21. Ned
NED
Ned practices on his way to Jen’s house, like he did last fall when he tried to gently introduce Peggy to the idea of Abbot being in her life.
He’s more than a friend, Ned had led with, entirely unsure of Peggy’s concept of adult relationships.
He’d floundered, he knew, reaching for anything she might have seen in a movie, and comparing everyone in their family to dinosaurs.
He’d been sure he’d done a truly shitty job, only to find her summarily unimpressed once he’d managed his way through the talk.
Okay, she had said and dug into her ice cream.
Abbot will stay over at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s with me sometimes, he had gone on, and she’d scooped out a chunk of cookie dough with such focus she’d nearly toppled her ice cream clear over and he’d been left trying to hold it in her cup, his hands sticky sweet in the chill of the autumn air.
She likes Abbot. Ned’s pretty sure, at least. He’s never worried about it before, and yes, she must. She talks about him when he’s not around and wants his attention when he is.
Constantly asks to bake with him, and surely just the appeal of sugary treats must only be part of it, when they spend so much time together in the kitchen.
We have exciting news, he’s going to tell her. Start off with this being a happy occurrence, not the confusing mess it actually is.
For him, at least. Abbot seems fine. And not the stonewalling fine of not wanting to talk, but really fine. Which isn’t surprising, maybe, given that he’s apparently ready to move in together without sitting down and talking about it.
Yeah, he might rethink that plan if he has any idea of Ned’s actual financial situation.
He sits in his car for a long time, staring at the house he and Jen bought.
Home, he had thought of it for so long, even after Jen had left him.
The spot he was supposed to come back to after Callahan, before life took a sharp turn and he’s been here as a visitor only, a guest who makes it as far as the doorway before he leaves again.
He’s not sad anymore. He left that behind a long time ago, after the anger had faded into grief and he’d emerged from the other side to find Abbot there, and with him an excitement to start life over again.
Slowly, he had thought. In careful, measured steps as he felt his way through a new relationship.
It’s still odd to be here every time he comes to get Peggy, and even more so right now, on the precipice of another fork in the road.
He knocks on the side door before he spends any more time thinking.
“In the kitchen!” Jen calls.
He lets himself in. “Hey,” he says and pretends it comes out completely natural and not at all as strangled as it feels.
“If you take her tonight, can I have her Saturday?” Jen asks. “I know it’s your weekend. Sorry, I should have said when you texted.”
“Sure,” Ned says. Is that alright? He has no idea, but he’s not going to start this conversation off on anything other than a good note.
Jen tosses a coat, Peggy’s lunchbox, and a handful of markers into her small backpack. “I think that’s everything she needs for school tomorrow, and I cleaned out today’s food, so you don’t have to worry about intelligent life growing in there. Peggy!”
“Actually, if you have a minute,” Ned says. “Ah, without her.”
“Yeah, what’s up?” Jen asks. “Is this about Baxter? Is he okay?”
“He has to have more bloodwork.”
Even with that, Baxter is still the easiest topic for them to talk about, though their relationship has eased over the last year.
Jen is calmer now, less on edge than she was while they were together or those years Ned lived in Portland, but he knows it’s him, too.
He’s changed, for the better, from being with Abbot.
His irritation with her is long gone, replaced by a patience he never thought he’d feel, and with it an odd, warm sort of affection that still catches him unaware more often than not.
It does help that she’s not with fucking Jeff anymore. He won’t kid himself about that.
“Is he going to be alright?” Jen asks. “He’s still my best boy.”
“Yeah,” Ned says, which might well be a bald-faced lie. Baxter may not be alright, a thought he dodges each time it crops up. “I haven’t said anything about him to Peggy, other than that he had to go to the vet. I’ll let you know what they say and we can figure it out with her, if it’s serious.”
“Hopefully it won’t be anything,” Jen says.
Ned nods, unable to think of Baxter as anything but happy and healthy. With everything else going on, the reality he might be truly in trouble is all the harder to grasp. “Jen…”
Oh, he can’t do this.
He has to do this. Now, before there are footfalls on the stairs and little ears listening.
He reaches for some of Abbot’s calm, the equanimity he’s taken this with, and in a rush he says, “Abbot and I are getting married.”
“Oh,” Jen says and then she’s hugging him.
