Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
HAPPILY EVER DURING
Will
My phone vibrates against the kitchen counter for the third time tonight, the screen lighting up with ‘Dad’ in harsh letters. I watch it move across the granite like some kind of technological poltergeist before hitting decline, again. Arden's eyes follow the motion from where she's stirring risotto at the stove, but she doesn't say anything.
We've perfected this over the last few years, the careful navigation of family events, the polite nods across crowded museum galas where my parents' names still grace the donor wall in ironic gold letters. The way my mother cornered me last spring behind a Degas sculpture to show me pictures of Alfie's new baby, her voice careful and measured as she mentioned how we should come back to the Newport house for a visit. Arden and I sent a carefully selected baby gift, a peace offering wrapped in tissue paper and possibility.
The thing about making the choices I did, when I did, was that it was never just about my career. To them, it was about control. It was about disappointing an entire legacy of men I never knew for a birthright that was only mine to the benefit of the boardroom. My father likes to remind me that there's still an empty office waiting for me, as if the years peppered with silence can be erased by the promise of a corner view.
The idea of returning to their home court advantage always fills me with a great deal of unease. But even during the happiest of times, the most blissful undisruptable moments, my father has managed to color them with disappointment.
‘You have a wife to think about now,’ he'd said, swirling his glass in the dim light.
‘The museum has been a nice hobby, but it's time to think about real success.’
Arden’s voice breaks me out of the memory and calls me back to the present for dinner.
"The risotto is almost ready," she says now, her voice gentle in that way that tells me she's giving me an out from whatever conversation I'm having in my head. The declined invitations, the terse exchanges at charity events, the holiday cards sent with carefully worded notes that never quite bridge the gap, and don’t intend to.
"Can you grab a bottle of wine?” she asks, taking two wine glasses from the cabinet and handing them to me.
“Anything particular?”
“Hmm, what do you think goes well with mushroom risotto and avoiding difficult conversations?”
And there it is, her uncanny ability to call your bullshit with devastating accuracy.
“Definitely a red.” I say. "But I thought we weren't talking about it.” My hands pull the cork from the bottle with perhaps more force than necessary.
" We're not. But you were clearly talking about it in your own head, so I figured, might as well let me in on the conversation. We’ve been not not talking about it for a while now. We're existing in this weird quantum state of talking-not-talking where I pretend, poorly , that I don't notice you declining calls from your family at a higher frequency than ever before, and you pretend not to notice me noticing."
"Schrodinger's family drama?"
"Exactly." She accepts the glass of wine I hand her, her fingers brushing mine in that intentional way she has, like every point of contact between us is worth savoring. "Though I think the cat's definitely alive in this scenario, and it's getting pretty loud in that box."
"He made his choice," I say, the words familiar and bitter on my tongue.
"Actually, you both made choices. He chose to give you an ultimatum, and you chose not to take it. And now, they are making a choice to change things, and you are the one choosing to keep this distance."
"You sound like you're on his side." It comes out sharper than I intend, and I immediately want to take it back.
"I'm on the side of not watching my husband flinch every time his phone rings. I'm on the side of maybe not spending another holiday pretending that your family doesn't exist. I'm on the side of you being happy, Will. Always. Of course I’m on your side, but here in our home? I can also tell you that I think you are being stubborn about something that life gives you a finite amount of time to resolve."
His heart attack had been mild, all things considered. The doctors called it a warning shot, the kind that leaves you alive but just more aware of mortality. Dad recovered quickly, was back to pacing the office within weeks, but we all knew this was the real reason behind everything else. Men like him spend their whole lives fortifying their hearts against anyone’s ability to penetrate them. Feeling a false sense of security behind an organ of stoicism and duty.
It's funny how nature has its ways of making metaphors manifest, these proud, strong men, taken down not by any external force, but by their own hearts demanding to finally be heard.
Cal called me from the hospital that night, his voice carrying that strange mix of efficiency and fear that comes with medical emergencies. I sat in our kitchen, phone pressed to my ear, while Arden's hand found mine under the table. The same table where we now sit, having variations of the same conversation we've been having since that night. Not about forgiveness exactly, that's too simple a word for what lies between us, but about time, and its finite nature, and what we choose to do with it.
"They don't understand our life, I’ve made a conscious effort to not let them infect it." I say finally.
