Chapter Thirty-Nine

Before I have the chance to talk to him further, my dad leaves. He drops Heddy's bag at the back door and takes off. I don't call or text him. I just let him go without saying what I should have at the table.

That I'm not a kid anymore. I don't need his money or food or house. His role in my life can't be puppet master. A parent should be more than that, and should have always been, but we let him get away with neglect because we didn't know better.

Meanwhile, Heddy has always loved, cherished, and guided us. I thought she was filling in for my mother, but I realize now that she had three shoes to fill: a mother, a father, and a friend. She did them all so seamlessly. Maybe my father couldn't see us because he was mourning his wife of twelve years, but I wouldn't know because he never said. Heddy parented us while mourning her best friend of twenty years, alongside Francesca and me.

"Go talk to Adam now," she tells me while we do the dishes.

Maggie and Diego have since gone home. David is bathing the kids and getting them ready for bed. Kate and Caroline eat another slice of pie in the living room while watching a Christmas movie. Francesca hasn't come out of her bedroom since she returned to the house and stormed up the stairs.

I wrap up in my jacket and walk through the dark to Adam's house. I knock on the door.

Maggie answers, a sad smile on her face, Christmas dog pajamas on. "He's not here," she says before I can get a word out.

"Oh. I'll come back later, I guess," I say, thinking he's gone for a walk or a drive.

"No, Vienna, he left ." She wrings her hands nervously. "He took his bag and his dog, and they went back to Chicago."

The wind gets knocked out of me. I clasp my chest, struggling to breathe.

"That's not possible," I mutter.

"He just needed to get away, fast." Maggie grips my shoulder. She hesitates. "Look…I went to see him in Nashville after he moved there, and the boy hadn't showered in weeks. He was a complete mess. He lost the first job he had lined up because he didn't show up. He bombed the first gig he had because he couldn't get any words out."

I move my hand to my face, pressing my fingers into wet eyes, feeling the tears drip down my palms. "But we had a plan . He was going to come to Atlanta –"

I feel like I'm crumbling.

"I screwed this up so bad," I whimper.

She says, "He's afraid that pining after you is going to affect his career and his dreams, like it almost did last time." She runs her hand along the length of my hair. "If you two are meant to be, you will be. You found each other again once."

I finally say, "I don't want to wait fourteen more years."

"Then don't. Talk to him. Make it right."

When I walk away from her, I think about walking back to my property, sitting in my bedroom and crying in that house full of people. Instead, I reach the bottom of the treehouse, stare at the big empty box in the branches, and climb up in the dark. I relax against the planks and curl my knees up, crying into my sweatpants, not caring about the cold on my fingers or what animal could be waiting at the bottom when I finally climb down.

It's so dark and quiet, that my muffled sobs are the only sound I hear.

I'm so jealous of people finishing their Thanksgiving meals and setting up Christmas trees, unconcerned with ultimatums from their absentee fathers or arguments with delusional sisters. Or the potential loss of a good, loving, funny, compassionate man.

The wooden house moves.

"Ahh!" I scream, scrambling to hold on to something. This whole thing is about to come crumbling to the ground. Francesca was right. This thing is not stable and I'm going to die here, tonight, next to the hamster we buried twenty years ago.

"It's just me," David says, climbing up the ladder. "This is so much smaller than I remember."

He pulls himself up with difficulty and sits opposite me, both of us breathing heavily for different reasons.

"You scared the shit out of me," I admit.

He says, "I scared the shit out of myself. A fall from that height…Fran would be widowed."

"How did you know I was up here?"

He sways his head in the dark. "Well, you and Adam used to come up here all the time. Plus, I heard you crying."

"How do you know we came up here?" I wipe my face.

"Because I could see you when I snuck into Fran's room at night."

I lean my head back. "So, you knew about us? The whole time?"

"At first I knew he had a thing for you." David struggles to get comfortable on this surface. He finally stretches his legs out like a rag doll. "He'd stare at you. You'd come up in conversation all the time. He'd ask me questions about you."

"He had the look ," I mutter into my arms. "I always wondered how you guys didn't see that look."

"I did see it," he says. "It was uncomfortable to watch. Plus, I'm a veteran big brother. I'm observant. I noticed early that Francesca didn't look out for you, so I figured someone had to. But I decided Adam was a nice guy."

