
I was also going to list all the new-wave (or post punk, or new romantic …) and new-wave-inspired bands I listened to during the writing of this novel, not to mention for decades before that, but it would have become a ridiculously long list. Believe me when I say I owe fangirly thanks to every one of them: not just the ones who got a mention in the book or had one of their songs used as a chapter title, but All The Artists!
P.S. Speaking of artists: I essentially did have to explain to someone in my extended family who David Bowie was, a short time after Bowie’s death—and these were average suburban Americans who lived through the entire 1970s and 1980s with plenty of exposure to radio and TV. I do not know what their excuse is. So in case you thought that detail was far-fetched … alas, It Happened To Me.
ALL THE BETTER PART OF ME: PLAYLIST
Nocturnal Me - Echo and the Bunnymen
Pictures of You - The Cure
It’s a Sin - Pet Shop Boys
(Every Day Is) Halloween - Ministry
Best Friend - The English Beat
A Little Respect - Erasure
Problem Child - The Damned
Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
Boys Don’t Cry - The Cure
Modern Love - David Bowie
A Question of Lust - Depeche Mode
I Confess - The English Beat
Blasphemous Rumours - Depeche Mode
True Colors - Cyndi Lauper
Ask - The Smiths
If You Leave - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
To the Sky - The Cure
Reunion - Erasure
Let’s Go to Bed - The Cure
Suburbia - Pet Shop Boys
Just Can’t Get Enough – Depeche Mode
Our Lips Are Sealed - The Go-Go’s
Only You - Yazoo
Shellshock - New Order
Happy Birthday - Altered Images
Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie
Situation - Yazoo
The Promise - When in Rome
Alive and Kicking - Simple Minds
In Between Days - The Cure
I Don’t Like Mondays - The Boomtown Rats
Do You Believe in Shame - Duran Duran
Friend or Foe - Adam Ant
Cruel Summer - Bananarama
True - Spandau Ballet
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
This Is the Day - The The
So in Love - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Drive - The Cars
The Unguarded Moment - The Church
Destination Unknown - Missing Persons
Our House - Madness
Ceremony - New Order
All the Better Part of Me Page 28