Chapter Thirty-Seven
TALLY
The house I grew up in had always been too big.
Too many rooms, too many formal sitting areas nobody actually sat in, too many framed photos of political handshakes and ribbon cuttings and Christmas cards from state senators we’d never actually met.
It echoed, even when it was full, especially now, when it wasn’t.
I’d been holed up in my childhood bedroom for days, staring at my old bulletin board like it might suddenly come alive and offer me advice.
The poster above my bed still read “LIVE LAUGH LOVE” in glittery cursive, but even the glitter seemed tired.
I was not living, or laughing, or loving.
I was rotting in bed, crying and pretending I didn’t care about the guy who was five hours away, probably sitting in his studio, already moved on without me.
Dig’s face filled the screen of my phone, too close and way too sparkly.
“Do I look like an appropriate amount of slutty?” he asked, adjusting the collar on a rhinestone-studded jacket that looked like it cost more than my rent back in Brooklyn.
“Because it’s a ‘regrets only’ kind of party tonight. ”
I managed a half-smile. “You look like the Times Square Ball.”
“I’m hoping it’s flashy enough to get the attention of someone who wants to watch my balls drop if you catch my drift.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Ew.”
“What’s going on with you? You look like you’re trapped in a horror movie about emotional repression and bad lighting. And you’re not laughing at any of my jokes.”
I flopped back on the bed with a groan. “Welcome to Newnan. Population: me, a very judgmental dog, and the Mayor of Passive-Aggressivetown.”
“Nancy?” he asked, offended.
Nancy whined from her spot by the door, pacing with the urgency of someone who had just remembered where they buried a bone. I sighed. “Speaking of, I think she has to pee. Which means I have to venture into the Wilds of Parental Disappointment. Pray for me.”
Dig leaned closer, his tone softening. “Has Charlie called?”
I shook my head once. “No.”
He didn’t push, only offered that soft, sad smile he’d perfected after years of watching me fall apart in slow motion. “Happy New Year, Tally. Go make some noise.”
But I did quite the opposite as I tiptoed my way down the elongated, winding staircase that led to the front foyer. I tried to be as quiet as possible so that my mother, wherever she was lurking in the halls of this home, didn’t hear me and start accosting me with a million questions.
Coming back to my hometown with my tail between my legs was one thing. Coming home pregnant, single, and jobless was another. And my mother, as she did, was using this as the kerosene she poured on the already outrageous blaze that was her disappointment in me.
Somehow, I had managed to successfully and stealthily waddle my way out of the double front doors and onto the hilly street, taking Nancy on a softly lit stroll through my childhood neighborhood. I also treated her to a montage of all the historical hotspots.
“And under that tree is where Doyle smoked his first cigarette and blamed it on me. And over there, on the Davis’ swing set, is where he told me it was him and me forever. Us against the world. Rat-faced liar…”
Nancy whimpered in agreement, trotting along ahead of me. She seemed spooked, and who could blame her? We left lazy, sleepy Savannah for this cookie-cutter, Stepford cul-de-sac.
As quietly as we could, we stretched open the front doors and tiptoed back through the foyer, but overhead lights flicked on like spotlights in a damn prison yard, and my mother ascended down the stairs like the warden herself.
“Tallulah,” she hissed. “You’ll wake the whole neighborhood up with that yapping dog.”
I rolled my eyes. “Settle down, your honor. You and I both know the dog didn’t make a single noise.
You just hate her for no good reason.“ I scooped the poodle up in my arms and stared my mother down. She used to scare me, but not anymore. “You’ll have to turn the gas up a little higher to drag me into your narcissistic, crazy alternate reality.”
A flat smile settled on her lips. But my father appeared from the direction of the kitchen, breaking the staredown contest between us, wielding a plate of peach cobbler loaded with ice cream.
“I didn’t miss this at all,” he said, shaking his head as he made his way up the stairs.
My mother flicked her wrist toward me. “At all hours of the night, Hollis. Out traipsing the neighborhood like a lost soul—with that yappy mutt and that disgrace of a belly. What if someone saw her?”
Hollis Aden, the first gentleman himself and steadfastly used to being agreeable to his wife, Mayor Vivianne Aden, shook his head as he passed her on the stairwell. “Whatever you say, Vivi.”
I groaned, staring up at both of them. “Shouldn’t you two be off at some New Year’s party? Isn’t it bad for your image that you haven’t left the house since I got home?”
“Now let’s make one thing perfectly clear, Tallulah,” my mother’s voice boomed through the massive house.
“Your father and I are embarrassed enough as it is that you would show your face here, in this town, with that child who belongs to God knows who in your stomach. To go to a party? To be asked questions about why you are here in this town in the condition you are in? I’d never get reelected again. You fool.”
She turned on her heel, following my father up the stairs. “And don’t forget—you’re a guest in this house. This is no longer your home.”
***
I sulked back into the bedroom, which was a virtual time machine to my past. Not a hair out of place since I left at 18.
Same white, wrought iron bedframe. Same floral wallpaper curling at the corners from too many steamy summers. It was the same stiff white carpet that looked clean but felt like walking on needles. Same crippling defeat after a showdown with my mother in the foyer.
I crawled into bed and curled onto my side, facing the muted television where Times Square glittered in grainy, hyperreal joy. Nancy Reagan was snuggled against my stomach, her tiny snores keeping rhythm with the soft thump of baby Aden’s kicks. I held them both like lifelines.
My thumb hovered over my phone, the weight of it suddenly enormous.
Was he watching this, too? Or was he back at the studio—shirt half-unbuttoned, charcoal on his hands from his latest sketch, Sutton’s voice bouncing off the walls while he pretended not to listen?
Maybe he was at the bar, stealing a laugh with Magnolia or teasing Lee about their relentless on again off again tryst. Or were they having a party? Was my brother there?
Maybe it didn’t matter where he was. Maybe what mattered was that he was still exactly who he’d always been—steady, dependable, good. And maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t thinking about me at all.
But my God, I was thinking of him.
I missed the way he held me—not like I was breakable, or already broken and needed to be fixed—but like he was anchoring me to a place I didn’t even realize I’d been searching for. A place that felt steady. A place that felt like mine.
I missed his hands, always warm, always steady, never hesitant. The way they found the parts of me I wasn’t sure how to love yet, and touched them like they were already worthy. Like he’d known all along that I deserved to be held gently.
I missed his scent—cedarwood soap and paint thinner, threaded with something warm that clung to my skin long after he was gone. It lingered on my clothes, in the sheets, in the air itself. The kind of thing that made a room feel occupied even when it wasn’t.
And Lord above, I missed his laugh. Not the big, easy one he tossed to his friends like spare change. The other one. The one that barely made a sound. The one that slipped out when he thought no one was listening—the one he only ever gave to me.
I blinked back the sting of tears and typed it out before I could change my mind.
TALLY: Happy New Year.
Sent.
Delivered.
No response.
The crowd on screen erupted, a thousand voices counting down all at once as the volume on the TV climbed—ten, nine, eight…
I turned it up a little more and let it fill the space.
Seven, six, five…
I kissed my hand and laid it gently over my stomach.
Four, three, two…
“Happy New Year, baby Aden,” I whispered. “I can’t wait to meet you this year.”
One.
The screen exploded with confetti. Music blared, people kissed, and fireworks lit up the world. And I stayed where I was, in a house that had never really been home, holding tight to the only things I hadn’t already lost.