"He was. He is. He's really the best."

"And you two clearly didn't want anyone to know that you were making out in the treehouse, so I kept my mouth shut." David asks carefully, "Where is he?"

I swallow a lump in my throat. "On his way to Chicago."

"Why?"

"Because I…I chose my dad. Again ."

David sighs. "You know why you did that right?" When I give him a questioning look, he explains, "I've been through a lot of therapy in the last year. I can psychoanalyze the hell out of you."

"Please. Be my guest." I wipe a fallen tear.

"Vee, you'd rather hold on to someone you think should love you than let yourself be loved by someone not bound by DNA. I get it." He glances off, looking at the house. "Fran does it, too. That why we both work for him. She wants her dad to love her because he's supposed to. Earlier in our relationship, she would have picked him over me, too."

I say, "Well, if your parents don't love you, how can you trust that someone else will?"

"You have to let them try."

"I can't do that if Adam's not here ."

"Maybe he'll turn around and come back," David suggests. "He'll hang a uey in the middle of the highway, honk at everyone flipping him off, eventually get pulled over and explain that he's got to come back for the girl he loves, resulting in a police escort right to your door."

I laugh, "You watch too many romantic comedies."

"I love romantic movies, they're just happy. No one's getting shot or having to save the president."

"Well, I doubt my story will go in that direction," I say.

After a beat, David replies, "We have to value the people who put work into a relationship. Vee, your dad, he's my boss and I'm terrified of the man, but he doesn't put in the work. I know why Adam was pissed off."

"I do too, but am I just supposed to never see my dad again?"

He blinks. "If the alternative is not making your own life choices, then… yeah . I think so." He lets me think about this quietly before saying, "Fran told me what you said to her. She's in the room, angry now at both of us."

"What did you do?"

The image of Francesca's angry, reddened face flies into my mind.

"Sided with you," he says. "I told her in therapy that I was done defending her actions when they were wrong. We all need to be held accountable. She's been walking all over you for as long as I've known her and that's not fair."

I groan, "I barely even know what I said to her."

"You told her the truth. She heard it. She doesn't like it, but she heard it." He sighs. "It's going to take her some time to come to terms with her behavior." He shifts forward, meeting my eyeline. "The point is, Vee, you don't have to put up with cruelty or selfishness in a relationship just because that person is family. We don't get a free pass to treat blood relatives like crap. What would you say to a friend in your exact situation?"

"That your dad's a dick."

He nods, maybe a little surprised that I changed the focus from Francesca back to my dad, but the truth lies in the knowledge that she's not going anywhere. Francesca won't walk out on me. She'll be angry, silent for a while, but she's not dangling her presence in front of me until I do her bidding.

Adam was right. I don't need my dad. I have a lot of other people who show up and work hard to keep healthy relationships. It's time to let go of someone who doesn't want me in his life, and just wants to feel important in mine.

I sniffle and clear my face, breathing deeply. I tuck my cold fingers into my jacket sleeves and ask, "So now what?"

David says, "I think we should all go home tomorrow. This has been a heavy week, for everyone." He stops. "Except for Caroline. She's had a pretty easy couple of days."

"Thank you, Davey," I offer, crawling across the boards to hug him.

He pulls me in, and I think about all the times, since I was twelve, that I'd been glad David was in my life. Glad that I had a brother.

We climb down from the treehouse and walk back inside. I take one last look at Adam's house. I wish I could go over there and talk to him, make everything right. I'm struck, thinking about how he must have felt fourteen years ago, when we didn't have time to cool off and talk about it later because I had hoped in my dad's car.

I left last time. He left this time.

Chapter Forty

On Friday morning, I kiss the kids goodbye, hug David and the girls, watch Francesca collect her things without looking at or speaking to me, and head back on the road.

I could message Adam on Instagram. I could say, I was wrong. I should have told my dad to take a hike, to leave us in peace, and I should have chosen you. It wasn't right for me fourteen years ago, but it's right for us now.

That seems too impersonal. I could have asked Maggie for his new number. That would have made sense if I wasn't so distraught last night and eager to get away this morning. As it happens, I have no way to contact him.

