Chapter 13
JILLIAN
For Jillian, the next week passed in a flurry of activities and another dusting of snow.
The girls had a lot of schoolwork as well as another scheduled phone call with their father.
Jillian dug deeper into the task of organizing at work between student visits to the infirmary, and the little house on Fox Hollow Road began to transform.
She had expected that the work Tripp planned to do would probably take a few months. But now that she saw how thorough he was, she realized it might be a very long time before he was able to complete every task he had jotted down in that notebook.
It was nice to have him around though.
So far, Tripp and a friend had dug into the second-floor hall bathroom. Though there certainly wasn’t room in that small space for a third person, Jillian enjoyed being downstairs and hearing snippets of Tripp and Ned Bunting laughing and talking while they worked.
She made sure to have a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge and snacks ready for them when they took a quick break.
Ned always hurried home for dinner and Tripp usually left shortly after. But on Wednesday, Tripp had agreed to stay, and they had all eaten buttered green beans with thick slices of ham and dinner rolls, and talked about all the events coming up in town.
“You know Jason Hayes is back in town for the holidays,” Tripp shared.
“Is that the actor?” Gram asked him.
“Sure is,” Tripp said. “He was ahead of us in school, but it’s still pretty cool. He was a legend.”
“They’ve still got his photo up on the wall outside the auditorium,” Jillian said with a smile.
“We do have our share of famous people around here these days,” Grampy said. “Your own brother included, Tripp.”
“It’s so good to have him back in town,” Gram added.
Tripp’s brother Cash was a famous rock star. He’d spent a lot of time on the road, but Sugarville Grove was his home base now, which seemed to make Tripp’s whole family really happy.
Jillian envied their close relationships. She couldn’t imagine how nice it would be to have her parents and sister nearby. As things were, she felt luckier every day to be living with Gram and Grampy.
She had told Tripp so in one of their nightly texts, and he’d told her that he knew they felt the same about having her and the girls home.
Texting with Tripp before bed had become one of her favorite moments of the day.
Even though their nightly chats weren’t exactly romantic, she felt like she was getting to know him when he shared what he was thinking about at the end of the day.
He told her the funniest stories about the farm and his nieces and nephews, and asked her all kinds of questions about school and the girls.
She had always thought he was a bit of a troublemaker, but Tripp really was a family man at heart. It was more and more surprising to her that he didn’t have a family of his own by now.
On Thursday, Tripp pulled her aside before he headed home for the evening.
“Hey,” he murmured. “I wanted to ask you for two dates, if that’s not too forward.”
“Okay,” she said, feeling oddly relieved. It had been five days since she’d told him yes. And while they had talked and seen each other casually, there had been no mention of dating.
“I want to take you out tomorrow night,” he said. “Just the two of us, if your grandparents don’t mind staying with the girls. Or my niece Olivia can come by to babysit, if that’s better.”
“That sounds good,” she told him. “And I’ll ask, but I’ll bet Gram and Grampy won’t mind watching the girls at all.”
“And then Saturday is the town snowball fight, then the tree lighting at night,” he said. “I was hoping we could spend the day in town with the girls again.”
The Sugarville Grove tree lighting ceremony was really special. Jillian had fond thoughts of watching the tree light up back as far as she could remember.
She had pictured being there with a husband and children of her own one day. And while she might not have a husband anymore, she had her girls. And handsome, generous Tripp Lawrence would be right there beside them. The idea put a lump in her throat.
“That sounds perfect,” she told him, trying to keep the emotion from her voice.
“We won’t work on the house tomorrow then,” Tripp said, his own voice a little husky. “I’ll just come by and pick you up.”
“I can’t wait,” she told him.
But she was a little nervous anyway, and not even about the date itself yet.
That night when she tucked the girls into bed, she gathered her courage and decided to be simple and direct.
“You know that Tripp and I are good friends, right?” she asked them, sitting down on the edge of her own bed.
The wind rattled the window frames a little, but it was cozy and warm in the room they shared.
“He’s your boyfriend,” Posey piped up right away.
Jillian couldn’t help glancing over at Mari, who was studying her with wide, worried eyes.
“I like Tripp a lot,” Jillian said, determined to tell her girls the truth. “And he’s not my boyfriend, but he did ask me on a date.”
Mari nodded slowly.
“Can we come?” Posey asked hopefully.
“Well, he actually asked for two dates,” Jillian said, smiling. “He wants to take me out tomorrow night, that will be just us grownups. And then on Saturday, he was hoping to take all of us to the Christmas events in town.”
“What Christmas events?” Posey asked excitedly.
Mari still didn’t speak.
“Well, there’s a town snowball fight,” Jillian said.
