Everything else so old and so exhausting and so deep that I just didn’t want to bother holding it in anymore.
“I was visiting her grave. I’d never gone.”
I raised my eyes to him now, questioning.
He knew. “I go every July. With Sandra and my dad.”
Her birthday, the day of her birth and death.
“I’m sorry I never went to visit her.” I was shameful, saying those words aloud.
“It’s okay, Florence.”
“I’ve been selfish. I’ve been so selfish and so self-involved. Everyone was in pain, everyone is still in pain, and there I was, a total asshole just thinking of myself.”
Alistair leaned towards me, resting a hand on my knee. “It’s alright. You’re allowed that. You dealt with a different loss than we did.”
I exhaled a deep breath, one born of both grief and exasperation at Alistair. “You can blame me, you know. You can be angry with me. We can be honest now. I left her, I abandoned her. Those months after it happened, even before you broke up with me, I knew you were angry with me for not attending the funeral. I know you were disappointed at how I just wanted to move on, how I wanted to forget her. I was heartless. I see that now.”
Alistair shook his head as I spoke. “No, that wasn’t it at all.”
“I killed her with my neglect. And then I refused to remember her. I’m heartless.”
“You didn’t kill her. She didn’t make it because of … because of dumb bad luck. Because of fate. But you didn’t kill her. You loved her, you took care of her as best as you could. None of this was your fault.”
“I’ve always been so scared to admit that I didn’t want her, that the thought of being a mom scared me,” I whispered.
Alistair’s grip tightened against my skin. “We weren’t ready, Florence. And I know you were overwhelmed, but if she did live and we did take her home, you would have made an amazing mother. But no one could blame you for not being ecstatic about being a teen mom, about letting go of college, of a career, of life outside Michigan.”
Alistair sighed and ran his free hand through his hair.
“You’re not the only one. You know, that night, the one when we ended up in Holland. That night I only worried about you. I didn’t even think about Emma until after they told me it was too late. When I saw Nicolas, there was blood all over his shirt and pants and it was so much. No one could tell me what was going on. I just kept imagining you bleeding to death and I was so scared. The whole time you were in surgery, I just kept hoping that you’d live. I wanted you to be okay. I didn’t even think about the baby. I told myself, as long as Florence is okay, I don’t care about anything else. At one point I even prayed to myself, please spare Florence’s life, if it means you have to take Emma. That’s shameful, but that’s the truth. So you see, it wasn’t just you.”
Shock hit me hard.
“I’m just as heartless, I’m just as horrible. At least that’s what I told myself. But the truth is, Florence, we’re none of those things. We didn’t abandon her, we didn’t neglect her, and we sure as hell did love her. We made the most out of the situation when it happened, and when she was suddenly taken from us, we both dealt with it in the best way we knew how. For you, it was denying she existed. For me … I just didn’t want to make the same mistakes again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I broke up with you because I had convinced myself that I would ruin your life. Having Emma would have locked you down in St. Haven. Everything you ever wanted to accomplish would have been so much harder to achieve. Losing her so suddenly, I took it as a sign that you could have a fresh start, as long as I wasn’t around.”
Alistair continued, tone fierce. “And you did that. You went to Chicago, you got your dream job, you’ve traveled the world. But all roads lead back to St. Haven, lead back to us. I can’t forget you. I’m yours. And you’re mine.
“You have to forgive yourself. You didn’t abandon Emma—we didn’t abandon her. We were dumb and young and emotional. We loved her as much as we could, given everything, and when we lost her, we both dealt with that in the only ways we knew how. I’m not perfect, I’ve make mistakes. And trust me when I say I’m living with them.
“My biggest mistake was not seeing you through your grief, letting you run away, pushing you away because I thought that’d be best for you.”
I didn’t want to cry again, but a single tear slid down my cheek. I let it fall, I let it mark me. I allowed the grief.
I placed my palm against Alistair’s. That rough tan skin was a contrast to my pale smoothness. My hand was so small compared to his, so delicate and so vulnerable. But as I slid our palms together so we made contact, as I felt those coarse bumps and rough patches of skin, the topography of his flesh, I knew I had returned home.
I knew this was it. Nothing in my heart, nothing in my soul denied that.
“I don’t want to run away anymore.” My voice was small and wounded.
“So don’t. Stay. Here, with me.”
“Don’t you want to go back home to the city?”
“New York isn’t home. Home is here.” Alistair intertwined his fingers with mine. “You’re home.”
“What about your company? About the Journal?”
“None of that matters. You’re the only one that matters. I’ve told you that before, and I meant it. I mean it now. Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do, I want to be there with you.”
“I love you, Alistair,” I said quietly. I couldn’t look at him; instead I stared at the pavement in front of me as the words trickled out, hesitant but steady. “I do love you. I’ve always loved you and I always will. But I’m scared. It’s terrifying to put my love in another person. When you left, you may have thought it was the best for me, but I needed you. I’ve spent the last decade working not to need anyone, and you’re asking me to put that all aside again. I can’t go back to trusting you implicitly.”
