Oh. God. No. Olivia felt as though her face had been in the sun too long. It tingled. Burned. And then chilled. The version of herself she was seeing, through her mother’s words, and things Martin had said, too, was showing itself.
“In my selfish grief, I’ve robbed you of your life,” Olivia said, her voice barely discernible. She turned to Martin. “And you, too.”
The whole time she’d been shutting off her heart, being the best neonatologist she could possibly be, those who’d loved her had been carrying her.
She forgave her mother her lie. And Martin his need to move on apart from her. Hated what she’d become.
She’d been so afraid of loving, and losing...thinking she was tending to others, and she’d really only been tending to herself. Using her job to hide.
And her need for independence to shut out those who’d needed her.
That stopped in that instant.
“Thanksgiving...you were with Sam?” she asked.
Sylvia nodded.
“And this afternoon? Your plans are with him?”
Her mother nodded again. Olivia nodded, too, far too conscious of Martin sitting silently beside her. She could only imagine what he was thinking.
But wouldn’t blame him if it had to do something with resenting her selfishness.
“So,” she said, and turned to Sam, tried to give him a welcoming smile, “what are your intentions with my beautiful mother?”
He looked at Sylvia and she shook her head, standing up and heading out toward the kitchen, saying, “I’m going to get our mimosas, and then we should open presents.”
About to disagree, to push for answers, Olivia met Sam’s gaze and sat back.
It was time for her to learn how to be a good daughter. Most particularly if she ever hoped to be half the mother Sylvia was.
Chapter Twenty
While Martin was a bit perplexed by what was going on, he was surprised to realize that he had no desire to be anywhere else.
It was Christmas morning. Accusations were flying. Conversation was intense. A stranger had been dropped unexpectedly into their mix. Things were messy and, he figured by Sylvia’s abrupt departure for alcohol-laced orange juice, about to get messier, and he wanted to be right where he was. Sitting next to Olivia.
When Sylvia returned with two champagne glasses, handing one to Sam, it was as though the past fifteen minutes hadn’t happened. As though they were a family of four sitting down for a normal celebration.
She bent to the tree, pulling out packages. Handing them around. To Olivia. To Sam. Martin didn’t care that there’d be nothing for him. He had money to buy anything that could be wrapped and put under a tree. And knew he’d been a last-minute addition.
When she handed him one, he stopped—and, for the first time since he’d awoken that morning, wished he wasn’t there. He had nothing to give anyone.
You couldn’t take if you didn’t give. A rule his parents had ingrained in him since before he could remember having a thought of his own.
And then he saw the name on the tag. The gift was from Olivia. He opened it, laughing at the T-shirt with the front sporting a silk screen of a shirt and tie. She’d teased him forever about his inability to take a day off and wear a T-shirt. There was no doubt in his mind he’d wear that one.
Maybe just in his own condo. But he’d think of her every time he put it on.
There were other gifts from her, as well. A digital photo frame preloaded with photos of himself and his parents. She’d scanned all the photos when they were married. He’d never known what had happened to those scans. The originals were in a box in one of the closets at home.
He opened a shirt and tie combination, as well. His exact size. And from the designer he wore, in colors he preferred. And then there was the golf club. He’d coveted the putter once upon a time. Could never let himself spend that much money on a single club for playing a game. No matter how wealthy he’d become, there’d still be, inside of him, a part of the boy who’d grown up with his parents
He couldn’t help getting up and taking a couple of small swings with it—and when he met her gaze as he did so, and saw the joy there, he almost kissed her. Probably would have, in spite of it being a colossal mistake at that point, if her mother and Sam hadn’t been sitting right there, watching them.
As the packages dwindled, one by one, he was reminded of Christmas mornings with his parents, and how he hated to see the present opening come to an end. Not because he wanted more stuff, but because his parents had always been so happy during those hours. Their gifts hadn’t been much. Stuff they all needed. Soap. Toilet paper, even. But each present was wrapped and opened with squeals and fun.
He hadn’t had that kind of a real, bone-deep good time since his parents had died. Until right then.
With one package left under the tree, he sat back, sure, since it was in Sylvia’s wrapping paper, that it was for Olivia, eager to watch her open whatever it was, figuring, since Sylvia had saved it for last, that it had to be good.
Sam picked up the package.
And brought it to Martin.
Confused, he glanced at Olivia, who looked about as confused as he was.
“Open it,” Sylvia said, smiling at him, but with a hint of tears in her eyes.
He found a piece of tape. Slowly unhinged it. Feeling awkward. And a bit curious. The package wasn’t all that big. Robe-box size. And wasn’t heavy. Needing to be off the hot seat suddenly, he ripped into it. And unveiled...a robe box.
His ex-mother-in-law, who was more suited, age-wise, to be his wife than her daughter was, had bought him a robe for Christmas? When she hadn’t even known he was going to be there?
And left the gift to last?
Olivia was frowning, glancing from the box to her mother.
