by Jenn Faulk
"Yeah," Rachel sighed again. "That doesn't seem like the smartest idea right now, though, does it?"
"It'll be fine," Natalie assured her.
"First things first, though," Rachel smiled. "Let me get everything set up for you two --"
"Rachel," Natalie said, "I can take care of everything. Jacob brought by some extra clothes for Brian, and I've got what Joy gave me, so all that's left are new linens on the beds, right?"
"Already done," Rachel smiled. "Always keep these rooms ready, just in case. I have some spare toothbrushes that I need to get out of the bathroom for you two, though, and towels, too."
"You're a good homemaker, Rachel," Natalie said appreciatively. "I know you make this house a home. Not just for Micah and the girls, but..."
For Joy and Taylor. For their whole family. For her. And now for the man she was going to marry.
"For all the crazy people we keep inviting in, yes," she laughed. "And on that note, Brian, you're totally welcome here. Despite all of..." And here, she motioned in Micah's general direction.
God bless Rachel. God had been doing them all a big favor when He brought her into their family.
"I appreciate it," Brian answered, smiling at her, even as she gave a small wave and left them alone.
Alone. Finally.
"Thank you," Natalie said, as Brian wrapped his arms around her and leaned down to kiss her. "Thank you for putting up with... him."
"Please," Brian murmured, "he doesn't scare me. I'm old enough to be his stepfather, after all."
She smiled at the word, fighting back the laugh that threatened to come out loudly, loud enough that Micah would hear from a few doors down, would imagine the worst, and would come to the room, angry eyes on and all.
"You really think this weekend is the right time to tell them about the engagement?," she asked, thinking about the ring that was tucked away in her purse, its absence around her finger felt after just one day of it being off.
"I do," Brian said, smiling at her. "But they're your children, and the decision needs to be yours. Of course, it'll be easier for them to find out now instead of next month when we have the wedding."
"We weren't even going to have a wedding," she sighed, thinking of how they'd discussed marriage together, how they'd reached this decision, how they were just going to have a simple covenant ceremony during the Sunday service of church, and how it wasn't going to be an ordeal.
Until she met his daughters. Oh, his daughters. Katherine, Ruth, and Elizabeth, such strong names for such strong women, all three of whom had embraced her instantly without reservation. They loved their father, and they loved seeing him happy. They'd paraded their children right over to Natalie, telling them this was their Gammy, insisting that Natalie join them when they all met up after Christmas, telling her to bring her children for them to meet, and asking for details about the wedding.
It had escalated from there, from a simple covenant ceremony to a family event. But now...
"You sure you want to get in on all of this?," she asked him warily, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it anyway.
"I'm sure about you," he said. "And about Joy. And Taylor. Rachel, Mia, Zoe..." He grinned, not offering another word.
"You've forgotten someone," she grinned.
"Oh, yeah," he said. "Sugar."
"Who could forget Sugar?," she laughed. "But... oh, Micah. He's just..."
"Just being a good son," Brian said. "Babe, it's just going to take him a little longer. And that's okay."
He called her Babe. All the time. That was a new thing. Every time she felt like this was going to be familiar, like this new marriage was going to be just like the marriage she had known most of her life, she'd feel a new thrill that she hadn't felt before.
Different. Life with Brian was going to be different.
And she'd thought marriage was perfect just the way it was.
She smiled at this thought.
"I take it from your smile that you're choosing to believe me," he said, still holding her close.
"I am," she said. "It's all going to be okay."
"It's all going to be great," he corrected, kissing her again. "I love you."
"Me, too," she murmured against his lips. "Sleep tight, okay?"
"Will do," he said, backing away, letting go of her hand at the last possible moment. As he stepped into his room for the night, she turned away to go back to her room.
"Hey, Natalie?"
"Yeah?," she asked, turning back.
"Counting down the days until we don't have to say good night and go to separate rooms, you know," he said, raising his eyebrows.
And of all that she'd agreed with so far that night, she most agreed with this.
Yeah, sometimes love felt like they were seventeen all over again.
Madison
She'd snuck into the kitchen and eaten half the pan of tiramisu.
Binge eating. She'd done plenty of that in her past. Having her husband tell everyone around them that he didn't want to take a trip to paradise with her had been emotionally taxing enough that she'd felt no shame in returning to the dirty little habit of stuffing her face as full and she could get it, finding solace in food.
