Chapter 2 #2
There had been a time when thinking about him felt like pressing on a bruise that covered her entire chest, but that unending ache had eased.
Now, the pain was different. It was still there, but nowadays, it felt survivable.
Unlike those first weeks and months following his passing, when she was certain she would drown in her own grief.
“I never got to meet Phil, but Victor always spoke very highly of him,” Dean said. “I figure he must have been something pretty special to get by your personal bulldog of a brother.”
Vivian smiled, huffing out a laugh. “I don’t talk about him much,” she admitted quietly. “When he died…” She exhaled slowly. “Everything happened at once.”
She could recall the hospital corridors, the nauseating smell of antiseptic, the exhaustion that no amount of sleep could cure.
“He had a glioblastoma, the most aggressive type of brain tumor. We found out about it just a few months after we discovered I was pregnant.”
Dean rubbed his jaw, his eyes sad. “Jesus. I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for both of you.”
“I spent a lot of that first year after he passed away pissed off at the world. I mean, there are some truly shitty humans on this planet, while Phil was one of the best. He was an amazing teacher and husband and friend.” Vivian heard the hint of anger hovering around the edges of her words.
No amount of time would ever change that.
Her grief ebbed and flowed depending on the day, but the anger level always remained steady.
“I’m sure he was.”
Vivian’s eyes lost focus briefly as she continued. “He died a month before Pip was born.”
“Fuck,” Dean mumbled under his breath.
“I went from planning a funeral to bringing home a newborn. Honestly, I don’t remember those first few months. If it hadn’t been for Victor and Belle, I’m not sure what I would have done. They kept me afloat.”
She remembered enough. Like the sleepless nights and the waves of grief that constantly crashed into her.
The guilt she felt as she watched Pip’s first smile, when she heard her first laugh, when her daughter took her first steps.
She struggled to understand why she got to see all those things when Phil didn’t.
But the worst had been the bone-shaking fear that she would fail the tiny baby girl who depended on her for everything.
Dean listened without interrupting. He didn’t look at her with pity—something she’d had enough of to last her a lifetime—but with compassion.
“It’s strange,” she said, as much to herself as to him. “While I don’t talk about Phil much, I think about him constantly. Is that weird?”
Dean shook his head. “Not at all. Tell me about him. What did you love the most about him?”
“He was…” She smiled. “He was sort of awkward and shy, the kind of guy who was easy to overlook until you saw him. Then he was impossible to miss. He was also one of the funniest men I’ve ever known.
We met in a science class during our freshman year.
We sat next to each other for nearly a month, but he never spoke a word to me.
Then one day, out of the blue, he asked if I’d be interested in tutoring him.
He said he was struggling with some of the stuff in the class.
He even offered to pay me. I agreed, so for the next month and a half, we met in the library three afternoons a week.
At first, we talked only about the class.
But soon our sessions became less about the course and more about getting to know each other.
“Then one day, I overheard him talking to our professor after class. I’d forgotten my notebook and had gone back for it.
It turned out that Phil had been excelling in the class the entire time.
Hell, he’d had a higher grade than me! When I confronted him, he said he’d wanted to ask me out since the first day of class, but he figured someone as pretty and smart as me already had a boyfriend, so he hatched the tutoring scheme. ”
Dean’s eyes widened. “That’s a stroke of goddamn genius there.”
Vivian giggled. “It really was. Except, as I told Phil, if he’d asked me out, I would have said yes. So after that, the tutoring sessions ended and we started dating. I paid for the first half dozen dates or so, with the money he’d given me for the tutoring he never needed.”
Dean cracked up loudly. “Sounds like a perfect beginning.”
“It was. We were inseparable after that. Phil was the kind of person who remembered everyone’s birthday, who made friends everywhere he went, and he was endlessly patient.”
Dean smiled.
“He would have been such a great dad.” Her throat tightened.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“I haven’t told that story to anyone since he died.”
Dean reached across the table, grasping her hand. “I’m glad you told me.”
“For a long time, every memory hurt.” She pressed her free hand lightly against her chest. “Like someone was stabbing me with something sharp, right here, between my ribs.”
He squeezed her hand. “And now?”
