Chapter 29
“Alright Win, I know we talked about being on your best behavior at Tanner’s house, but I mean it extra tonight. Mr. Auclair is the mayor, and we want to be extra respectful and not get into anything.”
“I am always good,” she calls from the back seat.
“I know honey, it’s good to have a reminder. Especially when we are feeling nervous.”
“I'm not feeling nervous.”
Right.
I swear the car ride to the Auclair “Manor”, as Rhett called it, feels like forever.
I’m shocked that it even has a Green Branch address.
Tanner’s place is out of the way, but this is even further out.
Eventually, I see a white picket fence that trails along the road up to where tons of flowers are blooming all around a mailbox and driveway. All shades of yellow and orange.
Up ahead on the dirt driveway there is a small weather-worn farmhouse with faded black shutters. There’s a clothesline draped in white sheets that are softly waving in the breeze and chickens roaming about the lawn. It’s beautiful and homey and so much like Tanner’s.
I park the van next to Tanner’s green truck and we don’t even get to knock on the door because Danielle is already there, swinging it open and pulling us inside.
“Oh, look at you pretty girls.” She beams. “Come in, come in.”
“I love your house,” I tell her as we shuffle in the front door.
“Oh, thank you. It has been in my family for generations. Don’t mind the mess.”
Usually, when someone says, “Don’t mind the mess,” their house has usually been scrubbed top to bottom.
That’s what my mom did, and it’s what I do, but Danielle Auclair means it.
Though the house is clean, every corner is lived in.
Shoes by the door, a stack of clothes on the stairs to go up.
A pile of magazines and newspapers on a bench in the entry way.
The kitchen sink has dishes from the dinner she’s been cooking, and the counter is lined with a rag and some hand washed dishes to dry.
Christmas cards cover the fridge even though it’s July.
The windowsill over the sink is lined with dying plants.
The doorway is etched with little lines and scribbled names next to each one.
I even spot Rhett’s name amongst them. It looks like summer after sophomore year really stretched Tanner out and he finally surpassed Rhett’s height.
“I love it,” I tell her.
The barreling of paws comes down the hallway and we spin to find a golden retriever panting happily.
“Oh, that’s Lemon. He’s currently on a diet, so don’t let him fool you into giving him treats.”
“Lemon?” Winnie’s face lights up. “That’s a funny name.”
“Winnie.” I bump her with my hip. “Do you want to tell Mrs. Auclair what you named your goldfish?”
Winnie giggles, hiding behind my leg until she peeks out blushing. “Tanner.”
“Now that is a silly name.” Danielle’s whole face lights up. “I love it.”
“Can Lemon play with me?”
“Sure, take him outside. Tanner and Mr. Dan are out back.”
Out the back door I watch Winnie run across the yard and right into Tanner’s arm. He lifts her onto his hip while he talks to his dad.
I blink away the emotion swelling up and turn to Danielle. “What can I help you with?”
“Want to chop up some zucchini?” Danielle nods to the cutting board on the island.
“Absolutely.”
“Hey Mom!” Mayben swings into the kitchen.
“Hey sweetheart, is Jackie with you?”
“Yeah, he’s bringing in the tools we borrowed from Dad. Hey Hannah!”
“Jackie used those tools?” her mom asks incredulously.
“Mom.” Mayben tilts her head. “You know better.”
“I know.” Danielle winks, then turns her attention back on me. “Hannah, Tanner said you’re just here for the summer?”
“Originally it was just for the weekend. Then it turned into a week, now the summer, and who knows.”
“I heard you met Riley and Poppy.” Mayben grimaces, looking like she has just found a sensitive wound.
I dump the cut zucchini into a bowl and grab the squash Danielle has handed me. “Yeah, actually, Poppy is Winnie's best friend at camp.”
Danielle’s eyes widen.
“Tanner told me,” I tell her. “He was the one who made the call to Riley to get Winnie into the Y.”
Danielle and Mayben exchange a glance. Then it’s Mayben who speaks. “So, he told you about the two of them?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “I got the rundown.” Not sure what else there was to say. The topic still seems so heavy, yet Tanner seems so moved on from it. I don’t know how you can move on from something like that.
“He was kinder to her than anyone else would have been. The only reason Bernie and Pia are friends with her still is because Tanner insisted that not everyone could abandon her after everything went down. I think the baby thing broke his heart the most. At his preschool graduation, when they asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said a dad.” Danielle laughs and turns back to the stove.
“Hey Mom.” Jackie comes in now, kisses Danielle on the cheek and then wraps his arms around Mayben, his palms resting against her belly. “How’re things going in here?”
“Well, your wife hasn’t lifted a finger since getting here,” Danielle chides.
“I am with child, Mom.”
Danielle gives her a look that only a mother could give. “I’ll get out both yours and your brother’s baby pictures if you aren’t careful. Naked ones and all.”
“Fine.” Mayben stands, goes to the sink and starts on the pile of dishes.
“On that note, what can I do?” Jackie laughs and Mayben tosses a towel at his head.
“Get drying, pretty boy.”
And Jackie Atwood is a pretty boy. He’s more slender than Rhett, with sharper angles, but he has all that dark beauty the Atwoods share.
While Rhett looks like he is in a perpetual state of consideration, Jackie seems to be always on the verge of a joke.
A tilt to his lips, squinting of his green eyes.
He’s cute and his world orbits around Mayben.
Once I finish the veggies, Danielle asks if I can go check on the guys out back. She smirks and I know exactly what she’s doing but I slip out the back door without protest. I find Tanner manning the grill while his dad and Winnie pet Lemon.