In tiramisu, ironically enough. Her mind drifted back to all the late nights spent at the bar at his restaurant, long after everyone else had been cleared out, eating bite after bite, in between talking about their lives, about their dreams, about faith, all as they'd grown to be better friends. Then, after the wedding, it was more of the same, but it always ended with Grant leaving the dishes on the bar, pulling her along gently by the hand, up the stairs to the small room that was hers now, too, the taste of tiramisu still on his lips as he'd gotten her inside, pulled her close, and murmured, "only a few hours until I've got to open for breakfast, but we'll make every minute count."
Yep. Every remembrance that night had been reason for another bite of tiramisu, shoved in her mouth and nearly swallowed whole so that she wouldn't have to taste it and remember Grant's lips, the words he'd said, the promises he'd made.
She loved and hated tiramisu all at the same time.
The dish that had symbolized her relationship with Grant, now stuffing to be swallowed whole in an attempt to drown out the rejection he'd dealt her.
She'd taken the other half of the pan upstairs to the extra girls' room, where she continued eating it as she sat on the bed, even as Grant came in, still on the phone with the restaurant.
"All those turkeys," he moaned, just as soon as he finally hung up. "What are we going to do with all those turkeys?!"
The Christmas Day offering at the restaurant was going to be a fixed menu. Traditional Christmas dinner. Simple, easy, lucrative enough -- Grant had told her months ago when they were still sharing these details -- that it would bring in the money to finish off the debt. They'd joked that they were going to burn off the last mortgage statement right there with the turkeys he was going to smoke.
Those turkeys weren't going to be doing anything but celebrating Christmas in the sinks now, where they were busy thawing out for a meal they wouldn't be providing.
Money lost.
But who even cared at this point? Grant's business venture was going to end up costing him money, but who cared? Not Maddie. Because Grant was someone different, completely different, so she wasn't surprised that the prevailing emotion she felt now, looking at him, was apathy.
But still love. Still somewhere there, because even as she took another bite and relished the thought of him being wrong for once for coming up with this stupid plan to ruin Christmas so he could finish paying off a debt that could wait, she still hurt, watching the look on his face.
Love. It's annoying like that sometimes.
"Turkey stew, turkey soup, turkey sandwiches, turkey casserole," she droned, looking up at him. "You're the chef. Come up with something."
He watched her for a long moment. "I'd like to stick to the original plan. Turkey. Just turkey. Done like turke
y. Money in our pockets. Maybe the ice won't stick to the roads..."
Money in our pockets.
"And if it does," she said, done with this, with all of it, "they'll probably have the sanding trucks out and will get it cleared enough that the restaurant can still open. And you can crawl through the snow to get there if you have to. Which you will. Because where else would you rather be on Christmas?"
Wow. The tiramisu was making her catty. She crammed another bite into her mouth.
"Supportive much, Maddie?," he asked critically, frowning at her. "Last time I checked, you had something riding on the success of this restaurant, too."
Yes, she did. Because she wasn't making enough with the book royalties to support herself anymore. Any time she could have given to better marketing or to finding ways to supplement her writing career was given to the restaurant, to helping out with the bookkeeping, to helping out with the daily functioning of the kitchen, to being there.
She was Grant's helper and partner, in every sense of the word. And she hated the restaurant because even when she was there, right there with him, he was still a million miles away.
"I do have a lot at stake here," she noted, taking another bite.
"Good grief," he asked, finally noticing the pan of tiramisu. "How much of that have you eaten tonight?"
Not enough. Because it still hurt, everything that he was saying. She wasn't dull enough.
"A lot," she answered. "And who cares if tomorrow doesn't bring in as much money as you thought it would? We'll make it up in the new year. When we're not taking our cruise and all. Or when the baby is born, and you miss that, too, because you're back in the kitchen while I'm at the hospital."
She sounded like her mother. Every fight she'd overheard between her parents came to mind. Kaci's passive-aggressive picking, Brent's critical words, until the marriage was over and it was done.
Was this where she and Grant were heading?
In that moment, she didn't care if it was because she had to say something. She finally had to say it.
He heard her. But he still didn't get it.
"Madison," he said, finally sitting at her feet and looking at her, really looking at her. "I'm doing all of this so we can take a cruise one day, so I can be there when the baby needs me. I just have to make enough so I can have a little more freedom."
When? When would it be enough?
"I'm doing well for us," he said softly, looking back at his phone. "For myself."
"Well, yay for you," she mumbled, taking yet another bite.
He believed her sarcasm enough to continue on with his phone, reading texts as she kept on eating. "There's got to be some way to open up tomorrow --"
Good. Grief.
"It's just one day," she said, carefully keeping from raising her voice. Because she could say things like Kaci and be okay, but if she began screeching like Kaci... well, then she was no better than Kaci.
