by Darien Gee
“Yeah, he’s named after Dad. He passed a couple years back. It’s been rough on my mom—she still misses him.”
Yvonne feels a longing for Sam’s family. At times she felt closer to them than her own parents. “I’m so sorry, Sam.”
“Thanks, E.” They’re both silent.
“So,” she says, wanting to get to the heart of it. “And your wife? How’s she?”
“My wife?” Sam sounds puzzled.
“Your wife,” Yvonne repeats, hating the words and at the same time wanting to know. “What’s she like?”
There’s a long, stunned silence. “I’m not married, E.”
Not married? It takes Yvonne a moment to process this. “But the kids …”
“… are my niece and nephew. Rachel’s kids. They’re here visiting with mom so Rachel can get a little down time.”
“Rachel.” Sam’s older sister. Mrs. Kenney, Sam’s mother. “But I heard you were married,” she says.
“Me?” There’s a wry chuckle. “No. Under the circumstances, I don’t think I’m marriage material. As I’m sure you’d agree.”
“But I don’t understand,” Yvonne says, her thoughts all jumbled. “Claire told me you were married. A few years back …”
“To my job, maybe.” His voice is scornful. “Claire. And you believed her?”
“Well, I …” Yvonne suddenly feels weak and has to sit down. “Oh my God.” Her sister lied to her. Why is Yvonne so surprised? Her sisters are classic Tates, clones of her parents. Yvonne is the odd Tate out.
Sam’s voice catches in his throat. “E, I wish things had been different for us. I wouldn’t have left the way I did, except it seemed like the only option at the time.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Sam,” she tells him. “I know why you did it, and I don’t blame you.”
There’s a long pause. “You don’t blame me for what?”
“For taking the money. Your family … your dad … I know it was a chance for your family to get out of Wareham, for Lizzie to go to college …” She clears her throat. “I want to say that I understand. It was a hard decision, but you chose right. Your family needed you.”
“Yvonne …” Sam’s voice is strained. “I’m sorry, but what in the hell are you talking about?”
Yvonne frowns, confused. “Sam, I know my parents offered you two hundred fifty thousand dollars to call off the wedding,” she says. “I know they took advantage of the situation, that they knew your dad had cancer and you were all so worried about Rachel with that guy she was running around with. And Lizzie, she was so smart, and your poor mom …” Her voice trails off, uncertain. “I mean, how could you say no. Right?”
Even though she can’t see him, Yvonne can tell he’s simmering, that something is about to erupt.
“Uh, right that Dad had cancer, and right that Rachel was running around with that loser, Tony.” Sam’s voice is tight, controlled. “Totally right that Lizzie had her whole future ahead of her, and she still does. She just got her masters in social work from BU. And right that my mom was stressed, definitely stressed, and scared. You’re right about all that, E. The only thing you’re wrong about is the money. Your parents didn’t offer me anything, and I wouldn’t have taken it if they had.” His voice is hard. “Is that what you thought it was?”
“But …” Yvonne grips the phone. “Your note, Sam. The one you wrote. I’m sorry, E. I have to do what I have to do. Be happy …”
“Yeah, as in, I’m sorry, E, that you are still in love with that jerk Nathan, and that I can’t go through this, knowing that I might be standing in the way of your happiness. That’s all I ever wanted for you, E. For you to be happy.”
There’s a long pause, their mutual disbelief hanging in the air.
“Wait, are you saying that you’re not with him anymore?” asks Sam as Yvonne says, “There was never any money?”
“I’ll go first,” Sam says. “There was never any money. No talk of it, no offer. Never. But what about Nathan? Are you still together?”
“Nathan who?” Yvonne is perplexed until she suddenly remembers. “Nathan Cameron? Why would I be with him? And what does this have to do with him anyway?”
“E, in all the years I’d known you, he’s the only guy you dated for more than a week. He was at Harvard, you were at Smith …” Sam sighs.
Yvonne wishes he were there so she could shake him. He was always jealous about Nathan even though she told him—repeatedly—that they had never been serious. “We dated for two months, Sam. And most of that was over fall finals—I was too busy to break up with him sooner. You know that.”
