Chapter Twenty #2
“Not at all,” he said with complete honesty. He had enjoyed his time here far more than he ever expected. “Like I said, Audrey’s a great kid and very self-sufficient. She definitely has her shit together. I’m not sure she even needed me around.”
“I feel that way sometimes. She’s always been mature beyond her years. I didn’t have much to do with that.”
“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. You’ve been raising her alone most of her life. I don’t think I fully realized what a tough road that must have been until recently.”
He had experienced a tiny fraction of what it meant to be the sole responsible adult in a household. He couldn’t imagine bearing that load alone for years, as Kim had managed all these years with Audrey and like Holly was doing with Lydia.
“What about Dad and Diane?” she asked. “Have you seen much of them while you’ve been in the area?”
He thought of his strained relationship with the colonel, their few awkward, uncomfortable interactions.
“A little, here and there.”
“How is Diane? I mean, how is she really ? I tried to talk to Dad whenever I had the chance, which wasn’t often. He always assured me Diane is on the mend but I’m not sure if he was telling the truth or trying to sugarcoat it.”
“She still has a long road to recovery,” he admitted. “But she seems better every time I see her.”
“I don’t know how I’ll ever make it up to her. To everyone. Dad, Diane, Audrey. You.”
Ryan glanced over at Kim as they drove past snow-dusted trees that framed the landscape outside the window. He could feel the weight of her guilt like an invisible presence in the car.
“You know,” he said, breaking the silence, “it takes guts to face what you’ve been through. Not everyone would step up and take responsibility the way you have.”
Kim’s gaze flickered toward him, uncertain. “It doesn’t feel like enough,” she murmured. “I hurt people, Ryan. Diane may never fully recover. How can that ever be enough?”
“It doesn’t erase what happened. But you’re doing the hard work now—the work most people would run from. You’re owning it. You went to rehab, you’re staying sober and you’re putting one foot in front of the other. That’s more than most people do. And it’s the only way forward.”
Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away. “What if I mess up again?”
“You won’t,” Ryan said firmly. “You’ve learned from this. And if you do stumble, you’ll get back up. That’s what matters. Diane, Dad, Audrey. They don’t need you to be perfect. They only need you to keep trying. And that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“Thanks, Ry. I needed to hear that.”
He smiled as he drove past the brick welcome sign at the Shelter Springs town boundary. “I’m glad you were able to make it home for Christmas. And Audrey is over the moon.”
“I’m afraid it’s going to be a bit of a ramshackle Christmas. Dad invited us for dinner tomorrow night so I don’t have to worry about that part of it, but I’ve done nothing else to get ready. Poor Audrey won’t exactly have an unforgettable Christmas.”
“She will have exactly what she wants most. Her mom.”
When he pulled into the driveway of her small rental house a short time later, her eyes widened.
“Oh. Someone decorated the house. Was that you?”
“With some help,” he said gruffly. “Holly and Lydia Moore gave us a hand a few weeks ago. Audrey wanted to make sure you didn’t have to worry about anything except enjoying the holidays when you came home.”
She sniffled, wiping her eyes with a tissue she pulled from the pocket of her hoodie. “How did I ever get so lucky to have such an amazing daughter and wonderful friends like Holly?”
He only smiled in response. He had hardly put his truck in Park when Audrey flew out of the house and yanked open the passenger door.
“Mom!” she exclaimed.
Laughing and crying, Kim climbed out and wrapped her daughter in a tight embrace. “Oh baby. I missed you so much.”
“I’m so glad you’re home, Mom. I missed you, too.”
“The house looks wonderful. And you decorated the tree!”
“Lydia and I did it,” Audrey said. “Holly helped, too. And she and Uncle Ry hung all the lights out here.”
“Everything is magical. Thank you for going to all that work.”
She was admiring the lights in the bushes and the wreath on the door when a car pulled into the driveway behind his pickup.
Ryan stiffened when he recognized his father’s Cadillac SUV. He saw his father in the driver’s seat and, to his surprise, Diane in the passenger seat.
That had only begun to register when Doug climbed out and hurried up the porch toward them. To Ryan’s shock, his normally stoic father wore his emotions on his features as he reached for Kim and held her in the same kind of tight, almost desperate embrace Kim herself had given Audrey.
“How wonderful that you made it home, Kimmy.”
“Thanks, Dad.” She hugged him back, her eyes tightly closed. The love between his father and his sister was as clear as a candle glowing in a frosty window, warm and unwavering.
