Chapter 21 Roots of Us
Roots of Us
Nadine
The damp chill outside seeped between the cracks around the front door and the perimeter of windows that fairly begged to be replaced.
Since we began talking about making changes, I noticed all the ways our lifestyle drained our finances.
This big, old house we no longer filled.
Payments, insurance, and repairs on two vehicles we rarely drove, not to mention subsidizing Thalia and Brandon’s vehicles.
The steadily growing list of desperately needed renovations.
The lawn tractor for the acre backyard no one used, the one I wanted to hoard for future grandchildren.
I huffed out a laugh.
A bittersweet longing to relive days long gone through my children’s children burned inside me. When had my priorities switched? When had I turned my attention to living with and for them instead of with him and for us?
For myself.
Snagging the blanket off the back of the couch, I curled up and I waited.
Two hours later, my feet hit the floor before the deadbolt slid fully across.
“Aaron!” Lunging for the front door, I threw myself in his arms. Arms that I realized had never, not once, failed to catch me.
And the first time he needed me, I walked out the door.
“Hey!” He stumbled back, closing his arms around me. “Are you okay?”
Tunneling my fingers into his hair, I pressed my nose into the curve of his neck and breathed him in. “I’m so sorry, Aaron.”
Bending his neck, he curled his big body around mine. “What are you sorry for, baby? I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“No,” I shook my head but refused to release him. In any case, I was too ashamed to meet his eyes. “I know you’re struggling. I shouldn’t have walked out. I won’t do it again. We’ll figure it out together.”
His chest expanded so deeply it lifted me to my toes. “Thank you.” For several moments, he held my tight to his chest, his steady breathing regulating mine. He continued, “I went to Mom and Max’s place. We had a great talk. And we’ve got a plan.”
I involuntarily stiffened in his arms.
He squeezed me tighter. “Don’t go there, I’m not making plans for us with Mom and Max, I went to Max for advice and made plans with him for moving forward with the practice.
Then Mom made us breakfast. She doesn’t even know what’s going on yet.
I wanted to talk to you first.” Dipping his knees, he picked me up against his chest and rocked us back and forth. “I missed you last night.”
I closed my eyes. “I missed you, too. Let’s not do that again.”
“Agreed.” Setting me down on my feet, he grasped my upper arms and pushed me back half a step. His hazel eyes dark and serious, he murmured, “Make us some hot chocolate while I take my coat off and turn on the fireplace?”
I looked up into his uncharacteristically serious face. As handsome as he was, I didn’t like to see him so serious all the time.
So tired.
More than ever, I wanted him to make whatever changes were necessary to be the version of himself that existed up at the cabin on Moose Lake. But that change had to come from him.
“And then we’ll talk?”
He cupped his hands around my jaw and pressed his mouth to my forehead. “Then we’ll talk.”
A strange concoction of hope and anxiety brewed in my stomach as I puttered around the kitchen gathering supplies to make hot chocolate. We hadn’t used the powder stuff in years, not since my other mother-in-law, a brilliant chocolatier, taught me how she made it.
With the cocoa and milk warming on the stove, I selected the two mugs I hand-carried back from Portugal so long ago. By the time I tipped the hot mix into the mugs and added a splash of vanilla, Aaron stood at the sink washing his hands.
Everywhere I looked, were reminders of us.
Snagging the tea towel off the handle of the stove, he dried his hands and raised his eyebrows at me. “Ready?”
I nodded and followed him into the family room, handed him his hot cocoa, and curled up in the corner of the couch facing him. To give myself something to do while I waited for him to speak, I hugged my mug and blew gently across the steaming surface.
“It’s going to take time,” he began hesitantly. “Six to twelve months.”
I dropped my lids over my eyes to hide my disappointment.
Did you expect it to be easy?
Knowing how he’d been struggling, I should have expected this would be a slow and difficult process. I inhaled slowly to steady my heartbeat.