“Hey you.” Tanner smiles and I slip right into his side, my arm circling his waist. “My mom didn’t scare you off, did she?”
“Well, she was mentioning your naked baby pictures…”
He looks down at me with no hint of embarrassment and whispers, “My butt is even cuter now if you want to sneak off and take a look.”
“Tanner.” I elbow his side, and he only pulls me in tighter. We watch Winnie lay on the grass next to Lemon and honestly, it’s hard to tell the two apart.
For dinner, Danielle serves everything family style at the big wooden slat table out back in the grass where the sun glows through the tops of the trees. The table is filled with bowls and plates, pitchers of iced tea, and small dishes with lemons.
This family is boisterous and loud. They’re reaching over each other as they pass dishes and pass them back.
They talk on top of each other and playfully argue with laughing tears in their eyes.
Mayben and Tanner bicker over who broke their dad’s fake Rembrandt painting in his office back in elementary school.
Then they’re laughing about crying over math homework at the kitchen table with their dad in middle school.
“The numbers are still engraved into the table.” Mayben laughs. “The first time Jackie came over for dinner he spotted a long division problem carved into it.”
Winnie watches in wide-eyed wonder at the volume and laughter. With each passing moment, and each time Tanner squeezes my knee under the table, I can’t imagine how I could ever leave this behind, how could I take Winnie from this?
“Hannah, did you and your sister fight like this growing up?” Dan asks and I shake my head.
“No. My parents were more the ones to fight. Besides, you guys know Lauren. She would be the one to win the fight anyway. She has a way with words.”
“Do you write?” Danielle questions while sipping her wine.
“Oh no, they had me in reading support groups when I was younger. Words were never my thing. I have a degree in finance.”
“Tanner almost failed all of his math classes in high school.” Mayben laughs and ducks at the incoming piece of zucchini.
“Tan.” Winnie giggles. “Mom said we have to be on our best behavior.”
“Yeah, Tanner.” Mayben sticks her tongue out at him.
“You’re right Fred,” he says, squeezing my thigh. “I’ll let Mayben know she needs to be on her best behavior.”
“Fred?” Dan looks over at Winnie. “I thought your name was Winnie!”
“Tan calls me Fred, it’s because my name is Winifred.” She shakes her head. “He’s weird.”
Now Tanner takes another piece of zucchini and throws it. This time it bounces off Winnie’s forehead and lands right on her lap. Her little giggles turn into a deep belly laugh, which just sends everyone into another fit of laughter.
When dinner is long over, nobody brings themselves to leave the table.
Danielle passes around the bug spray, and we sit in the warm evening air.
Our faces are lit by the citronella candles, and our conversation is backdropped by bugs and crickets and birds and Lemon’s playful barking when he chooses the next person at the table to throw the tennis ball for him.
Tanner has reached over at some point and folded my hand in his and then brought our hands to rest in his lap together.
He traces the ridges of my fingers and knuckles as he talks and as he listens.
The lines by his eyes deepen with each smile and laugh.
The dimple on full display while I run my finger along the back of his necklace.
“You okay?” he asks quietly after a while.
I nod, unable to let the words out, so I squeeze his hand.
“You know what we need?” Jackie stands after a while. “We need s’mores. What do you think Winnie? Marshmallow roasting contest?”
Winnie looks up from where she now lays in the grass with Lemon and nods excitedly. Pieces of grass in her hair and a grass stain on her dress.
“No marshmallow contest boys. Remember what happened last time? Uncle Harry almost lost a finger.” Danielle shoots them a glare. “How about you guys go clean up. The girls will get the fire going.”
The boys laugh under their breath, sweep up the plates, then head inside with Winnie and Lemon on their heels.
“I have never seen him this way,” Danielle says as we walk through the lush grass.
“What do you mean?”
She shakes her head as she lifts a couple logs and hands them to me. “He just seems content. He smiles more. He laughs more. He tells us more. He just seems lighter, you know? In love.”
“Never? Not even when he was engaged?” I ask, and she nearly scoffs.
“He proposed because it was what he needed to do. Not because he loved her. He did care about her, but not like this.”
Mayben leans back in her chair and rests her hands on her belly. “He really loves you and Winnie.”
When the guys come back out to us, Tanner doesn’t hesitate to lean down and place a kiss on my head.
And since we did very little in the effort to actually start a fire, Dan quietly steps over, kisses his wife, then begins to assemble the logs.
He even shows Winnie how to start and keep the fire going, telling her about air flow and wood placement.
Jackie and Mayben talk about baby names they like.
Danielle tears up the thought of the babies again. Everyone is occupied, content.
I pick my head up off Tanner's shoulder and take a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
“What is it?” Tanner asks, sensing something.
“What if I stay?” I ask so only he can hear. “Just add on a few months to my trip and I don’t know, see where this goes? Really give this a real shot.”
There’s a flash of surprise on his face. “What would Winnie think?”
When I look over at her, I see the little blonde sprite staring up at Tanner’s dad the same way she looks at Paul. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. In fact, I think she would prefer it.”
Tanner turns my chin to meet my eyes. His are deep and steady and the very place I find myself continuously coming back to.
“I would love that,” he whispers and presses his lips into mine. The kiss is quick but entirely what I need because this time it feels like one of many to come, and not possibly the last.
I settle back under his arm with a calmness in my heart.
Dan helps Winnie make a s’more and fends off everyone’s attempt to turn it into a contest of who could brown the perfect one.
Tanner makes me mine, and even though he claims burning it is against his morals, he makes it perfectly blackened and burned for me.
I sit there taking this all in and I don’t think I have ever felt more at home than I do under Tanner’s arm.