Chapter 20
Emmy threw herself into work as best she could for the rest of the week. She sought solace in numbers and equations—logical
things where the world made sense, and she could find an answer to everything. She realized late on Friday night she could
probably benefit from seeking solace—and advice—from another human and not just a spreadsheet. Seeing as her sister was still
in Europe, and Beth had a date, and Axe Murderer was obviously out, that left her parents as the best option.
Exhausted from the week and needing sleep, she decided to pay them a visit on Saturday morning.
Her parents still lived in the house where Emmy had grown up. It was in a stereotypical Southern California neighborhood,
where all the cookie-cutter houses shared identical stucco exteriors and tile roofs and sat on lots so close together the
inhabitants had to think twice about walking around naked inside in case the neighbors might see.
When she pulled up outside their house midmorning after texting her mom she was coming over, the sense of home welcomed her
like a pair of arms. The front lawn of her youth had been replaced by gravel and a tasteful succulent garden—much more eco-friendly
and lower maintenance. Her mom’s favorite wind chime gently gonged its low, soothing notes from the walkway. A wreath of rosemary
and lavender hung on the door.
Emmy knocked and then entered. “Hello? Mom? Dad?”
“In here!” her dad called from the kitchen.
The short entryway spilled into a living room lined with bookshelves and photos of the Jameson children through the years.
Emmy always cringed at her awkward phase of braces and untamed hair so prominently on display—especially side by side with Piper, who’d never had a bad hair day in her life.
Josh’s senior portrait hung among the spread, and every time she saw it, Emmy couldn’t help smiling back at his big grin, even if it was only a little bit.
“Hey, bro,” she murmured as she passed. Then she said, “Hi, Dad,” when she turned the corner into the open kitchen. It shared
space with the family room where the muted TV was playing a baseball game happening on the East Coast.
“Hiya, sport!” her dad all but sang over his shoulder. He stood at the counter with his back to her stirring something in
a pitcher. “Your mom told me you were coming over.” He turned around with a tray of lemonade and acrylic glasses. He nodded
at the sliding door leading out into the yard. “Get the door for me, will you?”
Emmy followed his instruction and opened the door to the crown jewel of her parents’ property.
To help manage her grief when Josh died, Emmy’s mother had started gardening, and she never stopped. Now the backyard oasis
verged on otherworldly with all the vines and blossoms, the pots and planters, the trellises and lattices. Emmy’s thumbs were
the furthest things from green; she didn’t even know what half of the plants were called. But her mother tended to every petal
and leaf with the same care she gave her patients.
Vera stood on the yard’s upper level pointing a hose at a pot of flowers the color of a construction cone. Her Crocs looked
like a pair of rubber ducks on her feet. “Hi, sweetie!” she called with a wave.
“Hi, Mom.” Emmy waved back and pulled out a chair at the patio table. She saw her dad’s e-reader sitting there with his smudged
reading glasses on top of it. Reading and gardening were her parents’ favorite ways to spend a Saturday morning.
Frank busied himself pouring lemonade while Vera finished spritzing her plants. She eventually returned the hose to its hook and made her way down the two short steps to the patio.
“Here you go,” Frank said, and handed Emmy a glass before he sat adjacent to her.
“How was your first week back at work?” Vera asked, and sank into the chair opposite them. She wiped her hands on her jeans
and grabbed the glass Frank had poured for her.
Their unconditional welcome, the way they seamlessly folded her into their day without thought, broke something loose inside
Emmy. A hard sob shook her. She clapped her hand over her suddenly wet eyes and took a shuddering breath.
“Sorry,” she sobbed.
She instantly heard the scrape of a chair and sensed her mother move beside her. She felt her father’s hand land on her arm.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Vera asked as she wrapped her arm around her shoulder.
Emmy fought to keep her tears at bay but couldn’t. Not with the two people who loved her most in the world at her sides, and
not when she’d been damming it all back for so long. “I messed up,” she choked out.
Vera squeezed her tighter. “Oh, honey. Whatever it is, I’m sure it can be fixed.”
Emmy dropped her hand from her face and met her mother’s concerned eyes. The ache in her own chest was reflected right back
at her. “No, I don’t think it can.”
“Tell us what happened, honey,” her dad said, and squeezed her arm again.