“A snowball fight?” Posey echoed.
“And there’s a tree-lighting ceremony in the park at night,” Jillian finished.
“That sounds good,” Posey said, nodding her head up and down enthusiastically.
“What do you think about all this, Mari?” Jillian asked, moving to sit on the edge of Posey and Mari’s bed.
Mari shrugged and fixed her eyes on her comforter.
“Is it weird to think of me going on a date?” Jillian offered.
“Dad had a girlfriend,” Posey put in. “They went on dates.”
“But she broke up with him,” Mari said quietly.
That was news to Jillian.
“She did?” she managed to ask Mari calmly.
Mari nodded, looking downcast.
“Does that make you sad?” Jillian asked.
The idea that her daughters might have a fondness for Alan’s girlfriend hurt her heart. But their well-being was the most important thing in the world to her, and she didn’t like the idea of them hurting for any reason.
“Are we going back to the city?” Mari asked, finally breaking her silence.
“No,” Jillian told her, not sure where that question could be coming from. “We can’t really afford the city, so we’re making a whole new life for ourselves right here.”
“What if Dad wants us to come back?” Mari asked softly.
Oh.
“Mari and Posey, let’s all three of us cuddle up,” Jillian said, beckoning for Posey to join them.
Posey scrambled over to snuggle in close with her mom and sister.
“Is everyone cozy?” Jillian asked. “We should all be nice and cozy for this chat.”
Both girls nodded, serious expressions on their faces.
“Back when your dad first decided he didn’t want to be my husband anymore, I really, really hoped he would change his mind,” Jillian explained.
“And I waited for a long time, too, because I wanted him to have a chance to come back to us. Do you remember the time we spent in the city when I had to work so much?”
They both nodded, and Jillian wondered how much Posey possibly remembered about the time before that. She had only been a toddler when her father left. Jillian had waited two long years for Alan to change his mind before she decided to come to Sugarville Grove.
“But he was very sure he didn’t want to be my husband anymore,” Jillian said. She’d told the girls this before, but this time she said it with a calm she actually felt. “So, I left my job, and we sold our condo, and the three of us came here to start our new life.”
“With Gram and Grampy,” Posey said.
“Exactly,” Jillian agreed. “We’ve been here only a little while. But is it starting to feel like home?”
“Yes,” Posey said with a big smile.
“Yes,” Mari said firmly.
Jillian’s heart gave a helpless squeeze at that.
“Now, your dad told you that he and his girlfriend broke up,” Jillian went on.
“But that doesn’t mean he wants to be my husband again.
He probably won’t ever want that. And it’s not really up to him anyway.
The three of us have a life here that we like.
It feels like home to us. And we never have to leave unless we want to. ”
Mari nodded and scooted up to wrap her arms around Jillian’s neck, giving her a hug that carried more relief than Jillian would have thought possible.
“It’s nice that you’re home with us,” Mari whispered. “I don’t like you to be at work all night.”
Those extra shifts in the ER had been rough on all of them. She hadn’t really realized just how rough until moving here and reclaiming that time with her girls.
“I’m happy to be with you too,” Jillian told her. “And with you, Posey.”
Jillian tried to swallow past the lump in her throat, then Posey launched herself into the hug and the next thing Jillian knew, they were all laughing.
“You should go on a date with Tripp,” Mari said softly. “He’s nice. And we want to go to the Christmas stuff, right Posey?”
“Right,” Posey yelled.
They stayed cuddled and read a chapter of Pippi Longstocking, and then Jillian got in her own bed, leaving the girls drifting off together in Mari’s bed.
And as she waited for sleep to come, Jillian was filled with relief on more than one front.
The conversation with the girls had gone as well as she could have hoped.
But their news about Alan had managed to disrupt her peace for a moment.
There was a time not so long ago when hearing something like that would have sent her into a spiral of hope that he might finally be coming back. She had married him after all, so she thought that was what she was supposed to hope for.
But as her eyes went to the girls, with the dark hair they got from their father spread out on the pillows, she couldn’t help questioning everything she had believed before.
Because as much as she had prayed for their father to come back for their sake, they really were happy here with their great-grandparents. And they were happy with a mother who worked normal hours and could spend time with them, not just scramble for a paycheck.
The three of them were at peace in a way they probably hadn’t been even before Alan left.
If she was honest with herself, she knew that was because Alan had never really been happy with her or with his role as a parent. She had always tiptoed around his barely hidden resentment, trying to take care of the girls’ needs on her own.
And as Jillian finally drifted off, one thing became suddenly clear to her.
For the first time since he left, she didn’t want Alan to come back.
Not for the girls, and certainly not for herself.