"They don’t need to understand something to respect it," she says, tearing off a piece of the french bread and popping it into her mouth, always powered by carbohydrates.
"When did you get so wise?".
"Therapy." She steals a bite from my plate, despite having her own perfectly full serving.
Thanksgiving will take place at the Newport house. Sprawling with views of the ocean, where summer memories are stored in every corner. A place I fell in love with so much, with history, had my first kiss, a place where so many pivotal moments occurred for me. My brothers and I used to race through the halls, my mother hosted parties that made the society pages of a different era, and where the library still holds the art books I used to read while Alfie and Cal played water polo in the pool. Now, Alfie's kids have their own rooms, holidays happen there without us, and while we still get the annual invitations in the mail, we haven’t attended in years.
I think one day our children will also have rooms there, but as I learned, when you let yourself dream beneath someone else’s roof, it’s easy to surrender them to their architecture. Your infinite possibilities are reshaped to fit into rooms already built. Your wings clipped to not escape through someone else's windows.
And yet… she’s right. Of course she is.
"It's not forgiveness I'm struggling with," I admit. "It's that I know the second we walk through the doors it will be an ambush. No matter how much we want to pretend it isn't.”
Arden’s hand finds mine. "Then we run away. Anywhere you want to go. But we'll never know if anything's changed if we don't give them a chance to show us. Even if that means a potentially awkward family Thanksgiving where your father will definitely comment on my career choices and your mother will absolutely make at least one passive-aggressive remark about the museum's endowment fund and how her name is no longer the gala headliner."
Arden's career has become one of the safer harbors in conversation with my father. He tracks her successes like a harbormaster tracking ships, noting each promotion, each victory as she navigated the corporate seas. Until she surprised everyone, except me, by jumping from the big ship and starting to steer her own. Maybe because in her, he sees the kind of ambition he always wanted for me, though hers burns differently. When she officially opened her own firm, he sent a bottle of champagne to her office. The same vintage he opened when I graduated from college, though I doubt he remembers that detail.
Sometimes I catch him watching her at charity functions, as she navigates rooms full of potential investors with charm, and in some ways the fact that she took his name is a sense of pride he would never admit, but counts as a silver coin in his bank all the same.
"God, why do you want to subject yourself to this?"
She's quiet for a moment, thoughtful in that way that usually precedes something profound.
"Because I chose to become a Sterling, which means I’m involved. And if anything, it’s been years since we’ve been in that wine cellar."
I recall what it was like meeting her parents. It hit me like that Miami heat when we stepped off the plane, all-encompassing, impossible to hide from. They didn't treat love like a limited resource, didn't measure it out in careful spoonfuls or check the levels like it might run dry. That weekend, watching them move around their home, finishing each other's stories with shared narration, and sliding past each other in practiced dance steps, I realized I'd been reading love in a foreign language my whole life. The way they folded me into their life, no questions asked, no permissions needed.
She’s like them in so many ways, and in so many others she’s this incredible distinct blend of existence. Sharing that when she was younger, she struggled with some of the same ideas of familial expectations, only to discover their only expectations of her were those that she had set for herself.
I watch her pull her bottom lip between her teeth, the plumpness of her lips due to the depth of the red wine. I look at my wife, this woman who believes in second chances and the importance of choosing happiness over expectations. Who would walk into the Sterling family lion's den with me, armed with nothing but each other knowing that would be enough.
"If we do this," I say slowly, "we do it on our terms.”
“The only terms I like,” she affirms with that fierce protectiveness I've come to rely on, nodding vigorously enough that her curls bounce.
“We leave if it gets uncomfortable.” My voice comes out firmer now, finding its footing.
“We’ll run anywhere you want to go,” she promises softly, reaching across to still my fidgeting hands with hers.
“We don't stay at their house.” I list each condition like I'm building a wall, brick by careful brick.
“There’s that great boutique hotel in town we’ve always talked about!”
“And you have to promise to run interference if my father starts talking about profit margins."
"One of my favorite topics!"
“Okay.” I say through a sigh, letting my shoulders drop. It's not defeat. I know I could hold the line, and she would be right there with me, standing guard against the past.
"You don't have to decide right now,” her voice is gentle but sure, like she's leading me through a dark room. “But maybe... maybe it's time to stop declining the call and see what happens when you answer."
I finally take a bite of the risotto in front of me. It’s gone cold. But like most things, it can be reheated.