Chapter 22 Grayson
GRAYSON
Grayson spent the next two days in a haze of peace he hadn’t felt in years. When he closed his eyes now, there were no painful cries, just two toddler girls laughing on a swing set.
Seeing Calvin and his family seemed to have changed something in him. Just that slight shift in perspective had allowed him to sleep through the night for two nights in a row.
And he was waking up feeling eager to meet the day, not just relieved to leave the bed where he’d feared the nightmares that woke him up drenched in sweat.
Evangeline would never know how much hope she had given him—hope that he might actually be equal to bearing the weight of the tragedy that dogged him, and that he might find ways to contribute to the world so that his time here could be judged on more than just the one failing that had cost a young man his life.
It was like waking up after being asleep for a century. The sunlight felt warmer on his skin, colors were richer, and food tasted better.
His only regret was that he had signed up for so much time volunteering at the center for today’s big activities.
Not because he didn’t want to help out—he did.
He felt an incredible energy and a desire to help.
It was because he wanted more free time to explore the growing feelings he had for Evangeline.
As he drifted off to sleep at night he thought about the way it felt to hold her hand in his, and the strength he felt when he looked in her eyes, like finding himself again was worth whatever he had to do to keep her close.
He’d left for volunteer work right after breakfast yesterday and came home for dinner and to get the baby ready for bed only to go back out again to help Captain Anderson with a few last details.
Today was the same. He’d left early in the morning, and he hadn’t had a chance to see Evangeline again all day. He was thankful that his workday was finally over and that she and Leo would be getting here soon for the sing-along and s’mores.
Leo…
The other thing keeping him preoccupied was his son.
He still didn’t know where he stood with the boy, legally speaking.
Grayson trusted that Levi Williams would do all that he could to help him hold onto Leo in a way that was legal and ethical. But now that the darkness was finally lifting from him, Grayson felt his love for his son growing more every minute.
Please let me find a way to keep him close, he prayed every time he thought of their tenuous situation.
But some things were beyond his control.
The sun was just setting and couples were arriving for the singalong when he spotted Evangeline arriving with Leo in her arms.
Ana Gutierrez and her mom walked by her side. Ana had offered to swing by and pick them up tonight and bring them over, and Grayson had been delighted to say yes.
Evangeline has a friend here already, he thought to himself happily as he strode through the gathering crowd to join them.
“Grayson,” Evangeline called when she spotted him.
Her gentle voice was so joyful when she said his name that it made his heart squeeze like it was too big for his chest.
“Hey,” he said, moving a little too close.
Leo noticed him and began reaching and kicking his legs, doing his usual swim through the air to get to his daddy.
“Hey, buddy,” Grayson said, taking him and holding him close. “How was your day?”
“Ah-AH-ah,” Leo told him, his eyes wide and a big baby smile on his sweet face.
“Wow,” Grayson said, nodding.
“It was a peaceful day,” Evangeline put in. “We put some music on and danced, we talked to the mobile in the crib before nap time, and someone had an early bath tonight.”
“I thought you smelled extra good,” Grayson told Leo.
Leo chuckled at him and grabbed at his nose.
“Hey,” Grayson teased. “Not my nose.”
When Leo smacked his lips and laughed, Grayson felt like his heart was melting.
“Everything looks amazing,” Evangeline said as she took in the space around them.
Grayson had been up here to work so much recently that he’d hardly had the chance to step back and admire how the event was turning out.
But Evangeline was right. The open-air market had been transformed by the hard work of the center volunteers.
Twinkling lights hung from the rafters of the vaulted wooden ceiling, filling the space with a magical glow.
The big train set wound in a lazy circle, carrying s’mores ingredients as a throng of townspeople admired it.
Many of the booths from earlier today were still open. Instead of selling sandwiches and crafts, they had offerings of desserts and they were handing out copies of the song-pages for the sing-along.
The scent of wood smoke was rich on the air. Fire pits had been set up, and the people who had gathered to share the evening together were settling in.
“Everyone worked really hard on it,” he said, smiling.
“It takes a village,” Mrs. Gutierrez said with a smile.
“It sure does,” Grayson agreed. “Should we all find a good place to sit for the campfire?”