She shrugged. “I still miss him. I always will. But the pain has eased. And tonight, you helped me to remember who he was instead of simply remembering that he’s gone.”
Dean lightly touched her wedding ring. “You still wear it.”
Vivian looked down at their linked hands, at the gold band. She’d thought about taking it off a million times in the past five years, but when it came down to it…she simply couldn’t. “I guess that’s silly.”
He shook his head. “Not at all. It’s beautiful.”
She blinked, surprised and touched by his words.
He met her gaze steadily, his hand still holding hers in a way that was both comforting and familiar, though she couldn’t explain why.
“You were lucky,” he said. Before quickly adding, “Jesus. That came out wrong. I don’t mean because you lost him—nothing about that was fair—but because you loved him. You were lucky to have known a love like that.”
Tears threatened unexpectantly. Not because his words hurt. But because they healed.
“So many people spend their whole lives looking for what you and Phil had,” he added.
Vivian blinked rapidly. “I’ve never thought about it that way.”
“One day, when Pip asks about her dad, you’ll have to tell her that story. And every other story you can remember.”
She nodded, sniffling. “You’re right. I should.
This past Christmas, I gave her a photo album of pictures of him, and while we flip through it almost nightly, I’ve never really told her the stories behind the pictures.
I know Victor and Belle talk to her about Phil a lot, but it’s time I start sharing more of my own memories with her. ”
“So tell me another story.”
And she did. For nearly half an hour, Vivian shared her happy memories of Phil, and with each recollection, she felt unexpectedly lighter.
Not because she was letting Phil go. God, she’d never do that. But because she didn’t have to keep carrying him inside, keeping him to herself without ever sharing.
“Ugh,” Vivian said, leaning back in her chair. “I’ve completely monopolized the conversation.”
“You haven’t,” Dean reassured her. “Not at all. Hell, all you’ve done is answer my four thousand questions.”
She appreciated him saying so. And he wasn’t lying.
He had guided a lot of her stories, seeming so genuinely interested that she’d lost track of the time.
She lifted her glass and finished the last of her wine.
Her third glass. She typically didn’t drink more than one glass in a night, and even that was only occasionally.
As a single working mom with an energetic five-year-old, it was rare that Vivian didn’t fall asleep next to Pip in the middle of bedtime stories.
Most of the time, she spent half the night next to her daughter before making her way to her own bedroom in the wee hours.
However, this was probably going to break the record for her longest dinner ever, as she and Dean had been sitting here for nearly three hours.
“Want another?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Dear God, no. I’m already over my limit, so unless you want me to start dancing on the tables, I should probably stop.”
He chuckled. “Might be fun to see that dance.”
She narrowed her eyes playfully. “Enough talking about me. It’s my turn to interrogate you.”
“Fair enough.” Dean waved his hand, gesturing for her to proceed.
“No lost loves in your past?” she asked, aware that while she knew bits and pieces about Dean’s life through Victor, she couldn’t recall her brother ever mentioning Dean having any significant others.
Dean leaned back and crossed his arms, considering her question a beat before giving her a small shake of his head. “No.”
“Not even McKenna’s mom?”
His smile turned fond rather than wistful.
“No, I meant what I said. Ellie and I had fun, but I wasn’t in love with her.
She has, however, become one of my closest friends over the years.
But that’s it. McKenna was the result of a summer romance that I knew had an expiration date.
However, because I was a horny idiot, I clearly did a shitty job of making that perfectly clear to Ellie. ”
“And yet you managed to become friends afterward.”
“It took time.” His expression softened.
“Finding out I was a father scared the hell out of me, but Ellie and I wanted the same thing. To give Kenny the best life we could. For her, that meant being there, being a stellar mom. For me, it meant providing for them financially so that they could live in a nice place and Ellie wouldn’t have to work around the clock to put food on the table.
Over the years, we figured out how to become teammates. ”
“You make it sound like a hockey game.”
Dean laughed. “Not exactly. There were definitely some growing pains at the beginning, but eventually we figured out that life goes a lot smoother when you’re on the same side.”
“McKenna is lucky to have you both.”
“I’m the lucky one,” he corrected.
The sincerity in his voice moved her. “Fine. Then I’ll revise my question. First love, last love.”