And being no better than Kaci was a fate worse than death, honestly. Talk about zombies and all...
"No, it's not just one day," he insisted. "The money from this. It has to be enough. Not just for this month but to set the standard for the next quarter, all that will need to be earned then."
"What are you talking about, Grant?," she asked. "The last payment will pay off the mortgage. We can move on, find a bigger place to live, and --"
"The restaurant is too small," he murmured. "We need to pay off the building and then look into leasing a bigger place after I've paid off the debts."
What?
Maddie swallowed the tiramisu and felt it lump up in the back of her throat.
The shock of Grant's words. Not because he was planning this for the restaurant. Not because it put hopes of a home to rest. Before all of this she would have said that she'd gladly live anywhere with him, do anything he wanted to for the restaurant, if she could count on him being there with her --
But the shock was over another debt. He would be taking on another debt, and the next five years of their marriage would be like the first five. Grant gone, all the time. Her on her own, living like she was single, like she'd never even had him.
And a baby now, too.
Then what? Once that debt was paid, Grant would want to be even more successful. Another restaurant, another debt, climbing a ladder the rest of their lives together, until they wouldn't even know who they were.
"What?!," she yelled. And there it was. Kaci's voice, coming from her lips.
The horror of it. But she just kept on.
"What are you even talking about, Grant?!"
"A bigger place," he said, not seeming to notice that his wife was morphing into her worst nightmare. "More money --"
"You're not taking out another loan!," she yelled at him.
Finally, he seemed affected by the tone she was using, watching her with concern because his sweet, kind, agreeable Maddie was gone, gone, gone.
It didn't change his mind, though.
"But it'll be worth it in the end," he said. "More business that way --"
"But we're already sacrificing everything as it is!," she pleaded. Their marriage, their life in church, his walk with Christ, likely, as she couldn't even recall the last time he'd said anything about what God was doing in his life --
"All worth it," he said. "We can really make this restaurant a success if we just push on, carry more debt for just a little while longer."
The rest of her life was going to be just like this. She could see it. Suddenly, she didn't care if she sounded just like her crazy mother. She just wanted to say what she thought.
"I can't live like this!," she yelled, finally putting down the tiramisu. "I can't do it!"
"It's not going to be forever," he assured her.
"But it's been our marriage," she said. "Our whole marriage, Grant, just like this. And I'm done. I'm so done with it."
"I know," he said, "and this loan will be done before the new year, then --"
"I'm done with you," she said.
She said it. And for just a moment, she meant it. Truly and honestly meant it.
He regarded her with shock, hurt... disbelief.
"You don't mean that," he said.
"I do," she said, finding it ironic that the same two words she'd used to promise him forever were now a declaration of something quite different. "Done. I'm done. This is not what I signed up for, and you? You are not the man you were."
Every wrong done to her in the duration of their short marriage came to mind. Love keeps no record of wrongs, of course, which was maybe further proof that this wasn't what she'd thought it was when she'd been starry eyed and drunk on tiramisu, so long ago in the restaurant back when she'd been someone else and he'd won her heart.
"I don't even like you anymore," she said, thinking that out of all she'd said, this was the most true. If she had it to do over again, given who Grant was now... well, would she? She wasn't sure.
I don't even like you anymore.
Only after the words left her mouth did she remember another time when she'd heard them before.
An every other weekend visit. Brent and Kaci meeting up halfway to hand off Maddie and Kait. Neither one of the adults saying much of anything, because what was there left to say once the divorce was final, reconciliation wasn't ever going to happen, and there were children to still share for a whole lifetime?
Not much left to say at all, but Kaci had still been determined to have the last word.
"I don't even like you anymore, Brent," she'd said.
No kidding. But the words had hit home with him. It wasn't about love. He wasn't even worth liking as a person.
She'd become that. She looked at Grant and saw what the words did to him, hitting him in a way that no other words had.
She'd done that to him. And even though she was still angry, even though she didn't know where they were going, even though she couldn't figure out what she even wanted anymore... well, she felt something at having hurt him like this, at having beco
me who she'd never in a million years have chosen to be.
And suddenly all the tiramisu in her stomach and all the worries in her heart were too much to take.
"Grant, I think I'm going to be sick," she said.
And sure enough, she was.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rachel
It had been an unpleasant night.
Well, pleasant enough for Mia and Zoe, who weren't bothered in the least by the fact that they had to share a bed. If anything, they were more excited about the arrangements than they would have been had the night been entirely normal, because this way, it would be easier to wake one another up at the crack of dawn to see what Santa had left.