They all agreed. Grayson got each of them a little box of ingredients to make s’mores and they found some cozy seats on one of the logs by a crackling fire pit.
He braced himself for an uncomfortable feeling, but tonight, the dancing flames didn’t try to take him back to the past, not when he was watching the firelight dance on Evangeline’s beautiful face.
Grayson’s phone buzzed in his pocket, but he finally had his son in his arms and his girl by his side, so he decided to let it go to voicemail.
It buzzed again a moment later and he didn’t think anything more about it. Everything that was important to him was right here.
“Here we go,” Evangeline said, holding her marshmallow carefully over the fire.
“Oh, you’re the patient type, aren’t you?” Ana teased her.
“I just want the perfect marshmallow,” Evangeline said. “I’m willing to wait.”
“Not me,” Ana said, thrusting hers right into the flames.
It immediately caught on fire, glowing and blackening before their eyes.
“Perfect,” Ana declared, blowing it out and plucking it off the stick right away to place on the chocolate square that waited atop a graham cracker on her plate.
Mrs. Gutierrez laughed, but Evangeline stayed oddly quiet. Grayson turned to find her searching his face.
She’s worried about me being around the fire, he realized.
He gave her a gentle smile to let her know he was just fine—more than fine, actually—and grateful that she knew him well enough to think about every aspect of his comfort.
A moment later, her hand touched his knee and she squeezed so lightly that he almost could have imagined it.
He wanted to grab her hand and hold it, but his cell phone was buzzing again. If someone wanted to talk to him this much, maybe it was important. His thoughts went instantly to his parents, and he hoped everything was okay with them.
“Can you hold this for me?” he asked Evangeline, holding out his marshmallow stick.
“Of course,” she said, taking it. “Do you want me to take Leo?”
“That’s okay. He’s sleeping,” he said, standing. “But someone keeps calling me. Excuse me for a moment, ladies.”
He strode a few paces away and pulled out his phone.
Levi Williams - 3 missed calls
Heart pounding, he started to pull up Levi’s contact, but the phone was already buzzing again.
He slid his thumb across the screen hastily to answer the call.
“Levi,” he said, willing himself not to panic.
“Where are you?” Levi demanded, without saying hello.
“I’m up at the Christmas Campfire,” Grayson told him. “Do you need me to come to your office?”
“No, I’m coming to you,” Levi said. “Meet me in the parking lot.”
“What’s going on?” Grayson asked.
But Levi had already hung up.
Grayson slid the phone back in his pocket, ice water rushing through his veins.
Leo felt so warm, so solid in his arms, filling Grayson with a sense of meaning, like he was holding his own tender heart outside of his body. The thought that he might have to hand him over to someone else froze him in place.
“Grayson,” Evangeline said softly, her hand on his arm. “What’s going on?”
“Levi is coming,” he heard himself tell her. “He wants me to meet him in the parking lot.”
He had told her about his meeting with Levi, and his fears over losing Leo. It had seemed like such a faraway thing at the time, but now that Levi was on his way, the reality of it was threatening to crush him.
“I’ll walk with you,” Evangeline said. “And I’ll wait with you until he gets here.”
Somehow, her hand on his arm loosened his paralyzed limbs and he walked by her side, past the smiling, fire-lit faces around to the big gravel lot.
It was filled with cars, every one of them dark and still.
But as they stood in tense silence for what felt like an impossibly long time, a pair of headlights came into view, tiny at first, following the road up to the market and then pulling in so that Grayson could hear the crunch of the tires on the gravel.
“I’ll be waiting,” Evangeline said, patting his arm.
“No,” he told her, taking her hand in his free one. “Will you stay with me?”
She looked up at him, her eyes so serious, and nodded.
A moment later the car door was opening. And then unexpectedly, the passenger door opened.
“No,” Grayson breathed.
Evangeline squeezed his hand, and he thought it might be the only thing anchoring him to his sanity.
But as the two figures got closer, he saw that it was as bad as he’d feared. Levi Williams was approaching with Brianna by his side, her bright hair practically gleaming in the parking lot lights.
“That’s his mother?” Evangeline whispered.
Grayson nodded.
Levi held a folder in his hand and Brianna carried a thick envelope.
