“I can’t even imagine that.”
“Neither can I. If anyone had asked me to choose between you and my siblings…”
“It’s monstrous. Why did he decide to tell you this now?”
“His father is dying and wants to see him.”
“No… No way. He’s not going, is he?”
“We’re all going. Tomorrow. We’ll be gone one night.”
“Why, Hunter? Why would he go there after what that man did to him?”
“Because he needs the closure, I think, and maybe he’s hoping to reconnect with his siblings.”
“What about his mother?”
“She died a few years ago.”
“Without ever again seeing her son. What a tragedy for both of them.”
“I know.”
“Promise me we’ll never let anything come between us and our children. No matter what they might choose that we don’t agree with…”
“That’s an easy promise to make, unless they grow up to be serial killers, of course.”
She gasped and then laughed. “Hunter! They’re not going to be serial killers!”
“I’m just saying. That’s my only line in the sand. Everything else is on the table.”
“Good to know.”
“Don’t worry, honey. I’d never let something like that happen in either my original family or our family. I wouldn’t be able to bear it.”
“Me either. So you’re going away tomorrow, then.”
“You want to come? I’m probably going to rent the same bus that took us to Boston last summer. There’re too many of us to deal with flying.”
“I’d love to go, but I think it’d be too much for me right now. You go, support your dad and hurry home.”
“I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
“I won’t be alone, Hunter. I assume not every member of the family will be going. There’ll be others around if I need anything.”
“You can’t need anything when I’m not here to get it for you.”
“I’ll try my best not to.”
He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “You know I’d never leave you for any reason, even for just a night, if I didn’t really feel like I had to, right?”
“Of course I know that, and you absolutely have to be there for your dad. I love that you were the one who said let’s show them what came of this choice he made.”
“I bet his siblings don’t know he has ten kids.”
“It’s unreal, especially in this day and age when people are so connected. Well, everywhere but here in the cell phone wasteland known as Butler, Vermont.”
“The Butler disconnect probably saved my dad from having to see and hear all the things his family was doing without him.”
“That’s true.” She held out her arms, inviting him onto the sofa with her.
“Move it, Horace.”
The dog whimpered but gave up his space next to Megan.
“The poor guy. I know how he feels. I wouldn’t want another guy moving in on my territory either.”
“I have plenty of love for both of you.”
Hunter kissed her, sighing with the same pleasure he experienced any time she was nearby. “Not sure I can stand even one night away from you.”
“It’ll be fine.”
As he wrapped his arms around her and held on tight to the love of his life, he could only hope that was true.
Chapter Nine
“When you’ve seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there.”
—George Harrison
Hannah arrived home to a large bull moose standing in her front yard, mooing loudly enough to wake the dead, and a younger moose inside her house, mooing back in anticipation of what she’d taken to calling the daily playdate.
In her car seat, Callie, who’d soon be one, joined in the mooing.
Nolan despaired that his baby girl had mooed before she’d talked.
Hannah was secretly thrilled that her daughter was growing up with the same love for animals that Hannah had. “Take it easy,” she said to Fred when she got out of the car.
He came right over to her, nudging her with his cold wet nose. Nolan would lose his mind if he saw Fred that close to his pregnant wife and baby daughter. But what he couldn’t seem to understand was that Hannah knew down to her soul that Fred would never hurt her. How she knew that, she couldn’t explain. She just did. She had such faith in him that she even let him nuzzle Callie, but only when Nolan wasn’t around to lose his shit.
Fred was family. They didn’t need to worry about him.
From inside, Dexter was making a racket and possibly damaging the new steel door Nolan had installed after Dexter had gotten a little too enthusiastic one day and split the wood door right down the middle.
Naturally, Nolan had taken advantage of that incident to remind Hannah of why moose belonged outside and not inside their home. And she’d reminded him that Dexter was part of their family, and as such, he had every right to split the door if the door could be split to begin with.
Nolan had been unamused, but he’d replaced the door anyway. Hannah was well aware that it wasn’t easy to be married to her, but, as she liked to tell him, he knew she was a loon when he married her.
“I had no idea the level of looniness I was signing on for,” he’d say every time she reminded him that he’d taken her on “as is.”
Hannah opened the door to let Dexter and their dog, Homer Junior, into the yard for their daily playdate with Fred.
Callie squealed with delight as the three friends greeted each other with jubilation that filled Hannah with joy the likes of which she’d once thought she’d never experience again. It had taken many years, as well as Nolan, Callie, Homer Junior, Dexter, Fred and the routine that framed their days, to finally recover as much as she ever would from the devastating loss of her first husband, Caleb, in Iraq.
As she sat on the stairs in the cold December chill, holding her baby girl while the animals frolicked, Hannah was filled with contentment. Today, however, her contentment was tinged with sorrow after hearing her father’s story. She’d been curious all her life about his side of the family, about whether she had grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins. Now that she knew the full tale, she wasn’t sure how she felt about people who should’ve been close family to her and her siblings but were instead strangers.
What they’d done to her dad defied belief.
She held on tighter to Callie, who squirmed to get free and then let out a happy scream as Nolan’s truck came into view.
Her daughter was an unrepentant daddy’s girl.
When Nolan was out of the car and done scowling at the frolicking moose, Hannah let Callie go to toddle her way to him, her gait reminiscent of a drunken sailor. Hannah had never seen anything more perfect than the way her husband lit up at the sight of his daughter, scooping her up and making her shriek with laughter that had both moose and Homer stopping their game to make sure their little girl was all right.
Seeing Nolan, they resumed their game.
Their little family was unconventional, but Hannah wouldn’t have it any other way.