Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Well, yes, actually,” Joan said, and Whit could hear noise in the background. “I’m on the train headed in your direction.”
For the space of a breath, Whit did panic at the thought that she was coming to find him, to threaten him with physical violence
if he didn’t have a draft ready, but Joan kept talking.
“My family lives in Plymouth, and as you can imagine, Thanksgiving is a big deal there.”
Relaxed now, Whit smiled. “Does everyone wear lace collars and buckle shoes?’
“Sort of,” Joan said, laughing. “There’s a parade, of course. Several reenactments, you get the picture.”
Whit laughed, too, realizing in the back of his brain that this was perhaps the first time he and Joan had done sustained,
pleasant small talk since Helen died.
“So listen,” she said eventually. “I just wanted to check in before the holidays get into full swing—”
“We’re halfway there, Joan. A little more than, actually. And moving swiftly.”
He winced and crunched a dry leaf with his duck boot in the space of silence that followed. The we had come out of him without thinking, but then Joan didn’t take it the way he’d meant it.
“We are?” she said, in the same tone a child would use upon learning she was taking a surprise trip to Disney World. Close one.
“Yes,” Whit said, and the ability to say that word and mean it filled him with a light easiness he hadn’t ever felt when talking to Joan before.
“Oh, Whit, that’s great. That’s great. Do you think, by January, you’ll . . .”
“I really do.”
He was nodding vigorously, more to himself than to her. They were really going to do this thing. The Monumental Task had been
chipped and chiseled away at like the ominous face of a Greek sculpture worn down by the centuries. It wasn’t scary anymore—it
just was—and if it weren’t so cold out, he might have been tempted to grab the beanie off his head and toss it in the air
like Mary Tyler Moore. They were going to make it after all.
It took a lot to take Ian Hoult’s vile little email off Merritt’s mind, but the sight of the Longacre homestead glowing like
a dollhouse against the overcast November day did the trick. Her fondness for the place had grown over the last two months
or so, in spite of its neglected single-father-slash-widower state. Inside, it had been at turns gloomy and cozy, and the
cozy was mostly to do with its fireplace and what it meant for Merritt, and yes, its inhabitants. Annie, Evie, Whit.
Whit.
On Thanksgiving Day, however, the house was cozy on its own terms. Evie had met Merritt and her mother at the door wearing a bright white bodysuit top, jeans, and a light pink apron at her waist. Her hair was pulled back in a copious high ponytail but was as glamorous as ever, and Merritt had immediately second-guessed her own outfit, which, just half an hour earlier, she had felt was quite chic: a smocked, long-sleeved black maxi dress.
She had even put earrings in—little gold fan-shaped ones that had made her lobes bleed at first. And then, there was her signature indigo coat and the bulky crocheted scarf and, oh God, she had thought, do I look like a teacher on Back to School Night?
A minister’s wife? And why am I suddenly so freaking nervous?
These thoughts passed in an instant as Evie pulled first her and then Kathleen into hugs before stepping back to welcome them
into what amounted to a brand-new house. Lamps were on in every room, and candles burned, in both the squat scented and skinny
white beeswax varieties. Curtains that were usually drawn had been pulled pack; the Vince Guaraldi Trio played in the background;
and the kitchen, which in Merritt’s experience had only ever been used to make tea, was emanating oven heat and noise and
the smells of a dozen delicious seasonal dishes.
Willa and Adrienne were here, as was Albie, and more hugs were exchanged. Annie was in the living room, streaming the Macy’s
parade, and a very, very handsome and fashionable man in a ribbed black turtleneck rolled up to the elbows sat on the couch
beside her.
“This is my uncle édouard,” Annie explained when Merritt stopped to say hi, now without her coat or scarf. “This is Dad’s
friend Merritt.”
The man was long-limbed and broad-shouldered, with olive skin, pond-green eyes, and a dark, elegantly trimmed beard. He quickly
came to his feet and held out a hand to shake, revealing veiny arms and a tattoo in French just below the inner crook of his
elbow.
“Hello,” he said in a slight accent, as she shook his wide, moisturized hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Hello,” Merritt said, trying to ignore the flustered feeling fluttering in her chest. God, he was handsome.
“You’re the hockey player?” she asked, because she felt a desperate need to say something to keep from staring at his eyes, his arms, the thighs that seemed to be testing the durability of his designer jeans.
