Chapter 4
He hadn’t expected to make the offer. It had just sort of come out of his mouth over dinner. But there hadn’t been a good time at any point in the day for her to leave. It just never felt right.
And he’d felt something burning in his chest all day. Only when the words had come out of his mouth did he realize exactly what it was.
What was he thinking? Putting himself in close proximity to this woman who made him feel so much that it pushed him right to the edge.
“What?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. This place is huge, I have plenty of room. You’re living in somebody else’s house, and it’s not your permanent plan anyway. You’re trying to save up and move into your own place …”
“I’m not exactly strapped for cash. I’m saving up for a down payment.”
“I get that. But you can do that here. And while Marjorie is little, we’ll coparent in the same home.
It just makes sense. The thing is, we’re not exes.
Our parenting doesn’t have to be traditional in that sense.
We don’t have to have two different households.
We can actually give her a really stable upbringing.
Hell, probably more stable than either of us had, if you think about it. ”
It was true. He hadn’t been given a whole lot of a chance to think the situation through, but it was true. There was no reason the two of them couldn’t build something strong for this little girl.
“Ty and Melanie did the absolute best they could by her. And I know not everybody would understand that, but we both do. Because we know how it’s been for them. All this time.”
She nodded, swallowing hard. “I know.”
“And now we have a chance to honor their wishes. They weren’t selfish. They weren’t. Yeah, I know some people would say addiction is selfish, but you and I both know it makes their lives miserable. If they could just kick it, they would.”
He could see his little brother then. As he had been. Just himself. Grinning and causing mayhem, full of life, full of joy.
Drugs had taken his love of life from Ty. He was Clark’s little brother but he looked older than Clark now.
“I know what you’re saying, but it just seems like … We don’t know each other very well, and we’ve never particularly gotten along …”
“You’re talking about the time you yelled at me for being a goddamn Porter who broke up your family?”
She scrunched her face up. “Did I say that?”
“You did indeed. You were pretty angry. We were paying to get their car out of the impound.”
“Yeah. I know. I try not think about it.”
“It’s hard, and because your parents washed their hands of—”
“Yes, thank you,” she snapped. “I don’t actually need a reminder of what my parents did.”
“Hey, at least your parents have a right to be disappointed. Mine kind of created the problem.”
She made a face that he couldn’t quite decode.
“I don’t know that I agree with that. My parents caused some issues. It just wasn’t exactly the same. I mean, I know that you guys had it worse. Rougher than we did.”
“That’s almost an olive branch,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean I forgive your brother. Or that I’m not angry at him. I’m just saying I understand that you guys grew up in a house where there was a lot of addiction.”
“That we did,” Clark said. “But I’m certainly not going to defend him. Not at this point.”
They both looked at the little baby. “I do think giving her up was the best thing Melanie and Ty could’ve done,” Ellie said.
And the best thing she and Clark could do was to come together and try to raise the baby as a unit.
“When it comes to figuring out how to raise a kid, I assume your family’s a lot more functional than mine.”
She grimaced. “In my family, love is conditional. There’s a lot of pressure.
From my mother. My dad works. He earns money, and I think in his mind that’s the sum of his obligation to the family.
Whenever I go over, Dad is just sitting in his chair, watching sports, doing his own thing.
When he’s not working, he’s watching the Bill Parks show.
To compensate, I guess my mom was kind of a helicopter parent.
But not in a super-loving way. In a way that we felt she was disappointed in us all the time. ”
“Sounds like a sitcom,” he said.
“I guess it would.”
“It’s no secret that my parents have struggled. I mean, it’s basically in the local news every so often.”
“Not you,” she said, looking around at the house. “This is … It’s more than a little bit impressive.”
“Thanks.”
God. What he wouldn’t have given for her to notice him back all those years ago. It was a trip. She hadn’t been snobby, not exactly. There had been an untouchable air about her, and he’d known better than to go there.
His brother, not so much.
And it had resulted in disaster.
Now … they needed to band together to raise their niece.
Caring for little Marjorie was the most important thing. Attraction to Ellie had no place in that.
What a dumbass thought to entertain even for a moment. In fact, it was so stupid that he wasn’t going to put words to it. He was just going to push it to the side.
They’d been given a brief overview of the adoption process, and truly, in their case, it seemed straightforward.
Oregon made it pretty easy for nontraditional families to adopt, and Ty and Melanie had voluntarily surrendered their parental rights, naming their siblings as the preferred adoptive parents.
But that was just the legal stuff. There was also the practical, personal stuff.
“Do you really want me to move in?”
“I have plenty of room. I have five bedrooms here. We can put the nursery in between our rooms, and we can take care of her together. I think that would be the best thing.”
She looked hesitant. “We don’t know each other very well.”
“I guess not. But how well do you know our old biology teacher?”
“She is my coworker.”
“Sure. And I’m your old classmate.”
“Probably also my common-law brother-in-law at this point?”
He laughed. “Is that a thing?”
“I think it’s a thing when you end up raising your niece.”
She let out a low sound. “I am going to have to tell my mother. And I’m really not looking forward to it.”
“What worries you?” he asked, leaning against the counter and looking at her.
“That she won’t want to be involved. Or worse, that she will. That worries me. It worries me pretty substantially. Because she’s difficult, and she’s going to be handsy, and …”
“You don’t think that she’s going to want to adopt Marjorie?”
Ellie laughed. “No. I think she might want to performatively grandparent, but I don’t think she would ever want to adopt her. It would hinder her too much. And she doesn’t ever like to be inconvenienced. I don’t know.”
“My parents will probably be happy,” he said.
There was a heaviness that came along with that realization. They would be. They loved their kids, in their way. It was just that nothing in their lives was conducive to taking care of children. It didn’t mean that they didn’t care; it just meant that their priorities were all mixed up.
They were kind of like Ty and Melanie, honestly.
He wasn’t sure about his own priorities. He’d achieved financial success. But he wasn’t married. Had never had a serious relationship.
He liked sex, sure. A little entanglement could be fun, especially when he was out on the road. But anything beyond that …
The weight of responsibility always felt like it was a little bit too much.
And now he had a whole kid.
Jumping right into the deep end. Maybe not being an addict wasn’t enough to be a good parent. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to sort his priorities out because he hadn’t been raised to know what they should be.
“I really need you to move in,” he said.
“Because at least you know what a family is supposed to look like. I don’t.
I built this house, but I’m not even sure what I did it for.
Except that it looked right. It’s like a TV set, isn’t it?
Perfect and just so, but with no real life to it.
I don’t know anything about being part of a family.
Maybe between the two of us, we can figure it out. ”