The box wasn’t taped. He lifted the lid. And then the tissue paper.
And froze.
There, laying in a bed of white cloudlike material, were the onesies, T-shirts, sleepers and even a tiny cap that Olivia had given him the night she’d told him she was pregnant with Lily. The present had been how she’d broken the news to him. By having him open a different box, with different wrapping, bearing the very same gift. He didn’t have to lift the pieces to know that every single one of them bore the same message.
I Love My Daddy.
* * *
For a second, as Olivia saw what lay in Martin’s box, her heart soared. Muscle memory from long ago, and the hours she’d looked at those very same clothes, thinking her dreams were all coming true. That no woman could ever be happier.
That she’d found her home.
And then she looked away. Wondering how her mother could be so cruel. How she even...
“I saved them.” Sylvia’s voice, laced with emotion, reached her ear. “I’ve kept them, all these years...not knowing why...but knowing that they had to be saved. They don’t belong in my keeping anymore. I don’t know if they belong anywhere. I just know that I had to give them back to you. And when Olivia told me you were going to be here this morning... I had Sam wrap them and bring them over.”
Olivia couldn’t look at the clothes. Or Martin. Or her mother.
She met Sam’s gaze. And it was kind. Filled with an understanding she had to be imagining. And a wisdom she desperately needed to access.
“I...can’t believe... Thank you.” Martin was speaking. His voice was filled with something sounding like awe.
She glanced at him. Saw the way he was looking at those baby clothes, and found her gaze heading straight back to Sam.
“You asked what my intentions are with your mother,” the older man said then, looking nowhere but at her.
She nodded. Fought the tears that were threatening to fall all over their lovely celebration.
“I want to marry her, but I’ve got this situation,” Sam star
ted, and Olivia was suddenly focused only on him. “I wasn’t a great dad. In fact, I was lousy at it. I was an undercover cop and too dedicated to the job to come home and play with blocks. And when my wife told me she’d fallen in love with another man, an elementary school principal, I gave her the divorce she wanted and custody of my son, too. Only things didn’t turn out as I’d expected. My son, while smart and good in school, ended up in a lot of trouble that traveled with him through college and into his adult life. He’s currently serving twenty years to life in a prison in Texas. He was allowing an illegal prescription drug business to be run out of his insurance office and was present during a drug deal where two people were shot.”
She didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t believe such a seemingly kind, soft-spoken man would be in such a situation. Knew there had to be a whole lot more to the story. One she figured she was going to hear at another time.
“You surely don’t think that because you have a son in prison you can’t marry my mom,” she said.
And wasn’t all that surprised when he shook his head.
“No, it’s that I have to ask her to be a mother to my grandson, a fifteen-year-old kid who’s heading down the same path as his father unless I can somehow find a way to change that course.”
“You have custody of him?”
“Just got the final order yesterday. I’m supposed to pick him up from foster care this evening.”
“What happened to his mother?” It didn’t matter to the point at hand. She asked, anyway.
“She died in a car accident fourteen years ago. My son was driving. And drunk. From what I understand, she was drunk, too. They were too young to start a family. Just eighteen. From what I’d heard, her death had straightened him out. I tried to reach out, but my son wanted nothing to do with me.”
“While I’m fully supportive of Sam’s need to take in his grandson, and wouldn’t have it any other way,” Sylvia said, “I was resistant to deepening our relationship as this boy is going to need a solid family. Hours of time every day and—”
“You’re a certified counselor,” Olivia said. “Who better than you to help him?”
“I wouldn’t think about taking in another child and having my own feel as though I’m not putting her first, most particularly when I didn’t raise my own.”
It was like the clouds had opened above, deluging Olivia with insights, perspectives...and truths. Her mother loved her enough to give up her life a second time for her. Because that’s what mothers did. No matter how many times it took.
And Sylvia had a strength far greater than any Olivia was showing. Her mother was willing to risk everything again and again, no matter the pain that might result.
Because that’s what love did.
“Sylvia and I were talking last night,” Sam said, including Olivia and Martin equally in his conversation, looking back and forth between the two of them. “About the fact that you’ve got a heartbeat now. And so much baggage between the two of you. We both feel as though we failed at being parents, in spite of the fact that our love for our children comes first in our hearts. And we both feel as though we’re the last people who should be giving parental advice. But after you called this morning—” he looked at Olivia “—and told your mother that you and Martin weren’t getting back together...”
She felt Martin stiffen beside her, but didn’t dare look at him as their “baggage” was split right open there in the midst of Christmas morning wrapping paper.
“I told her that it seemed like we were being given second chances to be parents ourselves. And that’s why I’m here.”
He took a breath. No one else moved.
Sam looked at Martin first. “I’m old enough to be your father,” he said. “And I’m taking in a fifteen-year-old boy who I’ve never met and who isn’t particularly thrilled to be moving to Marie Cove. That boy is going to need a family, by the way, and from what Sylvia tells me, you know a lot about teenage kids and giving them incentives to keep them out of trouble.”