“Former,” he offered with a shrug, before explaining that he was working somewhere doing some kind of law, though the details went unheard as all of Merritt’s attention had now centered itself on the man’s sharp jawline
and enticing accent, the Frenchness with which he’d said the words Montréal and liaison.
“Is this your second Thanksgiving then?” Merritt asked, when she realized he’d finished speaking. “Isn’t Canadian Thanksgiving
in October?”
He smiled, as if proud of her trivial Canadian knowledge, and her heart fluttered a bit faster.
“Yes, but Evie and I don’t make a big to-do about it. My family are terrible, and we ’ave more fun at this one, anyway.”
Merritt laughed far harder than was warranted, and Whit appeared in the room, as if drawn by the sound. He wore a crisp blue
button-down tucked into dark jeans, and his hair was styled just slightly more than usual. The fluttering bird in Merritt’s
chest became a warm, affectionate cat at the sight at him.
“Hi,” Whit said, looking from Merritt to édouard with—what was that?—was that nervousness? Merritt suppressed a smirk.
“Hi,” she said back. “édouard was just telling me a bit about himself. He’s quite fascinating.”
She patted playfully at the Canadian’s bare forearm and watched as Whit’s eyes widened slightly.
“Yes, éd is certainly something.”
édouard smiled, oblivious to whatever this was playing out before him, until Evie called to him from the kitchen and Whit
noticeably relaxed.
“He is incredibly handsome,” Merritt said in a quick, low voice she knew Annie wouldn’t register over the sound of the parade.
Whit nodded, as if it would be impossible to disagree.
“Like, incredibly handsome.”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“You did not tell me you were related to someone so handsome.”
“I don’t often go around talking about it.”
“You should really warn people.”
“All right,” he said, with some finality.
Merritt let her smirk come out. “What, are you jealous?”
She was taking a chance.
Whit narrowed his eyes at her. Playfully.
“Jealous? Of the winner of the number-three spot in La Semaine’s Sexiest Quebecois Professionals for the second year running?”
“Is that real?” Merritt asked.
Whit shrugged.
“And who on earth beat him out for first and second? Hold on, I need to google something.”
He rolled his eyes. “This is how it always goes.”
They were close enough for her to touch him, so she did. She pressed his elbow, gently, and said, as if comforting him, “You
look very nice.”
He grinned, clearly choosing to take the compliment genuinely. “That’s what I was going to say—about you. But you ruined it
by fawning all over my brother-in-law.”
“I did not fawn over him.”
“You came pretty close.”
“Well, he . . . I’m sorry, my hands were tied.”
He rolled his eyes again, then smiled at her. “You really do look nice. I like your hair that way.”
She had done her hair—had lightly curled it—and he had noticed.
Whit looked around the dining room table.
Typically covered in laundry and Annie’s schoolwork, it was now draped in a deep green tablecloth and elegantly appointed by his sister, who’d found the china he and Helen had registered for but never actually used.
Evie handwashed each plate, hand-selected the greenery and pine cones arranged up and down a muted gold runner, and handmade each dish now weighting down the long, sturdy table.
Around him were his friends, his family, his daughter’s librarian, and Merritt.
Kathleen sat between them at the midafternoon meal, and Adrienne and Willa sat across from them, asking Kathleen about books
and book bans and rehashing memories of Thanksgivings past. Whit didn’t mind. He liked just being near Merritt, liked watching
her interact with his friends and her mother, liked how Evie laughed at her jokes and how Annie listened when she spoke. He
liked . . .
He liked her.
He liked her. There it was.
And of course, beneath the self-loathing he felt at having used such a silly phrase to describe his feelings—I like her—those words had an echo, and that echo was the name Helen.
This was his and Annie’s second Thanksgiving with her gone, and that was still a tender thing. The day felt different without
her, the family felt incomplete, and if he allowed himself to dwell on it for too long, he could feel himself slipping into
a kind of yearning—to hear her voice, to smell the pies she always made, to laugh at her parade commentary.
He had taken a walk early that morning and thought of all these things, and though he would never hear Helen’s voice again,
Evie had made the pies, and édouard had made Annie laugh at the parade floats, and Merritt was here. That felt different,
too, but an okay different. A happy different, in fact. He liked her.