Ann sat across the table from me and gestured at my dish. “Aren’t you hungry, honey?”
“Oh, yeah,” I nodded, offering her a smile as I dipped my spoon into the dish. “It smells great.”
“Mom likes to add Guinness to her stew,” Audrey mentioned.
Pressing a hand to my chest, I said, “Woman after my own heart.”
Ann brushed the flattery away with a scoff and a wave of her hand. “Oh, stop it. It’s not like I came up with the recipe myself or anything.”
“Well, it—”
I was cut off by the chime of a cellphone. Audrey glanced at me anxiously and I shook my head in answer. “Not mine.”
“No, it’s mine,” Ann said, getting up from the table.
“Ann, we’re eating dinner,” George grumbled, glowering at his wife’s back as she headed toward the kitchen counter and retrieved the ringing offender.
“It could be the hospital,” she replied pointedly. But then, she gasped and hurried back to the table with the phone in hand. “Oh, my … George, look at this.”
He glanced at the screen and uttered an “oh, wow” as Audrey lifted her head with concern and asked, “Who is it?”
“It’s Vanessa,” her mother whispered, her face sheet-white, and I lowered my spoon to the table.
I hadn’t told the Wright family about Dr. Travetti, not wanting to excite them with something that might never come. I’d left it up to Vanessa, and I was glad she’d made the decision to reach out.
Audrey looked to me with shock and whispered, “She was Sabrina’s girlfriend.”
Slowly, I nodded as Ann answered the phone. “H-hello?”
The conversation was painfully one-sided as Ann asked Vanessa the usual questions. How she was, how was business, how was the family. But when Ann’s voice strained with emotion until it broke, she hurried out of the dining room, and we heard nothing at all.
“I can’t believe she called,” Audrey whispered as though afraid to speak.
“When was the last time you talked to her?” I asked.
George rubbed his bearded cheek with a palm. “Oh, boy, I guess … I guess it was the funeral.” He glanced at Audrey. “That sounds about right, doesn’t it?”
Audrey nodded sorrowfully, slowly paddling her spoon through the stew. “Yeah. We didn’t see or talk to her again after that.”
“Such a shame, too,” George went on, sighing and leaning back in his chair. “Her office is right over in Derby Square. She works with a team of doctors now.”
Audrey was smart. It was one of the things I loved about her, and I knew that at the mention of the location, she’d put it all together. And she did, making it clear with a quick turn of her head to stare at me with a wide, teary-eyed stare.
“You did this.”
“Huh?” George asked as I shrugged and said, “I only made a suggestion. I didn’t know what she’d do.”
“How did you know?”
Lifting my mouth in a smirk, I shook my head, refusing to tell her with a mutter about doctor-patient confidentiality. Ann returned to the table, her hands clutched around her phone and tears drying on her cheeks. She told George and Audrey that Vanessa wanted to see the family for Christmas Eve, if that was all right with everybody. As Audrey and her father answered with enthusiasm, I silently excused myself from the conversation and returned my attention to my food.
This felt like a family moment. And I wasn’t family.
But George lured my attention back by saying, “And we’ll plan on you being there, too, Blake, but of course, we know you have to take things day by day right now.”
With my mouth open in an embarrassing display of shock, I stammered, “W-wha …,” before swallowing and asking, “I’m sorry, what?”
“Christmas Eve,” Audrey clued me in, laying her hand against my back.
Slowly nodding, mildly confused, I answered, “Oh. Right. Yeah, sure.”
“Which reminds me,” Ann said, grabbing her spoon, “Blake, what size do you wear? I mean, I’m not saying I’m buying you clothes for Christmas, but—”
George snorted. “But she’s saying she’s buying you clothes for Christmas. And if I were you, I’d keep that information locked up tight.”
Ann’s jaw dropped in mock offense. “What exactly are you saying?”
“He’s saying there’s no way you’d pick out anything Blake would actually wear,” Audrey said, corroborating with her father.
“You don’t know that!” Ann reached across the table and patted my hand. “I mean, how hard can it be? All he wears is black!”
“Hey,” I said, having finally collected myself enough to chime in. “I’ll have you know, I actually own a red sweater my mom made me wear on Christmas a few years ago.”
“Oh, well, excuse me!” Ann laughed, lifting her hands from the table. “I stand corrected.”
The exchange was silly, and I assume, damn near meaningless for the average person, but I’d only seen things like this on TV and in movies. If my family had ever shared in moments of playful banter, I couldn’t remember them. It was nice, to feel included and wanted. To feel cared for. I found myself smiling, despite the lingering sadness looming overhead, and I relished in the brief reprieve, hoping I could keep it for a while longer.
Hell, maybe I could even keep it for good.
***
“Good night, sweetheart. Love you,” Audrey said to Freddy as she hung up the phone. She tucked her feet underneath the blanket and laid beside me. Draping her arm over my chest, she kissed my shoulder and whispered, “Thank you.”
I slid my arm beneath her and around the curve of her waist. “What are you thanking me for?”
“Vanessa,” she said, her voice just as hushed as before. “I know you won’t talk about it, and that’s okay. But I just want you to know how much it means to us.”
“I just did what anybody else would’ve done.”
Anchoring herself with a hand against my chest, she propped up abruptly and shook her head with furious adamancy. “No, Blake. A lot of people wouldn’t have. I mean, I like to think that the majority of people are good, but they’re also selfish. They don’t step outside of themselves; they can’t. But you are a good man, and I love you for it.”
She pressed a kiss to my lips and I closed my eyes, holding on tight to what she alone had made me believe that I was—a good man. And hell, maybe I always had been. Maybe all of that guilt and blame had been for nothing, and I just needed this woman to show me that. Everything, all of the good that had come to me these past few months, all the sanity I’ve managed to hold onto during this week without my brother—it was all because of her. Only her.
My hands sought her face and held on tight as I whispered, “I love you” against her lips. I had said it to her before, and I had meant it, but this felt so much more like an eternal truth. Like what I felt now was too deep and too settled to ever leave. It went beyond my body, beyond the pumping organ in my chest, and made itself at home in the core of my being, made of color and stardust. And fuck, I found it so hard to breathe, so hard to do anything but grip my fingers in her hair and hold on for dear life. Like she was all that was keeping me from drowning.