EPILOGUE #2
“Yeah. If you don’t want to go in, that’s fine.
And if we go in and you decide you’re done, that you don’t want a relationship with them, I’ll support you one hundred percent.
But it kills me to let your last moment with them be a threat that hinged on what was going on with me.
” I bring her knuckles to my mouth, brushing my lips over them.
“That will grow to resentment someday, baby girl.”
“No, it won’t,” she insists, but her confidence in that statement is fragile.
“We’re getting hitched with the least amount of baggage possible, I’ve decided.”
“And this is how we get less baggage?” She howls a dubious laugh. “I don’t know how to forgive them. And at the same time, I feel stupid for not recognizing how lost those relationships had already been.”
“Then tell them that.”
She stares at me for a long beat. “I don’t see why this matters, especially if the end result is the same as the current situation.”
“It won’t be the fucking same, Tess. You will have taken your power back, not because you were falling apart at the thought of losing me. But because you’ll be making a decision with a clear head.”
“They don’t deserve—”
“They certainly don’t,” I growl, throwing my arm toward the house. “This has nothing to do with them. Fuck what they deserve. My only concern is you.”
She sits with that for about five minutes, soaking in the consoling silence only found in the country. The tittering birds and the rustling trees.
“And you really think I need this?” she eventually asks, her query ripe with the trust we’ve built.
“I do.” With her hand still in mind, I share something that’s been weighing on me.
“My mom wasn’t perfect. When someone’s gone, you dismiss the shit they did.
She was a good mom, loved us. But she was sad.
A lot. All the time, actually. Even right after we were having a blast, swing dancing in the living room, she’d be choked up. Tears for him.”
“Your father?” she surmises.
“No. Maybe.” I shrug, not really certain about any of it because I was so young.
“She was tired of my father cheating on her, so she ended up cheating too. She left us with people to do that, sometimes babysitters or friends. For years, she’d take us to our grandmother’s and jet off to see some guy.
We spent our summers in Oklahoma without my father, so it worked.
She prioritized her affair—not always, but enough.
“The day before she watched me with the balisong, I called her a hypocrite because I knew she was cheating. I’d overheard her discussing it with Axel and got so pissed that she’d been leaving us for the same reason my asshole father had.
I only got one more moment with her after that, but I’m so grateful that I did because at least we parted on a good note. ”
Tessa presses her palm against her sternum. “I get that. It’s why I always conducted myself with at least a modicum of grace, no matter what they threw at me, but it feels fresh. It’s not even what they did. In their ass-backward way, they were trying to help me. But their opinion of me is …”
“False. Fucked up. Absurd,” I fill in.
“Then, it was, which pisses me off, but let’s face it. Now I’m practically a serial kil—”
“Slow down,” I interrupt her. “You’ve only protected yourself and those you love.
But you can’t let their criticism take root, which is why I want you to do this in a way you feel proud of.
Whether you give them another chance or shut them out forever is irrelevant.
When I marry you, I want you to feel confident about where you landed with them. ”
“Okay,” she whispers, so I pull into the driveway and park as she asks, “What were the groceries for?”
Planting a kiss on her lips, I pluck the bags off the back seat. “I plan to make this an encounter I’m proud of too.”
When we reach the front porch, both her parents are waiting.
They were expecting us. Her father smiles, tentatively putting his arms out for a hug, and she hesitates for only a moment.
He’s the one I knew she needed to see most. She keeps his letter in her art room, and I catch her reading it a few times a week.
Granting them some privacy, I lift the shopping bag to her mother, who appears conflicted, and slide past her on my way to their kitchen, calling over my shoulder, “We’re making blueberry soufflé, Mrs. Lockhart.”
Tessa’s grandma mentioned that there was a soufflé mishap the day of the engagement brunch, and I back-pocketed that tidbit for later—or now.
My future mother-in-law leers at me while I unpack the ingredients and the ramekins, slip an apron over my head, and help myself to her pots, pans, and mixing tools.
“My mom grew up on a blueberry farm. My grandmother had mastered every imaginable recipe with blueberries, and she taught my siblings and me. Soufflé is temperamental, but once you get the hang of it, there’s nothing to it.”
She clears her throat, her lips twitching with emotion. “I knew your mom.”
