Chapter 21
April Green looked like her daughter in thirty years and it was not a problem.
She arrived Saturday morning in a white sedan with the windows down and sunglasses on and a bag over her shoulder and she came up the circular drive and got out and Kirstin was off the porch before the engine cut.
They held each other in the driveway for a long time.
Beck watched from the steps with Hudson beside him and he didn't interrupt because a daughter seeing her mother was not a moment that needed a third person.
When they separated, April turned to him. She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and the eyes were Kirstin's. Dark, sharp, reading him in the first second the same way Kirstin had read him across Jon's bar over two months ago.
"So you're Beck," she said.
"Yes ma'am."
She tilted her head. "Hmm. Tall, dark?—"
"Mom!"
April grinned. "What? I'm observing."
She hugged him. No warning. Just arms around him, firm. She'd decided before she arrived that he was worth the drive from Jacksonville. She stepped back and held him at arm's length and studied his face.
"Okay," she said. "I see it."
"See what?"
April glanced at Kirstin. Kirstin shook her head once, fast, the universal signal for do not.
"Nothing," April said. She picked up her bag. "Show me this kitchen I've been hearing about."
He cooked.
Kirstin's kitchen, the one Nate had finished, the countertops she'd picked in February, the backsplash she'd chosen, the island she'd drawn on a napkin.
Beck stood in it and made dinner for Kirstin's mother and felt the rightness of cooking in a kitchen that Kirstin had built for herself and then let him into.
He made the pasta. The same sauce, the same bread, because the bread was his and the sauce was his and April deserved the version of him that showed up at four in the morning to get the rise time right.
Kirstin opened wine. April sat at the island and talked while he worked and the kitchen filled up with the three of them.
April was Kirstin. Just as fun, just as sharp, just as easy to be around.
She told stories about Kirstin at twelve, at sixteen, at twenty-one.
She told a story about Kirstin's first bartending shift at Jon's where she'd dropped a tray of glasses and Jon had said "that's my girl" and gone back to his conversation.
She told a story about Kirstin in law school, studying at April's kitchen table in Jacksonville, highlighters sorted by color, note cards stacked in perfect rows, the discipline of someone who knew exactly what she wanted and was willing to sit still long enough to get it.
Kirstin let her mother talk. She let the stories come. She didn't redirect or manage the conversation. She just leaned against the counter with her wine and let April paint the picture of a woman Beck was still learning.
They ate at the table. The new table, in the new kitchen, with the candles Kirstin had kept from the birthday. The pasta was right. The bread was right. April ate like someone who appreciated food made with intention.
"Ethan," April said. "This is amazing. I've literally never met a man who could cook without a grill."
"Thank you. I can grill, but cooking is more personal."
April laughed. "Personal?"
"Yeah. Grilling isn't hard and you spend most of the time prepping and sitting and waiting. Boring."
"Boring," she said. "I take it you like to be moving?"
"Always," Kirstin said. "He has undiagnosed ADHD."
"You love me anyway," he said.
"Yes, I do."
The table went quiet.
April's face went soft. Not sad, not surprised. Soft. The face of a woman watching something she recognized and hadn't seen in a long time and hadn't expected to see tonight over pasta in her daughter's kitchen.
Kirstin hadn't moved. The wine glass was in her hand. Her mouth was slightly open. She'd heard what she said a half second after she said it and now it was in the room and it wasn't coming back.
Beck held still. He didn't reach for her. He didn't make a joke. He let it sit because what she'd said was true and the truth didn't need anything from him except to exist.
"You really do love my daughter?" April said. Quiet. Looking at him.
"Yes ma'am. I do."
April picked up her wine. She took a sip. She set it down. Her eyes were bright and she blinked once and the brightness held.
"Well," she said. "Somebody pour me some more of that."
Kirstin laughed. The tension broke. She reached for the bottle and poured and April held her glass up and Kirstin touched hers to it and Beck touched his to both and nobody said what the toast was for because everybody already knew.
April and Kirstin were on the porch.
Beck had cleaned the kitchen. The dishes were done, the counters wiped, the leftover pasta put away in containers Kirstin kept in the cabinet by the stove.
Through the window over the sink, they were sitting in the two chairs on the porch, their legs pulled up, wine glasses in their hands, their voices low and warm in the dark.
He didn't go out. This was theirs.
He heard April's voice but not the words. He heard Kirstin go quiet. He heard April say something longer, measured, and then Kirstin leaned into her mother and April put her arm around her and they sat like that.
He turned off the kitchen light. He went to the couch. Hudson was already there, asleep, his chin on the armrest. Beck sat beside him and waited.
The porch door opened twenty minutes later. April came through first. Her eyes were red but her face was steady.
"Goodnight, Ethan." She put her hand on his shoulder as she passed. "Thank you for dinner. And for everything else."
She went down the hallway to the guest room and the door closed softly behind her.
Kirstin came in. She leaned against the wall across from the couch. Her arms were crossed. Her face was still.
Beck looked at her. She gave nothing.
He gave her his best smile and ran his fingers through his curls. Nothing. Stone.
"I thought that went well," he said.
"Did you?"
He was starting to get nervous. "I thought so."
"You tricked me."
"Huh?"
"You tricked me, Ethan Beck." She walked toward him. The stone face held. "You made me admit I was in love with you in front of my mother."
He stood from the couch. He closed the distance between them. Her arms were still crossed and her face was still set and her eyes were doing the thing where they were angry and amused at the same time and he'd learned weeks ago that this was his favorite version of her.
"I've been in love with you," he said. "That's not new information."
Her arms loosened. Not all at once. An inch.
"What took you so long to say something?"
"I just needed a couple more at bats before I got your timing down."
The stone face broke. It broke slow, starting at the corners of her mouth, moving to her eyes. Then she was laughing, hitting his chest with both hands. He caught her wrists. Pulled her in. Kissed her. She kissed him back.
The kitchen was dark. The porch was empty. Her mother was down the hall. Hudson was asleep on the couch. The two of them stood in the middle of the house Kirstin had rebuilt and held onto each other.
"I love you," she said. Into his chest. Quiet. Not an accident this time.
"I know," he said. "I've been waiting for you to catch up."
She hit him again. They were done being serious. Hudson lifted his head, assessed the situation, put his head back down.
They turned off the lights. They went to bed. The house was full for the first time since Kirstin had lived in it. Her mother in the guest room. Her dog on the couch. The man she loved beside her.