It’s over, Grayson thought to himself, pressing a kiss to the top of Leo’s head as his heart broke.
“Hey,” Levi said. “Thanks for coming out. And you must be Evangeline?”
“Levi?” Evangeline asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “And this is Brianna.”
“Hi,” Brianna said shyly.
“Grayson, do you want privacy for this conversation?” Levi asked.
“She can stay,” Grayson said firmly, tightening his hold on Evangeline’s hand.
“Brianna?” Levi asked.
“Of course,” she said. “If you want her here, Grayson, that’s great.”
“Brianna, would you like me to explain things?” Levi asked.
“I can do it,” she said, turning to Grayson.
He held his breath as he met her eyes. There was no need for her to explain. Of course she wanted her son back. Grayson would give anything to keep him, and he wasn’t even the boy’s father.
“When I was…” she began and then cleared her throat and looked down. “When I was with you, I didn’t know I was already expecting.”
He could feel Evangeline’s eyes move to his face in surprise. But of course he had already known that Leo couldn’t be his, at least not biologically.
He nodded to Brianna.
“I guess I don’t need to tell you again that I wasn’t ready to be a mother,” she went on. “And when I looked up his real daddy to tell him that I was expecting, I found out he had passed away in an accident. I… I didn’t know what to do.”
Passed away?
“But then I remembered you,” she said with a shy smile. “You were a good man, I could tell. That’s why… well, that’s why I came to you with the baby like I did.”
He nodded again, unable to speak.
“When you took him without asking any questions or telling me the timing was wrong and he couldn’t be yours, I knew I had done the right thing putting your name on his birth certificate.”
Grayson blinked at her, unable to believe what he was hearing.
“Your name is on Leo’s birth certificate,” Levi confirmed quietly. “Brianna brought us a copy. Technically speaking, you can take him to the doctor, enroll him in school, anything a parent needs to do.”
“Why?” Grayson heard himself ask.
“You were kind,” Brianna said simply, not meeting his eyes. “You were stable. I could tell. And plus you were… lonely.”
Her words cut all the deeper because they were true. He wouldn’t have made the mistake he had with her that night if he hadn’t been desperately lonely and grasping at straws to fill in the void in his heart.
“How… how is he?” Brianna asked.
Grayson opened and closed his mouth, unable to answer.
“He’s the most wonderful baby in the world,” Evangeline told her. “He’s a good eater and a good sleeper, and he loves to laugh and smile. The two of them have a beautiful bond. Grayson adores him.”
“You’re his…” Brianna began.
“Nanny,” Evangeline said quickly. “And it’s the best job in the world.”
“It’s good that you have help with him,” Brianna said shyly to Grayson.
Remembering himself, Grayson, gestured to his son, offering for Brianna to hold him.
But she stepped back slightly, shaking her head like he’d offered her a basket of live snakes.
“It sounds like he’s happy with you,” Levi said in a neutral tone, as if to distract them all from Brianna’s reaction. “Would you be interested in formally taking full custody of Leo?”
“I signed the papers already in his office,” Brianna said, meeting Grayson’s eyes again. “If you sign too, then it’s official.”
“Yes,” he said quickly. “I’ll sign.”
Levi brought out the papers and Grayson signed them on the hood of the car, his hand shaking.
Evangeline signed as a witness, and Levi notarized all three copies, then gave a set to Brianna, as Grayson tried to get his mind around the idea that Leo wasn’t being taken away from him.
“I’ll keep this one at the office,” Levi told Grayson, placing it back in the folder and handing the other one to Grayson.
“I, um, brought some info on his father and me,” Brianna said, holding out the envelope she had been holding.
“In case he’s ever curious. And his birth certificate is in there too.
All this… well, it inspired me to go back to school, to try and make some better choices in my life.
Maybe if he has questions for me when he’s older, I’ll have some answers I can be proud of. ”
“Thank you,” Grayson told her, wishing he could articulate all the ways that Leo had changed his life too, all the ways she was changing it with this priceless gift.
“I’m glad you’ll be happy together,” Brianna said with a small smile. “I guess some things are meant to be.”
Grayson pressed his lips to Leo’s head again. The polite goodbyes between the others faded away as he lost himself in his joy.