Chapter 15
Fifteen
“So when did you decide?” Jack asked on the walk back to the hospital.
“I think it was the minute you stepped off the elevator when Eric was in surgery. I was so upset, but everything became crystal clear in that moment.”
“That’s not why I came, you know.”
“I know that.” She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “I already told you if I hadn’t had Eric and my job to think about, I would’ve said yes the first time you asked me.” She reached up to kiss him. “I’ve never doubted us. Not for one minute.”
“Neither have I.”
“What would’ve happened if I just couldn’t do it?”
He thought about that for a minute. “I guess we would’ve kept doing what we’re doing until Kate graduates next year. Then Maggie and I would’ve moved out here.”
Startled, she said, “But Clare and your business…”
“I would’ve figured it out.”
“Now you don’t have to.”
He leaned down to kiss her as they walked. “I think we should keep this to ourselves until after Frannie and Jamie’s wedding.”
“I agree. This is their moment—and they’ve certainly waited long enough for it.”
“That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to shout it from the rooftops,” Jack said with a devilish grin as he stopped to look around at the people on the street. “Matter of fact, I don’t see anyone I know…”
“Jack…”
He smiled and restrained himself. “She loves me.” Against her lips he whispered what he wanted to shout. “She loves me, and she’s coming home with me.”
“Oh, yes, she loves you. Even though you’re crazy, she loves you.”
When Andi and Eric arrived in Rhode Island for Thanksgiving, everyone was relieved to see him fully recovered from his surgery. Andi got to meet Jack’s parents and Jamie’s parents, who had flown up from Palm Beach for the holiday.
On Thanksgiving morning, Jack and the girls left for an hour to visit Clare.
“How’d it go?” Andi asked him when they got home.
“It was okay. They were good,” he said, referring to the girls.
With her hand on his cheek, she asked, “How about you?”
“I’m fine.” He kissed the palm of her hand and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes the way his smile normally did. “Let’s eat.”
As everyone sat down for dinner, Jack proposed a toast.
Jill folded her arms and scooted down in her chair. “Get comfortable. Here comes the annual speech.”
He swatted at her with his napkin while the rest of them laughed. “That’ll be quite enough out of you.” In that moment, he realized how far they’d come from the somber holiday they’d observed a year ago. “I’m thankful for my girls, even the bratty one,” Jack said, raising an amused eyebrow at Jill.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“There’ll be no speech except to say I’m thankful to everyone at this table who helped me through the worst time in my life. Better days are ahead for all of us, so let’s drink to that.” Glancing at Andi, he raised his glass.
The others followed suit.
Neil barked out “Hear, hear!”
After dinner Frannie corralled the women into the study to look at the books she’d brought from the dress shop so the girls could pick their bridesmaid dresses.
“Are they gone?” Jamie peeked around the corner and reached into the pocket of his tweed jacket. He pulled out a fistful of cigars and passed them around.
“Let’s enjoy them while we can,” Neil said in what he considered to be a whisper. The others shushed him.
Jack rounded up ashtrays and poured brandy as the others lit up.
“When do you leave for Tokyo, son?” Neil asked Jamie.
“Monday. I’ll be back Friday night, though. I tried to put it off until after the wedding, but the account needs some attention.”
“You’ll need two full days’ sleep after doing it that fast,” Jack said, taking a deep drag on his cigar. Clare never would have allowed them to smoke in her house, a thought that gave him a pang of guilt, so he opened the sliding door to let out the smoke.
The gorgeous day was unseasonably warm for late November in Rhode Island, and the yard was littered with large yellow leaves dancing in the sea breeze.
“I’m going to get some air,” Jack said. “It’s so nice out.” The mild November had put them ahead of schedule on the hotel, and the foundation had been poured earlier in the week.
Jack walked past the now covered pool to the edge of his property to look down at the shoreline. Light seas hit the rocks, launching salty spray into the air but not high enough to reach him. He was enjoying the roar of the ocean and his cigar when his father walked out to join him.
“Beautiful day,” John Harrington said.
“Sure is. Won’t be many more like it before winter.”
“So how are you, Jack?” John puffed on his cigar and placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder.
Jack looked down at the hand and then up at his father with surprise. His hair was now all silver, and his brown eyes were filled with unusual warmth. “I’m much better. We all are.”
“I’m so glad to hear it—and to see it. Much different than last year.”
“We still miss Clare very much, but life goes on.”
His father nodded in agreement. “I like Andi. She’s a beautiful girl. I never could fault your taste in women.”
“Well, at least there’s something,” Jack said dryly.
“That’s not all.”
Jack stared at his father as if he had never seen him before.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m trying here… You shouldn’t have had to wait almost forty-five years to hear this, but I’m proud of you, son.”
Jack’s mouth almost fell open with shock, but when he saw the effort his father was making, he kept his expression neutral.
“You’ve done all this yourself.” John waved a hand to encompass Jack’s home.
“You never touched a dime of the money I gave you. You built a business from the ground up, whereas everything I have was handed to me. I’ve, uh, I’ve read every word of what’s been written about your work and, well, I’m proud. ”
“I appreciate that, Dad. I’m…I don’t know what I am.” He was flabbergasted but couldn’t say that.