“Give someone a fish he eats for a day, teach him to fish he feeds himself for life,” Martin said, just as Olivia had heard him at a podium the one time she’d accompanied him to a Fishnet function. The familiar saying was something he’d learned from his parents, a theory by which they’d lived, and the basis of Fishnet.
“She told me about your nonprofit,” Sam said. “And also about your struggle to see yourself as a father at forty-one. I’m suggesting that you find a way.”
Oh God. Olivia wanted to be gone from the conversation. The chair. The room.
“I’m older now than you will be when your child is my grandson’s age. And I’ve realized that it’s not the age that matters. It’s the love. The willingness to give it. And accept it. I’m his family. I’m all he’s got. And the heartbeat you heard...you’re that baby’s father.”
Silence fell as Sam sat forward, his elbows on his knees, looking at both of them again. Sylvia was watching him, not Olivia and Martin.
“I get that the two of you have suffered a loss I hope to God I never understand. I get that you know a pain I’ve never felt. But what I also know, with the wisdom life has given me, is that you’ve been given this second chance and you don’t want to be sixty and looking back and seeing yourself not taking it.
“Life took from you, and now it’s giving back. Are you really going to tell it ‘no thank you’?”
This time when silence fell, it stayed there. Hanging around them all. Slowly encapsulating them. Olivia thought about breakfast. Expected Sylvia to spring up and announce that it was time to eat. Gloss over the tension.
“I told Sam this morning that I’ll marry him,” Sylvia said instead. “I’m watching you struggle to open yourself up to life again and doing nothing but helping you stay safe in your stagnant world. So, as of tomorrow, you’re going to have a stepfather and stepbrother added to your family. Not officially yet, of course. We have to get a marriage license, but we’re bringing Luke home with us and he’s going to need a family.” She looked at Martin. “And I hope he has you in his life, as well,” she said. “He needs a role model.”
Sam stood, pulled a mini flash drive case out of his pants pocket and handed it to Martin. “After I retired from the LAPD I took up music, of all things,” he said. “I made this for you two last night. No matter what you decide to do, I’d ask that you listen to it, together.”
Olivia wasn’t sure Martin would even take the drive.
But she knew that she would take him. In any capacity. No matter what the future might hold.
She hadn’t looked at him. But she took his hand next to her. Threaded her fingers in between his. He was still sitting there. And she was there for him.
No matter what he decided.
Still.
* * *
Sam’s drive traveled in the front pocket of Martin’s jeans for the rest of that day. As soon as he’d taken it, slid it in his pocket, Sylvia had jumped up and announced that they should all just take a breather, freshen up the mimosas none of them had finished and enjoy breakfast. Table conversation was, as though by order, lighthearted. Getting-to-know-you stuff and hearing how Sam and Sylvia had met when she’d been treating a cop buddy of his and he’d come to pick the guy up from a session. After breakfast and cleanup they’d had all the paper in the living room to clear out. Presents to stack. And for Sylvia and Sam to load up. They’d brought over their gifts for each other so that Sam would have something to open. And not long later it had been time for Martin and Olivia to head to the Applegates’, where there was more holiday cheer, presents and everyone being happy.
Though they weren’t scheduled to do so, they made a drive into Fishnet, as well, before heading back to Marie Cove. The teenagers had had a traditional Christmas morning with multiple presents under the tree for everyone; Fishnet sought to be the parental presence the kids didn’t have. The
older residents were treated the same, with presents just like any other college kid would have at home on break. What Fishnet couldn’t fund, Martin did personally.
Because everyone deserved a chance.
Or a second one. He’d been thinking all day about what Sam had said. Was he going to tell his second chance, no thank you? Could he pretend even for a second that he wouldn’t give his life to hold his child wearing a T-shirt that said “I Love My Daddy”? Could he forget how many times he’d looked at the little sleeper Liv had given him, the cap, and pictured his little girl wearing it in her crib at night?
Yeah, he was struggling to see himself as a father at forty-one...because he knew the risk. And what kind of a man did that make him, that he’d let a child of his go fatherless because he was afraid of being hurt?
Sam had suggested he “find a way.”
And Sylvia had announced that Olivia had told her that morning that she and Martin were through.
He’d pretty much come to that conclusion the night before, but to hear her mother say it, to know that it was a done deal before he’d accepted the reality...
Most of the way home, they talked about the day, the people, their impressions, funny moments. And as he exited the freeway at the Marie Cove exit, silence fell. The day was ending. Holiday cheer was done.
He pulled into the garage of her condo building and parked. She hadn’t invited him in, or to spend the night. But all his stuff was still upstairs.
They went up together, without speaking. He didn’t know what to say.
Martin had always been the guy who was good with words. The one who could always find the right thing to say. Something to say to make those he was with feel good.
Inside, he gathered up his things slowly. Stacked the gifts by the door. Zipped up his overnight satchel and dropped it by the gifts.
Her Christmas Future Page 19