“I know that’s what you said, E, but there was always a part of me that wondered. You proposed only a few days after you broke up with him. I didn’t think much about it at the time, you know? It seemed right, marrying my best friend.
“But seeing him that night at the rehearsal dinner, mooning over you—it was making me see red. He would give me these haughty looks, like he knew something I didn’t know.”
Yvonne sighs. “He always looked at people like that,” she says. It was one of the many reasons Yvonne never really cared for him. He’d been invited to the wedding along with his parents because they were close friends of the family.
“When your mother asked me to come over, I thought maybe it was a peace offering, that your parents wanted to bury the hatchet before the wedding. There was part of me that knew I was walking into an ambush, but I was overconfident. I mean, it was the night before our wedding. What could go wrong?”
Yvonne feels her skin grow clammy. “What did they do, Sam?”
“They didn’t do anything. They didn’t have to. Your father sat there drinking a Scotch and looking bored while your mother told me that the only reason you’d proposed to me was because Nathan had broken your heart back when you were together. That you had proposed to me on a whim—which we both knew you did—in an attempt to forget about Nathan. I’ll admit it was an easy snow job, and for a second I thought it was entirely possible that I had fallen in love with you and you only loved me because of our history together, and that maybe she was right, that he’d hurt you and you were trying to forget about him by marrying me.
“But what really got me was this: Your mother said that she’d heard you crying, pleading with Nathan, at the rehearsal dinner. That you wanted out and didn’t know how, that he was devastated about losing you, that your chance for happiness was going to be lost. I didn’t want that, E. I was always happy to be your fallback guy, but I didn’t want to be the reason that you couldn’t find happiness.”
“Sam, you were never my fallback guy. You were my guy.”
“And you were my girl. Which is why I didn’t want you to give up a chance at true love if that was what was at stake. That’s when your mother pushed the notepaper toward me, told me I had a chance to make it right. She told me that as long as I stayed in Wareham, it would be too hard on you so she offered me a choice—go through with the wedding, or leave. She knew I’d choose the latter. I wrote the note, and I left. I couldn’t even tell my parents what happened, just said that I had to go, that the wedding was off.”
Yvonne closes her eyes, tries to breathe. She can see it unfolding exactly as Sam describes, Sam confused and conflicted but wanting Yvonne’s happiness, and Yvonne, readying for bed without a clue that her own heart was about to be wounded, that the following morning her mother would deliver another deception that catapulted Yvonne into another direction, another life.
Sam sounds miserable. “I left Wareham that night, went to Boston to stay with a friend, tried to figure out what to do next. I heard from my folks that you had left, too, and it made me think that your parents had been right, that you were just there for me. I figured that you went off to live your big life somewhere with Nathan. I never looked back. It was too hard.”
Yvonne knows this is unexpected for both of them, and even she’s not sure what’s coming next. “I did leave that day,” she says. “I
couldn’t bear it.”
“I tried to look for you once,” he admits. “It was right after my dad died. I thought for sure I’d find you in New York or San Francisco. Finding Nathan was easy enough—head of a bank, on his second wife, but there was no mention of you. It was like you disappeared off the face of the earth. My mom hadn’t seen you back in Wareham and your family wasn’t talking about you at all. The only Yvonne Tate that I could find was a plumber in Wichita, Kansas.”
She smiles. “That was me, Sam. I am a plumber, except I live in Avalon now.”
There’s a long pause, and then Sam starts to chuckle. “So I did have the right girl after all. And I let her slip away again. What kind of idiot does that?”
They both laugh, but Sam is the first to grow quiet again. “So I have to know, E. Are you married?”
“I’m not married,” she says, her breath catching.
“Fiancé?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend? Or boyfriends?”
“No. No one, Sam. Though I did date a schmuck last month. Does that count?”
“Is it over?”
“Did you hear the word schmuck?” Yvonne smiles.
“I did,” he says. “I just wanted to make sure. So what’s the closest airport to …” Sam is tapping into a keyboard. “Avalon?”
“Rockford, but you may have better luck flying into O’Hare. More flights.”
