Chapter 27
Twenty-seven
Christian went back to Elkins the next day to see Annie again before he drove back to Massachusetts.
I took the elevator down to Finlay and got there right after he’d been buzzed through the maximum-security doors.
His eyes were red, like he’d been repeatedly wiping away tears.
I didn’t need to ask to surmise that Annie probably hadn’t recognized him.
“Please keep in touch, Miss Lupo.” He gave me a hug. “If you ever want to talk, or if anything…” He trailed off, and I was grateful. I could imagine, but didn’t want to hear, the rest of the sentence. “Let me give you my phone number, okay?”
After airdropping me his contact information—Christian was skilled with a smartphone—he asked about my “young man.”
“Oh, Connor’s not my young man,” I said, flushing a little. Had Connor not mentioned I’d taken his heart and stomped on it? “I’m not sure he was ever my young man.”
But he wanted to be, and it felt like he could’ve been.
If I’d only let him in.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that last part,” Christian said smoothly. “As I don’t believe it to be true.”
I folded my arms over my squirming lungs. “Our timing was off,” I told him. “It couldn’t have been worse.”
Christian considered. “One thing about timing,” he finally said, “is that it is fairly malleable. You can play with it, reshape it to your advantage. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy, of course.
Your grandmother and I had perfect timing, but it ended the way it did because of an obstacle.
We could not surpass my parents’ disapproval.
” He paused. “But from what your dad told me about Annette and your grandfather… He told the timing to screw itself.”
My heart twisted. Annie and Pops had met in Grand Central Station’s oyster bar a few days after her twenty-third birthday.
She was having lunch with her uncle while Pops was waiting for his train…
because he had gotten an exciting new job and apartment in Washington, DC. He was leaving for his new life.
He never left.
I knew what Christian was insinuating. Everything was pushing my grandfather into his next chapter, but after he met Annie, he flipped back pages to stay in New York.
But how could I do that with Connor? It’s not like I could go back to the beginning of vacation, that was impossible.
God, I’d made such a mess.
I reached into my purse and handed Christian an envelope; his eyes widened when he pulled out a picture: the Polaroid of Annie standing barefoot by the tractor. “No.” He started shaking his head, but I caught his grip on the photo tighten. “Olivia, you must keep this.”
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “I made copies, and I have a feeling this was your photo first.”
His smile was nostalgic. “It was tacked above my desk at Georgetown, and she and Andrew helped me pack up my room after junior year. I guess she stole it.” He slipped the photo back in the bag. “Thank you—thank you very much.”
The corners of my eyes prickled as I gave him one last hug goodbye.
* * *
On Sunday afternoon, my dad went to pick up Erica and the twins at the airport, and when they got home, it looked like the last thing my stepmother wanted to do was unpack.
Luckily, I gave her an excuse not to.
“Do you want to walk?” I asked her, Swede already leashed and ready to roll. “Get some fresh air and feel the breeze in your hair?”
Erica loved a stroll to stretch her legs and unwind after a day of travel. “Sure,” she said, releasing a deep sigh. “That sounds perfect.”
I was too nervous for nuance, so once we were two houses down, I apologized. “I’m so sorry, Erica,” I said. “I’m sorry for putting glue in your shampoo.”
My stepmother gave me a quizzical look, as if to say, Wasn’t that almost a decade ago?
“I know I was a total beast to you back then,” I kept going.
“And I’m embarrassed to say that I’m not much better now.
The things I’ve said to you over the past couple months…
” A lump formed in my throat as I searched for the right word.
“Well, I’m surprised you still haven’t stuck a bar of soap in my mouth. ”
We both fought a laugh. Annie used to have one threat when babysitting Maisie and Bryce; whenever they misbehaved, she’d say, “If you do that again, I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap!” (It was apparently a line she’d picked up from my great-grandmother.)
Erica neither thanked me for my apology nor told me it was okay. Instead, she said, “I understand I will never be your mom, Olivia, but I’ve never tried to be.”
“I know,” I said quietly, because I did.
“Then what am I doing so wrong?” she asked. We slowed at a break in the sidewalk, waiting for a couple cars to pass before we crossed. “You obviously find something about me terrible, but even after racking my brains, it’s still not clear to me.”
My pulse pitched, not wanting to touch that with a ten-foot pole. No matter how nicely I phrased my problems, I couldn’t tear into Erica like that. My dad would never forgive me.
“Really,” she pressed. “Tell me, Olivia.”
She sounded desperate, like this had kept and still kept her up at night, but we passed three more mailboxes before I mustered up the courage to speak.
“The Christmas card,” I said as Swede barked and wagged his tail at the corgi watching us from his fenced-in yard.
“Every year, the Christmas card is signed ‘The Lupo family and Olivia.’”
Erica furrowed her eyebrows. “I think I did all our names last year,” she said. “Christian, Erica, Maisie, Bryce, and Olivia.”
I didn’t point out that I was last, despite being the oldest. That wasn’t really the point.
“No.” I shook my head. “I mean, I feel like that’s how it is.
I feel like you four are a family, and I’m just there.
” I swallowed and continued, not giving her a chance to speak.
“And that you can’t wait for me to leave.
I didn’t even ask for the biggest bedroom when we moved to Haddonfield, but you told me I couldn’t have it.