“You were right to stand up to me all those years ago. I wish I had it to do over again, because I made a big mistake. I’ve wanted to say this to you for a long time, for years, in fact, but somehow we let all this distance get between us, and there never seemed to be a good time.”
“Thank you for saying it now,” Jack said, trying desperately to absorb it all.
“I also admire the way you took care of Clare after the accident and yet, I’m glad to see you moving forward with Andi. Quite a spark between the two of you.”
Jack smiled. That “spark” had all but consumed him.
“Chicago’s an awful long way from Rhode Island,” John said.
“I’ve discovered that over the last few months,” Jack said with a touch of sarcasm that made the older man laugh.
Jack had almost forgotten the music of his dad’s laughter, a sound that softened years of curt conversations and silences when so much went unsaid.
In that split second, Jack decided to take a risk. “Want to be in on a secret?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll tell you something I haven’t told anyone else, not the girls or even Jamie or Frannie.”
John let out a low whistle. “This ought to be good.”
“After the wedding, Andi and Eric are moving here to live with us. We’re waiting until after the wedding to tell the kids.”
“Wow, that’s a big step, Jack. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
Jack looked out to the ocean. “If someone had told me six months ago that this would be happening, I would’ve said they were crazy.” His gaze drifted back to his father. “All I can say is I feel like myself again when I’m with her, and as you pointed out, Chicago’s pretty far from here.”
“You’ve weathered a storm that would’ve brought a lesser man to his knees and kept him there. Your instincts have served you well so far. I can’t imagine they’d fail you now.”
Andi walked up to join them and put an arm around Jack from behind. “Are you giving away our secrets, love?”
John laughed. “Uh-oh, we’re busted, Jack.”
“Yes, you are,” she said with a smile. “Can we trust you to keep it quiet until after the wedding? This is Frannie and Jamie’s moment, not ours.”
“No one will hear it from me—well, except maybe your mother, but she won’t tell,” John assured them. “I’m happy for both of you, and I wish you well.” Clapping Jack on the shoulder, he said, “I love you, son.” He kissed Andi’s cheek and went inside.
“Okay, what just happened here?” Jack asked in amazement after his father had walked away.
“You tell me.”
“I think he just said he’s proud of me, he was wrong to fight my career choice, he admires me, and he loves me,” Jack said, counting off the compliments on his fingers, still stunned by it all.
“Wow, all that in ten minutes?”
“Yeah,” Jack said, still reeling.
“I’m happy for you, Jack. You’ve waited a long time to hear that.”
“Only my whole life. I hope you don’t mind that I told him our news.”
“Of course not. I all but told David yesterday when I accepted the new job. I didn’t say anything else, but he knows.”
“No second thoughts?”
“Not a one. How about you?”
“None.”
They spent Christmas Eve putting the finishing touches on the enormous tree Jack had brought home.
Since Christmas had always been Clare’s favorite holiday, they hadn’t bothered with a tree the year before because no one had been in the mood.
A year later, the girls enjoyed getting out the decorations, even if they stirred up a lot of emotions and brought back memories of Christmases past.
Jack spent most of the evening on a ladder with Andi and the girls directing the placement of every item.
Andi had brought a box of Eric’s favorite ornaments from home, and he hung them on the lower branches while Maggie arranged and rearranged the presents under the tree until she was satisfied with how they looked.
“Okay, that’s it,” Jack said. “I’m coming down. I’m getting a nosebleed up here.”
Andi laughed and took his arm to check his watch. “It’s almost eleven thirty. We’d better hurry if we’re going to make midnight mass.”
Jack sat close to Andi in church, feeling the pointed looks directed at them from people he knew through church and the girls’ school.
Tongues would wag after their appearance together, and Jack felt a twinge of anxiety over that, even though he knew he couldn’t prevent it.
Halfway through mass, Eric crawled into Jack’s lap.
He shared a smile with Andi when the boy dozed off on his shoulder.
Once the kids were in bed, Jack and Andi snuggled on the sofa with the tree and the fire providing the only light in the family room.
“I can’t wait to give Eric the bike,” Jack said.
“He’ll love it.”
Jack reached behind a pillow. “Santa brought something special for you, too.”
“Are we doing this now? I thought we’d wait until tomorrow.”
“I have others for you, but this one’s just between us.” He handed her a tiny, elegantly wrapped box.
Her hands trembled when she removed the paper covering a jeweler’s box. “What did you do?”
He took the box to help her open it. “I hope you’ll wear this as a reminder of how very much I love you and Eric.
” Even though he was confident they were moving in the right direction, he couldn’t help the pang of guilt that stole some of the joy from this moment.
At times like this, the fact that he was still married to another woman was hard to forget.
Nestled inside the box was a spectacular ring with a large sapphire gleaming in the center of a circle of diamonds.
She gasped. “Oh, it’s beautiful!”
He slipped it on her right hand and kissed it.
She hugged him and held out her hand to look at the ring again. The Christmas tree lights reflected off the stone, giving the illusion of fire.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it, and I love you, very much.” She kissed him. “You think of everything, don’t you?”
“If I can’t stand up in front of a room full of the people we love and tell them I’ll cherish you for the rest of my life, then I can tell you and hope it’s enough.”
“It’s more than enough.”