“Nope, that won’t be necessary … Rockford’s closer and I can fly in tomorrow morning. I can be in Avalon by noon.”
“Tomorrow?” Yvonne says in disbelief. “Noon?”
Sam hesitates. “I’m sorry. I got carried away … is it too soon? Do you want to do the phone thing for a while or …”
“No!” Yvonne is laughing and crying. “No, definitely not. I want to see you, too, Sam. But you need to know something first. I broke up with Nathan because I realized I wanted to be with you. My parents had given me an ultimatum, telling me that we couldn’t be friends, and I realized that I didn’t want to be friends. I wanted more, I wanted us to be together. When I proposed it was on a whim, but I also knew it was right. Marrying my best friend.”
“I love you, E. I always have and always will. It’s settled—I’m coming tomorrow.”
Sam. Her Sam. It may end up completely weird and awkward in person, or maybe they’ll end up staying friends, but at least they’ll be able to finally figure it out. “Give me your flight details and I’ll pick you up,” she says, grabbing a pen and paper. “Which airline?”
“No airline. I’ll be flying in myself—I have to file the flight plan, but it looks like I’ll be arriving around eleven a.m. at Emery Air FBO. You should see signs when you turn into Chicago Rockford International Airport. You’ll have to go to where the private jets are—I have fractional ownership of a Cessna Five-Ten Mustang with four other rangers.”
Yvonne grins. “You have a private jet?”
“Again, fractional ownership. I won it in a poker game, if you really want to know. I’m a government employee, E. I’m comfortable, but I’m not exactly rolling in the big bucks.”
“And in case you missed it earlier, I’m a plumber. Also comfortable, but not planning to jet off to Europe anytime soon.”
“Tomorrow, E. I can’t believe it. I’ll be the guy flying the plane anxious to get to you.”
Yvonne smiles, pulls the phone closer to her. “And I’ll be the girl on the ground waiting for you to get here.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“Knock, knock!” It’s 7:45 a.m. on Saturday morning. Isabel checks her hair and hurries to the front door, her robe wrapped tight around her body. Max collides with her in the hallway.
“Someone’s knocking,” he reports, still in his pajamas. His hair is tousled and his glasses are askew. He looks absolutely adorable.
“I know, Max. I’ll get it—you can go back to sleep.”
“Back to sleep?” Ava steps out of the bedroom. “I wish. We’ve been up since six. Max is an early riser.”
“No kidding.” Isabel stops. “I’ve been up since six, too. I didn’t want to wake you guys so I stayed in my room.”
Ava stifles a laugh. “Oh no. Us, too. Not that we’re complaining—I think this is the best sleep we’ve had in weeks. It’s so peaceful here. Thank you so much, Isabel. I don’t know how to express my—”
Isabel holds up a hand. “Ava, we have to set some ground rules if this is going to work. First, you can only say thank you once in a twenty-four-hour period, and it’s preferable if you not say it at all. Second: No more tiptoeing around. For either of us. Go help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge, make breakfast, bang pots or pans.” She looks at Max. “Wait, I take that back. No pot banging, at least not before eight. Deal?”
Max grins and nods his head.
The doorbell begins to ring. Incessantly.
“Hold your horses,” Isabel says. Ian’s persistent, she’ll give him that. Ava and Max slip into the kitchen.
By the time she reaches the door, there’s knocking and ringing. Okay, so this is a bit over the top. Isabel clears her throat, then cracks the door demurely, opening it as far as she can before the security door chain stops her.
“Isabel? Let me in!” A skinny hand snakes into the door crack and grapples for her. “It’s Bettie!”
“Bettie?” Isabel pushes Bettie’s hand back outside, then carefully closes the door, quickly sliding the chain off the track. She swings the door open.
Bettie is standing on Isabel’s porch dressed in her bathrobe. Her purse is hanging primly from her arm. Bettie gawks at Isabel, then herself. “Look, we’re twins!”
Isabel pulls her robe tight around her body and gives a shiver. She looks out onto the street. She doesn’t see Abe’s or Imogene’s car anywhere. “How did you get here, Bettie? Where’s Imogene?”