Alistair squeezed my fingers in his strong grasp. “I can tell you to trust me, but you won’t believe me until I show you. Like I said, I don’t regret leaving because you accomplished so much and lived so much of life. But I wish we had shared that together, somehow. I want to share my life with you.”
I sniffed, heart reeling but somehow at peace. I let the moment sink in, to saturate and to percolate through my system. So much had changed, yet so little had, all at the same time. It was hard to shed years-long pains and fears, to approach life and love with new perspective.
“I still think what you pulled with the Journal was stupid as hell.”
Alistair laughed and pulled me against him. I fell against his wide chest and he let go of my hand, winding both his arms around me, pressing me tight against him in a secure hug. I circled my own arms around him and squeezed him hard.
“I know. Even when I was going through with it, I knew it was dumb.” He sighed, a deep and satisfying sound. “I was like, Florence is going to kill me when she finds out. She’s going to literally murder me. I never said I was smart.”
“I should dock you down, ninety-five percent business sense.”
“Hey, that’s not so bad. Still an A.”
I poked him in the ribs. “I still haven’t forgiven you, don’t get it twisted.”
Alistair shook his head. “I’m not looking for forgiveness. I want a shot at redemption. I want to prove it to you, prove everything to you.”
That dark side of me, the part that questioned everything and everyone, and the side which fought no longer to believe in anything short of cold logic and straight edges … that side brightened. It lightened. It wondered and it hoped, and for the first time in a long time, a perverse sense of hope dared to flare to life.
Hope for love. And hope for my own shot at redemption.
“Are we going to be okay?” I whispered into his chest. I splayed out my hands to press against his skin, to feel his heart beat below.
Once upon a time, I had imagined it was mine. It
was mine and then it was gone.
The whole time, I hadn’t seen. Our hearts were one and the same. I lived in him and he lived in me, and only together did our wretched halves make a whole.
I had eaten his burning heart and carried that beat with me.
I had seen that fire as something that tore away at me, that destroyed me, that consumed me. But all the while, it warmed me and fed me … it kept me safe and steady.
Alistair pressed his lips against the crown of my head. “Yeah. We’re going to be okay,” he whispered, his breath hot upon my skin.
And in his voice, there was resolve.
Epilogue
Alistair Blair, thirty-one years old
“My turkey!”
Sandra dropped the piping bag mid-squeeze, and Florence caught it with a short cry before it could fall onto the pie.
“Mrs. Blair!” Florence said in exasperation.
Sandra had been running wild all week. No one could blame her; it was the first Thanksgiving that wasn’t just Bill and her.
I leaned against the side of the kitchen wall, observing the mayhem. Sandra was on a tear and Florence was doing her best at helping, but with the OCD manner Sandra was going about things, Florence was fighting uphill to keep up.
“Keep piping!” Sandra cried while donning large turkey-shaped oven mitts. A new purchase for the season, no doubt. Florence sighed and continued to put dollops of whipped cream onto the pumpkin pies. All six of them, because apparently Sandra thought we each needed our own.
Mr. Reynolds was sitting on the couch talking to Nicolas, waving his arms animatedly in the air. Bill was watching TV, or more like pretending to watch TV as he kept his view of Sandra out the corner of his eye. He had been coddling her since she’d returned from the hospital, even though it had been six months since her heart attack. She had recovered quickly, taking more care to keep tabs on her diabetes, but Bill was taking no chances.
Sandra fussed with her bird at the opposite end of the kitchen. Seeing my in, I snuck up behind Florence as she finished her fourth pie.
“Hey, Betty Crocker.” I pulled Florence against my chest and nuzzled her ear. I couldn’t get enough of her. I couldn’t stop touching her, breathing her in. I woke up most mornings thinking this was all just another hopeless dream. But she was always there. Warm. Soft. Smiling. Healthy and whole. Mine.
Happy.
No longer a dream.
Florence peered up, offering up a whipped-cream-covered fingertip. I leaned down and licked it off, maintaining eye contact and circling her fingertip with my tongue. Florence blushed and cast a glance to the side to make sure no one was paying attention before rising up on her tiptoes and giving me a quick kiss. I followed her with a growl.
She giggled, a small sound that made me happy. “Later, babe.”
“So, any girls in the city, Nicolas?” Sandra yelled out across the room, winking at Florence and grinning.
“Um …” Nicolas stumbled over his words, looking desperately at both Mr. Reynolds and Florence. Mr. Reynolds shrugged congenially, whacking Nicolas on the back.
“Come on, spit it out!” Bill hollered.
Florence laughed and took a step back, swinging her free arm behind her. It knocked into the side of my hip and I immediately went rigid, stumbling two steps back away from her.
Luckily, she didn’t notice my strange reaction.
The heavy ring box burned in my pants pocket and every time Florence bumped into me, I broke into a nervous sweat. The last thing I’d want her to do was to feel it, to figure out what was going on before I started.