Something hard inside Ryan seemed to shift and settle as he watched them.
As a teenager, Kim had been as bitter as he was about the choices their father made.
She had been so upset that she had run away, into the arms of a man who had dragged her further into the seedy underbelly of drugs and addiction.
Yet somehow, despite everything, the two of them had managed to heal the rift between them.
Why was it so easy for Kim to forgive? She had every reason to stay angry. More than he did, really. Their father’s decisions had pushed her into a downward spiral, and yet here she was, finding solace in his embrace.
He wanted to believe it was as simple as time but he knew better. Time alone didn’t heal wounds like that. Forgiveness required something deeper, something he couldn’t seem to muster, no matter how hard he tried.
His father’s voice, low and steady, carried through the December air as he whispered something to Kim. The sight made Ryan’s chest ache. Maybe it wasn’t merely time that had healed their relationship. Maybe it was something he had never let himself consider.
The possibility that their father truly had changed.
The thought unsettled him. How could he let go of the resentment he had clung to for so long? If he didn’t, was he destined to remain on the outside, watching others find the peace he couldn’t?
“We should all go in out of the cold,” he said, his voice gruff.
The colonel shook his head. “I’m afraid we can’t stay long. We just came from physical therapy and Diane is pooped. But we had to come and welcome home our girl.”
For the first time, Kim must have realized Diane was still in the passenger seat. She froze for a moment, then made her way to the vehicle.
Diane opened the door before she reached it, holding both hands out to squeeze Kim’s, even the one in the cast.
“Oh, Diane,” Kim said, both her features and her voice anguished. “I am more sorry than I can ever say.”
“Hush.” The older woman looked uncharacteristically stern. “It was an accident. You weren’t to blame—the other driver was.”
“I should never have been behind the wheel. If I hadn’t been impaired, I might have been able to avoid the collision.”
“And if I hadn’t insisted we go Black Friday shopping, we wouldn’t have been on the road in the first place.”
“And if I hadn’t been looking at my phone, I might have done a better job as your backseat driver and warned you the other car wasn’t going to stop at the red light,” Audrey said, which made both of the older women laugh, defusing the charged emotion of the moment.
“I’m glad you’re home, my dear.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come inside?” Ryan said. “I was going to order a pizza for dinner.”
“That sounds lovely but physical therapy exhausts me, I’m ashamed to say. Right now I just want to go home. We’ll see you all tomorrow for Christmas Eve, though. Your dad is planning to grill steaks. I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Yes. Definitely,” Kim said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
With hugs for Kim and Audrey and a stiff nod to Ryan, Doug climbed back into the SUV and they backed out of the driveway.
As Ryan fully expected, Kim was beyond thrilled with the interior decor. “It looks perfect. I can’t believe you guys did all this.”
“It was really fun, especially with Holly and Lydia helping us. I think Uncle Ry was into it, even though he pretended not to be. He and Holly took forever outside hanging the lights, anyway.”
Kim gave him a surprised but speculative look. “Did you?”
“Yeah. They’ve spent a lot of time together, actually,” his busybody niece informed her mother. “Uncle Ryan, tell Mom about your big date with her on Saturday.”
He didn’t want to think about her, yet he couldn’t seem to help it. Their kiss seemed seared into his memory.
“We don’t need to get into it now.”
“What if we want to?” Kim said, giving him a teasing older-sister sort of look. “You went out with Holly?”
“He took her to a wedding she had to go to. Lydia was the flower girl. Uncle Ryan borrowed some fancy clothes from Dad and looked pretty good.”
Kim’s interest seemed to sharpen. “A wedding? Was it Kristine Moore’s wedding?”
While he would prefer to avoid talking to his sister about Holly, he suddenly realized he needed to let her in on the truth, in case anybody happened to ask her about his supposed relationship with her employer and friend.
“We pretended to be a thing so she wouldn’t have to feel awkward around Troy and his family, going to the wedding with only Lydia. We made a deal. I went with her as her plus-one to the wedding and in exchange, she helped me decorate this place for you and Audrey.”
She stared at him for a long moment then she began to laugh. “Oh my word. I can’t believe you did that. It’s priceless!”
He couldn’t tell his sister what a mess he had made of everything. Their fake dating had begun to feel entirely too real. He was only supposed to take her to a wedding, not fall for her.