Bettie ignores her, stepping into the house. Isabel sees that the soles of Bettie’s slippers are worn and dirty. “Mmm, is that breakfast I smell? Sausages!”
Isabel’s about to follow her into the kitchen when she hears a truck rumble up to the curb. Ian Braemer waves from the cab, then cuts the engine. Jeremy is in the front seat, listening to his headphones. Ian steps out of the truck, two steaming cups of coffee in hand.
“Morning!” he calls, coming up to the door. He hands a tall paper cup to Isabel and grins. “Looks like I caught you in your pj’s after all.”
Isabel loosens the tie around her robe until it falls open, revealing jeans and the V-neck sweater she’d been planning on wearing. “You weren’t here early enough, sorry. I’m getting ready to paint the living room, actually.” She grins.
“Oh, you’re one of those women,” Ian says with a wounded look. He takes a sip of his coffee. “Whoops, still hot. Be careful, I just burned my tongue.”
One of those women? Isabel has never been one of those women. She blows on her coffee and smiles, tries the idea on for size. Isabel, a tease. She pictures herself in playful lingerie, revealing necklines, flirty makeup.
Nah. “So can I get you anything?”
“We’re fine. Just going to set up the ladders and take a closer look, see what will need to be done. I’ll get started today but in case I can’t finish, I’m happy to come back tomorrow. Is that all right? I wouldn’t want you to get sick of me.”
Not a chance, Isabel thinks, but instead she says, “No, that’s great.”
Ian gives her a wave as he heads back to the truck, whistles for Jeremy to get out and join him.
Isabel goes back inside the house, follows the sound of laughter. When she steps into the kitchen, she sees Bettie is already seated, a plate of food in front of her. Max is eating scrambled eggs with ketchup. They all look up when she walks in.
“Hungry?” Ava asks. Isabel shakes her head, lowers herself into the chair next to Bettie, Ian’s coffee warm in her hands.
Bettie’s hair is messy, her cheeks rosy. When Isabel touches her hand, it’s ice cold. “Bettie, did you walk here?”
/> Bettie shakes her hand free and picks up her fork. “Sorry, don’t remember.”
“Nice try, but that won’t work on me. How did you get here?” The phone rings and Isabel already knows who it is. She gives Bettie another look. “Last chance.”
“Fine, I walked,” Bettie grumbles. “Abe and Imogene are married. I feel like a third wheel. They’re getting ready to retire, go into their golden years. They don’t need an old lady like me around.” She eats a forkful of eggs. “Oh, this is good, Ava.”
“Here,” Max says, squirting some ketchup on Bettie’s plate.
“More,” she demands, then grins when her plate has more ketchup than eggs.
“Would you like a spoon with that?” Isabel shakes her head as she goes to answer the phone. “Hi, Imogene.”
“Oh, please tell me she’s there,” Imogene pants, her voice strained. “I’ve looked everywhere. Abe is on his way over.”
“She’s here.” Isabel turns away and lowers her voice. “I thought you had locks on the doors.”
“I do, but she went out the bathroom window. It’s so narrow I didn’t bother safe-proofing it but I’ll get on it this afternoon. Is she all right?”
Isabel turns to see Bettie chatting with Ava. Bettie dips her finger and scoops up some ketchup, and laughs when Max does the same. Other than being disheveled and underdressed, Bettie is her usual animated self. “She’s fine. I’ll send her back with Abe. Bye, Imogene.”
“No, sir,” Bettie says as soon as Isabel hangs up. “I’m not going back. Put me into one of those homes if you will, but I’m not going to impose on them any longer. It’s weird.”
“Weird is the new normal,” Ava says. She glances at Isabel. “At least that’s what Isabel tells me. Isabel invited us to live here, to be housemates. Max and I moved in yesterday.”
“What?” Bettie puts down her fork, amazed. “No kidding.” She looks approvingly at Isabel. “Got your big-girl pants on, now don’t you? Good for you!”
“That’s enough from you,” Isabel says, but she flushes in pleasure at the compliment. “Those homes cost money, Bettie. I don’t think you should go in until you absolutely need to.”