We’d been through so much together; this would not be the thing to break us.
Worse case scenario, we revisit our situation in a year. Until then, I’d do everything I could to support him.
“We’ve decided to hire two therapists for the practice.”
Hope shot clear through me as my eyes lifted to meet his. “Two?”
Two more therapists would mean he’d work less hours.
Two would mean less pressure on him.
Two would mean we’d have more time together.
Time to dream.
Time to plan.
Time to get back to us.
He nodded. “But it’s going to be a six-to-twelve-month phase-out plan, followed by an amortized buy-out.”
I gave my head a shake. “A buy-out? Buying what out?”
His brow furrowed. “The practice.”
My heart sank clear down to my toes. “Buying the business from Max?”
He looked at me quizzically. “And me.”
“I don’t,” I stammered. “I don’t understand.”
“Nadine, Dini-baby, we’re hiring two therapists to replace Max and me. We’re going to phase them in with our patients over six to twelve months. We don’t want to force change on the people who entrusted their care to us. We need to move slowly since we can afford to do so.”
“Aaron,” I whispered.
Six to twelve months. It might take that long to sell the house. We could afford to take the time.
I attempted to quash my excitement. Would he be okay to stay there another year?
Did he still want to take this leap? I reminded myself of my promise to support him and stand by him as he wrestled through this.
It had little to do with us, though it affected us.
It was about him, his view of himself, his career, his life’s work.
“How do you feel about that?”
“Good.” He nodded. “Really good. I don’t want to leave my clients high and dry, but I need an exit plan. Now that I have one, I no longer feel trapped.”
“I can’t believe it,” I whispered.
He laughed and leaned forward to place his mug on the coffee table before taking mine from my hands and placing it beside his. Pulling me into his arms, he laid back on the couch with me on top of him. “Believe it.”
Pressing my head down to rest on his chest, he lazily scratched his fingers through my hair.
We were really doing it!
My eyes skittered back and forth as my fingers fisted in his shirt. “I found a condo,” I blurted.
He stiffened beneath me.
Could he feel my heart pounding in my chest?
Was I pushing too hard?
“I really like it, and I think maybe you might too.”
“You found a condo?” he stressed, laughing. “What about all my—"
I pushed up on my elbows and smiled at the look of shock in his eyes. “I was thinking it would be fun to return to the roots of us.”
“The roots of us,” he mused, then his eyes bore into mine. “You love our house. Would you be happy in a condo?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Will you be there?”
“Well, yes…”
“Then, yes. Wasn’t I happy in our tiny apartment when we first started out?”
Holding my eyes, he tilted his chin down and raised his eyebrows. “You cried like a baby when we left.”
“And I’ll cry like a baby when we leave this house, too,” I conceded quietly, my voice quivering with emotions too wild and free to corral. “But you’re my home, Aaron. And us following our dreams? That’s what we’ve always been about.”
“You want to let me in on your dreams?”
“Beach Buns is for sale.”
His eyebrows near shot off his face. “Beach Buns?”
I nodded, my smile widening. “It’s perfect for me. Ticks all my boxes. And they’re not asking a mint for it.”
He grinned at me and teased, “You’re not angling for a return trip to Paris to learn the art of artisan bread-making, are you?”
I rolled my eyes.
He brushed my hair back from my face. His smile faded, exquisite tenderness warming his gaze. “I’d do it for you, you know.”
“I know you would,” I whispered.
Curling his palm around the back of my neck, he pulled me down and pressed his mouth to mine.
My eyes bright with tears, I sniffled. “Sealed with a kiss.”
Laughing, he pushed me up off him and snagged his mug off the coffee table.
Holding it aloft, he said, “A toast.”
“What are we toasting?” Without breaking his gaze, I reached for mine.
His hazel eyes danced.
Drew me into this new adventure as they had from the first day I met him.
Dared me to take his hand.
I smiled and held my mug up to his.
He smiled.
“The next of us.”