You said Bryce and Maisie were going to live here the longest, so they deserved the biggest rooms. And you gave me a full-on freaking luggage set for graduation last year. ”
“I did, didn’t I?” Erica grimaced. “Yikes, I didn’t realize how any of that came off. You know Maisie has way too much stuff, and I thought Bryce needed the biggest room because he’s the only boy and needs his own space.”
I sighed. “Why didn’t you say that?”
“Because it’s a cliché, and I worried that you would roll your eyes at me. You were already so bitter about the move.”
“Hey, I didn’t put up a fight!”
“No, you didn’t, but it was all in your body language.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. I guess I’d been so focused on keeping my sarcasm and facial expressions in check that I’d forgotten about everything else. I really didn’t mind moving; it was the reason we were moving. Away from Annie.
“And the luggage…” Erica laughed. “Olivia, you were always drooling over Annie’s European luggage. Your dad and I were giddy when we ordered your set. We thought we’d knocked it out of the park!”
“I didn’t say I didn’t love it,” I murmured.
“I don’t have some diabolical plan to push you out the front door and lock it behind me,” she went on.
“I’m just…” She sighed and took Swede’s leash from me, wanting to walk him.
“I’m just trying to help launch you the best I can—or guide you, or just support you.
Your dad is away so much, and as heartbreaking as it is, Annie is no longer the most capable North Star. ”
“Is it?” I asked, voice brittle. “Heartbreaking?”
Erica stopped in her tracks; Swede strained against his leash. “Are you really insinuating what I think you’re insinuating?”
My heart hammered. “No,” I told her. “I know you care, Erica. I know you love Annie so much.” A lump formed in my throat. “But you’re keeping it all bottled up, and maybe you think that’s best…” My voice hitched. “I want to know that I’m not the only one so completely gutted by this.”
Erica didn’t say anything, but I blinked to see her bottom lip quiver.
I’d never seen that happen before, and I suddenly felt badly that we were in public, standing on the sidewalk just outside of town.
“Someone needs to stay strong,” she said.
“I need to be there for your dad and the twins…and you, if you’ll let me.
” She wavered. “But of course I’m a mess, Olivia.
Annie was—is—more than my mother-in-law.
She gets me and has always been there for me.
I’m sure it took you approximately thirty seconds to notice that my parents don’t understand, or try hard to understand, what I do for a living.
Beth and Jay too. While Annie…” She shook her head.
“We spoke every day about my work. What I’m most passionate about, how to appeal to multiple age demographics, which business opportunities are worth taking and which I should pass on.
She taught me everything I know about flower arrangements, and she is a wonder at seasonal tablescapes and light hors d’oeuvres.
I wouldn’t be where I am without her, and to lose that special collaboration feels a little like losing a limb.
” Two tears escaped, trailing down her cheeks; she didn’t wipe them away.
“Not to mention, she welcomed me with such open arms when your dad first introduced me to her. I worried so much about pleasing her, worried about proving that I was good enough for her widowed son.” She sighed.
“That fear disappeared the moment I met her.”
I didn’t have any words, and I had an inkling that she didn’t want me to make things more dramatic, so I just took her hand and squeezed it. “Should we turn around?”
“No.” She squeezed my fingers back. “Let’s go a little farther.”
We shared a smile then resumed walking.
* * *
I asked about her scrapbook pages on the way home. “What did you end up doing?”
“I was going to do a collage of my parents and their dogs over the years,” she said, pulling her hair into a ponytail. “But before I could, we opened up the scrapbook to the rest of the family and Finn and Teddy pre-empted that stroke of genius, with some help from Connor.”
I sighed. “More evidence to support the claim that Connor McCallister is perfect…”
“Connor McCallister is not perfect,” Erica replied, then affectionately poked me. “But I think he might be perfect for you.”
I was powerless against the extreme heat flooding my face. Not even the sudden breeze could cool me off.
She gave me a look. “I know that you know that I haven’t cared for any of the boys you’ve spent time with,” she said. “Probably because you think I think they’re dorks.”
Dork, Maisie’s code for douche.
Ha, who was my sister kidding?
“A few of them were, to be clear,” she added. “But that’s not it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What is, pray tell?”
“It’s that they’re people you knew you wouldn’t let in, or at least let in enough to matter to you. People you can happily leave before they leave you, before they can break your heart.”
My eyes instantly welled up.
“I am so deeply sorry about your mother and Pops…” she said slowly.
“And Annie, in her way, but losing them doesn’t prophesize that everyone in your life is going to leave you.
” She laughed. “You have been unfair to me, Olivia, and at times, properly vicious, but dammit, I will not be deterred!” She wrapped an arm around me as a couple crocodile tears escaped.
“I love you so much, and I’m not going anywhere. ”
All I could do was nod.
“And neither is Connor McCallister,” she whispered, squeezing me tight. “Believe me, and trust him.”
I wanted to. I desperately wanted to.
“Anyway,” she said, “one of my scrapbook pages was an ode to my siblings’ hideous childhood haircuts.”
I found it in myself to laugh. “Was a photo of you among them?”
“Of course not.” Erica shook her head. “Because Peggy learned a thing or two by the time I came along. Instead of a pageboy cut, I had a Posh Spice–style bob.”
“Hey, that’s one plus of being the way-youngest,” I pointed out.
“You know, I never thought of it like that.” She giggled. “But I guess it is…”