On our last trip to New York, I had convinced Tracy to meet with me in front of Harry Winston to help me pick a ring. Tracy didn’t like me. When we’d met for the first time four months ago, she had stared me down and then jabbed a finger into my chest. She hadn’t even said anything. She’d just prodded me a couple times in the middle of my chest, given me the stink eye, and walked away. She’d promptly ignored me throughout the entire dinner, while still ordering more food than she could possibly eat, challenging me with her glare the entire time she rattled off her choices to the waitress.
Florence told me Tracy would eventually warm up to me.
She was hardly warm the day we went ring shopping.
When I’d met Tracy on Fifth Avenue, she’d eyed me suspiciously on the sidewalk, as if I was going to attack her.
“So this is for real? You’re serious?” Her voice was sharp, and unless I was imagining things, her hair was extra frizzy with rage. It crackled with indignation.
“I’m serious.”
“No games?”
“No games.”
“I don’t believe you.” Arctic. In October. Tracy was practically blowing white smoke from her lips, that’s how frosty her tone was.
“It’s barely been four months. It’s a bit early to get engaged.”
Four months and a lifetime. I was tired of waiting. I wanted all of Florence.
“It is. So we can have a long engagement—it’s up to Florence.”
“You know she’s not ready for kids yet. I know she’s turning thirty in a couple months and stuff, but she’s not going to have kids immediately.”
I nodded. “That’s fine, whatever she’s comfortable with. I’m okay with waiting, or not having kids at all.”
“I’m going to pick the biggest, shiniest, most expensive ring in the whole freaking store.” Tracy threw her hands above her head, as if signaling exactly how big the ring was going to be. Apparently massive. “Because Florence deserves nothing less.”
“Please do. Nothing but the best.”
Tracy jabbed me in the chest indignantly, hard enough to bruise. She really needed to quit that. “And you can afford it anyway.”
“Sure.”
Tracy crossed her arms over her chest. She tapped a foot impatiently. “And she should also get a necklace, bracelet, and earring set for the wedding.”
“Make sure it all matches.”
Momentarily out of demands, Tracy readjusted her crossed arms and looked me up and down.
“So, do I get a prize for helping?”
I gave her a small grin and took a step towards her. “I’ll tell you what,” I said in a low voice, nearly conspiratorial. “Point out what you like, and I’ll make sure Florence gets to gift the maid of honor some nice jewelry for the wedding.”
At the sound of “maid of honor,” Tracy’s eyes lit up. She chewed her bottom lip, confused and conflicted. She so desperately wanted to detest me. “So who’s going to be your best man? I can’t be paired with some weird-looking guy when I walk down the aisle.”
“Nicolas.”
She paused and thinned her lips to fight a smile. “I suppose that’ll do,” she said in a bored tone as she hopped two steps towards the entrance.
“Only the best for her best friend,” I said.
Tracy flicked her hair back, calling at me over her shoulder as she strolled into the store as if she owned the place. “Better call your bank—you’re about to drop some serious cash.”
* * *
We walked hand in hand into the fields, and the sound of the party slowly faded into the noises of the night. An owl hooted and the trees rustled with a gentle wind. Florence shivered and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“Are you cold?”
Florence shook her head stubbornly, but I could see that her skin prickled with goose bumps.
“You should have brought your hat and scarf,” I scolded her lightly.
Florence gave a small pout.
“Not cold!” she insisted.
I stopped walking and twisted around, swinging her so she faced me. She continued talking while I doffed my baseball hat.
“Besides, I’m so filled with turkey and pumpkin pie, that stuff will keep me insulated until spring,” she said.
“Uh-huh.” I jammed my hat onto her head, the brim falling to cover her eyes.
Florence pushed the brim back. “Like
those fat squirrels,” she added.
I removed my scarf and wound it around Florence’s neck. “Fat squirrels?”
She grinned. “Got to keep warm for the winter.”
I tightened the scarf, draping the ends over her arms. “Hey, I have an idea,” I said.
“Oh, man,” Florence groaned. “Your ideas never end well.”
“Let’s go hunting.”
Florence huffed out an impatient breath and rolled her eyes. “It’s November, genius,” she said. “Firefly season is over.”
“Then let’s go hunt for shooting stars. We’ll pretend it’s firefly season in the sky.”
I tugged on the scarf and brought Florence closer to me. She fell against my chest and I marveled down at her. She smiled slightly and went up on her toes to plant a light kiss on my mouth. Her lips were cold, but her breath hot. My heart rate picked up.
Florence looked up to the sky and I looked at her. Her breath came out in small puffs of white mist and her cheeks were chilled to a soft pink. My wretched heart twisted and pulled at the sight of her.
Everything was going to be just fine, as long as we were together.
“It’s a clear night. Good night for wishes,” she said.
I grinned. “Great night for wishes.”
“You’ll go with me?”
“Always.”
Florence smiled, her eyes warming. She gave my hand a gentle tug and pulled me along as she started towards the woods. “Then let’s go.”
And I followed her.
Endlessly and until forever.
Always.
“In the book, which is my memory, on the front page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words … ‘Here begins a new life.’” – Dante Alighieri
The Beginning of Always Page 50