He’s still reeling from getting the words out, and it takes a moment to remember to hug her back.
Which he hasn’t done in years now, her shorter height unfamiliar when once it felt so natural. She grips him tight, with a fierceness he was hardly expecting.
“I’m so happy for you two,” she says when she steps away. “That’s amazing.”
“You are?”
“Of course I am. He’s really wonderful. And this was clearly coming, so I, you know.” She lets out a little laugh. “Made my peace with it.”
“You did?”
“Well, I figured you two would stay together, so yeah, you’d get married at some point. You’re going to tell Peggy? Is that what tonight is?”
“Yeah, but I wanted you to know first.”
“Oh, she’ll be so excited.”
Something in Ned relaxes. “You think so?”
“She talks about him all the time. And really, Ned, I am happy for you two. You picked a good one, and if Peggy is going to have a stepparent, I’m glad it’s him.”
“Oh,” Ned says softly. Stepparent. That’s…that’s a word. A big one.
“So tell him congrats from me, okay? And welcome to the parenting squad, I suppose.”
“The squad,” Ned echoes.
“It’ll be an adjustment, I’m sure, and Peggy will have questions, but whatever you need, Ned. If you want to talk to her together, or with all three of us and her, just let me know.”
He stares down at her. This is so…easy. So incredibly simple.
“Okay,” he gets out. She looks genuinely happy. “I’m not asking to change anything with custody or anything like that.”
“Good. I think it’s working the way it is,” Jen says. “For me at least, and it seems to be for Peggy.”
“Yeah, it’s good. For me too.” No, it’s not just him anymore.
It’s him and Abbot. Stepdad, he thinks and swallows.
It sounds like a really odd word. It sounds…
good, too. Right. Kind of exciting, if he can quiet the rest of the noise in his brain and focus on the thought of Peggy having Abbot in her life for good. “Us, I mean.”
“I’ll go get her and you two can be on your way.” Jen pauses in the doorway. “Enjoy it. I guess you only get to tell her this once, right?”
“Right,” Ned says and leans against the counter for support.
Once. This is it. This isn’t real, but it’s going to be for her. Adding a third parent to her life. Telling her Abbot’s going to be here, for better or for worse.
Ned’s glad it’s too cold for ice cream. He’s not sure he could eat anything right now.
It’s too cold for the park too, so he drives to a coffee shop and orders her a slice of cake and a hot chocolate.
This probably falls under the category of bribery, but he’ll deal with that later.
Like when this was all supposed to happen, that safe, comfortable later he still wants to cling to, where he’d shuffled all things relationship and future until it had imploded on him.
He sips a coffee he doesn’t want. It’ll keep him up all night, though he likely won’t sleep anyway, the disaster of his life leaving him tossing and turning.
Once, he and Abbot wouldn’t have slept for other reasons. Now, Ned will lay in bed with his mind churning.
But that’s later, too, and this is now, and he has to actually tell Peggy before they leave here, no matter how nice it would be to ply her with sugar and drive her back home, the only stress in his evening that he went and spoiled her dinner.
“Sweetie, there’s something I want to talk to you about,” he starts.
She fits a bite of cake into her mouth that’s so large it bulges out her cheek. “Mom says Baxter isn’t feeling good.”
“He’ll be alright,” Ned says, then pauses because he doesn’t actually know that.
He has to push the worry away. Baxter’s still young, and he’s always been healthy, and besides, Ned’s credit card can’t take a dog’s cancer treatment on it or whatever else it might be, so he’ll assume everything will be fixed with some supplement he can buy for a handful of dollars.
That’s how it’ll work. That’s how it has to work.
“He has a really good vet,” Ned says, wishing he could walk back his last words, but it’s too late now.
Well, great, another mess to deal with, and he’ll handle that when the time comes.
This current fiasco is right in front of him, and he can only sort through so much of his disastrous life at once.
“Katie’s dog had surgery and they shaved him and he looked naked.” Peggy forks up another bite of cake, sticks her finger in the whipped cream on her hot chocolate to add a dollop to her bite, and stuffs it in her mouth. Crumbs fall onto her cape.
Ned’s not sure she swallowed that other bite, but it’s a bit late for that. Table manners, he adds to a mental list. Something to be dealt with when this latest crisis is behind them. And which Abbot will probably come in handy for, he’s so naturally neat and polite.