Emmy pulled in another shaky breath and did her best to speak. She didn’t really know where to start. “You know how I brought
Gabe to the wedding as a friend?”
Her parents swapped a knowing glance.
“Well, that wasn’t the truth,” Emmy said.
Her mother gently smoothed her hair behind her ear. “Darling, you don’t have to tell us that. It was obvious you are more than friends.”
“It was?” Emmy asked weepily.
“Yes,” Vera said with a soft smile and a warm glow in her eyes.
“Gabe is really great,” her dad chimed in. “The two of you make a great pair.”
Emmy sobbed again, feeling like her heart split another crack. Her next set of words came tumbling out in a pained rush. “Well,
the whole truth is, we met weeks ago, not knowing it, and now we want to be together, but we can’t because we’re up for the
same promotion, and they’re making us choose between the job and a relationship.”
As she ached over everything at stake, her parents exchanged a confused look.
“What do you mean you met weeks ago not knowing it?” her mom asked. “I thought you’d been working together for years.”
Realizing she was going to have to tell them everything, she took a breath and started from the beginning, from the day she
got the Last night was fun text that started it all . She told them about the texting, the baseball bruise, the bachelorette party, the big reveal, a PG-13 version of what happened
in Mexico, their agreement, how they didn’t even make it one day when they got home before they reunited, how Alice had told
her the promotion was all but hers, how they wanted to be together, and how HR had thrown a giant, heartbreaking wrench into
their plan.
By the time she finished, her father was pouring them all a second round of lemonade.
“Well, that is certainly an interesting way to start a relationship,” Frank said. “Who knew you could fall for someone through
text.”
Emmy flamed in embarrassment, but he was right. She had fallen.
“Oh, Frank, it’s perfectly normal these days,” Vera said. “Half of relationships start online now.”
“More than half,” Emmy muttered. “But the way we met is not the problem. The problem is I have to choose between him and the job.” Another wave of tears swelled up inside her. Her voice rose in pitch and wobbled. “And I really want that job.”
Her mother rubbed away the tear that spilled down her cheek and gazed at her with pained sympathy, knowing full well her history
with this scenario. “And you really want him too.” It wasn’t a question. It was a fact, unlike with Jacob.
“Yeah,” Emmy said, sobbing. She’d turned into a weepy puddle.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Vera pulled her into another hug. “You’ve always known what you wanted and followed your heart—that’s why
you even have this job in the first place. And you’ve worked so hard for it.”
Emmy leaned back and wiped her wet, puffy eyes. She frowned at her mother in confusion. She was sure she would tell her to
go for the guy and ditch the job, not only because she was constantly cheering for her to prioritize her love life but more
so because she despised baseball. But it sounded like Vera was saying the opposite. “You think I should go for the job?” She
glanced at her dad. “You guys don’t even want me to have this job.”
Vera recoiled. “What? That’s not true.” She looked over at Frank. “We want you to be happy, we’ve just never understood why
you’d want to spend time so close to the thing that—” She cut off and took a shaky breath. Her face paled, and she looked
like she was bracing herself before continuing to speak. “The thing that took your brother from us.”
Emmy gaped in surprise, thrown. Her mother never spoke about Josh so openly—none of them did. Except for Piper. He was usually
an enormous, gut-wrenching elephant they all avoided. But sitting in her parents’ backyard already feeling cracked open and
raw, Emmy found herself willing to broach the topic.
“Baseball didn’t take Josh from us, Mom.
Addiction did. And the reason I work in baseball is because I want to be close to him.
I love the sport as much as he did and getting to be at the park every day and seeing the field and the players and the fans, it makes me feel like he’s still here, even if it’s just for a few seconds now and then.
And I also feel like I need to—” Her voice cut off in a choke of tears.
She took a breath. “I also feel like I need to make up for him being gone. So you guys have something to be proud of.”
Both her parents stared at Emmy like they were seeing her for the first time. She’d never expressed her feelings to them in
such certain terms before and she wasn’t sure how they were going to react.
Her mother broke first.
“Emmy, we are so proud of you. Please don’t ever think differently. You don’t need to make up for anything. I’ve never disapproved of your
job. I just couldn’t understand because I could never...” She weepily trailed off. Frank stood and came over to wrap his
arms around both of them.
“We’ve all done our best,” he said softly.