I’m not sure why that takes my breath away, but it does. “You did?”
“Kind of.” She hedges, wringing her hands. “She used to come to the farmers market out here. By herself mostly. Sometimes with a few of you, the little two, especially.”
“Jax and Rena,” I confirm.
“Yes.” She gestures for me to get my ass in gear and start making the damn soufflé, so I preheat the oven and grease the ramekins while she gifts me a surprise piece of my mother.
“It was a break for her, from that life. She still had guards with her, but she … We used to talk. She was lovely. She didn’t come out and say it, but she was … ”
“Sad?” I ask, dropping the butter into a saucepan on the stove.
“Scared,” she returns.
My gut knots, the agony of my mother never answering my call rushing back to me. The fury Tessa’s mother greeted me with at the engagement brunch makes more sense. Maybe I should have considered it before. NOLA has a small-town atmosphere, wrapped in a big-city package.
I catch a glimpse of my girl and her father peeking in.
So much is written on Tessa’s doll-like face.
Heartbreak and understanding. She raises an eyebrow, quietly checking to see that I’m okay.
I nod my assurance, wondering how this got twisted since we’re here to mend things for her. Maybe it’s the same path.
“That’s probably accurate. My father wasn’t a good man.
” I keep to my task of adding flour, salt, and milk while saying my piece.
“I might not be either, but I love your daughter more than anything in this world. I’ll devote every day to becoming the man she needs, and I’ll never let her be scared or sad or alone.
I would give my life to protect her without hesitation. ”
Mrs. Lockhart preps for the next step. “Frankly, I won’t weigh in on what kind of man you are, and I don’t want to know anything about your business, nor do I want Tessa to have any part of it.
” She cracks the first egg, separating the yolk from the white.
“But I’m going to set that all aside. I believe you love my daughter.
I appreciate you calling my husband this morning and bringing her here.
It’s clear some of your mother’s fine manners stuck. ”
“That’s a start, but …” I let that hang while I blend the sauce mixture and the egg yolks. “You need to fix things with her so your family isn’t something I’m protecting her from.”
“I thought I was protecting her,” she admits in a barely audible voice. “I didn’t want her to experience what …” She dabs at a tear. “I’ve been terrified since she started working there, but I didn’t mean to hurt her like I did.”
“Tell her that,” I order. “But it can’t only be about my mother. That’s a valid reason for some concerns, but not an excuse for everything.” I move on to the soufflé process, ensuring she grasps how much to beat the egg whites.
It’s clear by her body language that she doesn’t love me demanding that she do anything, but she gets lost in the recipe, and when Tessa and her father join us, the conversation flows.
Tessa doesn’t shy away from sharing about herself.
She talks about Mercy, the Underground, tattooing, and her art.
Maybe each admission is a dare to see if they’ll chastise her, but they don’t.
They don’t bring up her sisters either, other than to mention how sorry they are.
The soufflé comes out beautifully, which has her mother elated. Gradually, the air grows more breathable. It’s not perfect, but it’s a step to acceptance on both sides. And a joyful encounter that my girl desperately craved.
After a few hours, we head out with a goodbye that migrates from the kitchen to the foyer to the front porch—a sign that everyone is eager to hold on to something.
“Do you need anything for tomorrow?” her father finally asks, doing his damnedest to stay upbeat and conceal his heartbreak at not being there for Tessa’s big day.
“Something blue?” her mother tacks on.
“You,” Tessa replies.
She didn’t mention that as an option, even though she’d casually dropped that our nuptials would be tomorrow. I think she was waiting to see if her parents were truly trying.
“Is it, uh … a fancy—”
“No,” Tessa cuts her mother’s rambling off. “It’s going to be at ho—in the penthouse. On the roof. Dinner. Music. Swimming. Dancing.” She peers at me with those wide turquoise beauties. “Just family.”
Her mother’s green eyes are glossy, her query emerging with a shaky timbre. “What made you decide to have it there?”
“We do these mandatory family meals. Axel makes us all gather around his table three times a week. And”—Tessa hitches a shoulder, tentative but resolved to own her happiness—“those are so special. Plus, Maddox and I spent our first real date up on that roof … talking. The rest of the resort is amazing but belongs to everyone. There, it’s only family.
I can’t think of a better place for us to start our life together. ”