If he wanted to talk to me. He could still be angry. For all I know, he spent the entire drive back to Chicago deciding I was the wrong girl and that he had dodged a bullet. Or worse: he might assume I'd heed my dad's ultimatum and chose my father over him.

As I settle into my apartment for a weekend of self-pitying and crying on my couch, I can't bring myself to turn on Bravo. I don't even stress bake. Every time I think of doing so, my skin cries at the memory of Adam tying that apron so sensually around my waist, breathing into my ear, the smell of sugar in the air. Instead, I snuggle into a blanket with a cup of hot cocoa and turn on Hallmark to watch a girl fall in love with her old high school boyfriend in a town where Santa is the mayor.

Why is Santa always so creepy in these movies? And so obviously the real Santa. He knows full names and what people wanted for Christmas when they were seven, plus he shows up unexpectedly at town events with his reindeer pet, Rudy.

This just makes me cry more.

On Monday, Noelle comes in to ask about my vacation. I spill it all, leaving out the bit about Adam being Adam Kent, and she spends a solid ten minutes of our biweekly planning hour patting my back and muttering, "Three weeks, babe. Three weeks."

Three weeks until our next break, which should be a breeze, but kids expect you to be chipper during that stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas. They don't understand why we're not making snowflake popsicle crafts or why I sit down during brain break dances.

They line up for art one day and Kennedy says, "Miss Rose, you look sick."

"She's looked like that all week," Journey adds.

Quinn says, "She just don't got her eyelashes on."

"We watched The Grinch in Spanish yesterday. Can we watch a movie tomorrow?"

I cry a little more when they finally leave me to go learn about color mixing. In an attempt to brighten my spirits, since my sister still hasn't reached out and I've scrolled through several happy pictures of Adam at a bar with his Chicago friends, I string lights up around the dry-erase board. The kids make a fake fireplace. We have a Christmas break countdown.

Ten days.

Five days.

One day.

"Merry Christmas, Miss Rose," Everleigh offers as her mom cleans up from the class party. I say goodbye, collect my gifts and belongings, and lock the back door for the next two weeks.

I don't have Christmas plans. I don't have a family that speaks to me, save for Heddy. I visit her straight from school, where she and Zander set up a table on the street for the night's Christmas festival.

"Try calling his agent or manager," she suggests, adjusting a red tablecloth. "Or slide into his DM's."

I cover my face. "That option sounds mortifying to me right now. It's the only way I have to contact him, but the thought of being another thirsty, random girl messaging him on social media grosses me out. That's not me ."

"That's not what you are to him."

"But, what if he doesn't even want to talk to me? What if being burned by me twice is two times too many?"

"You're just going to let him slip through your fingers?" she asks.

Zander sets up a tabletop tree with crystal ornaments. He waves at a guest entering the store and says he will be right with her. To me, he adds, "You have to get your man, girl, before someone else snatches him up. Like Selena Gomez. I heard they were dating."

I drop my jaw when he returns to the checkout counter. I snap at Heddy, "You told him?"

"I tell him everything. He's in my will." She frowns at my appalled face. "Don't worry honey, he's only getting my succulents."

I groan and glance around the street at the colorful lights and festive cheer.

Fake snow sprayed on doors. Paper stars hanging in window displays. Wreaths made from fresh pine branches, wrapped in velvet ribbon.

It's all so romantic and lovely.

I complain, "This isn't how it's supposed to go for me and Adam. It's supposed to be magical and perfect, like this. Insta-stalking him isn't magical."

"When did you get to be such a romantic?" Heddy untangles a string of lights.

"I've been watching Hallmark."

She drops her eyes. "Oh, honey ."

"I know." I notice a coffee truck pull up at the end of the street. "I'm going to get a drink, what do you want?"

"Iced mocha peppermint with a little bit of gingerbread drizzle, cinnamon dusting, and green sprinkles."

I make a face. "Okay sugar elf , I'll see if they have something like that in the workshop."

"They do," she answers. "I insta-stalked their menu."

I leave her to buy two lattes for me and Zander. They give me a paper tray because Heddy's Christmas Explosion cannot be contained, and I return to find Heddy hurriedly putting her phone away and a giddy expression on her face.

"I just had an idea," she announces.

I hand over her drink. "I hope it was to not drink all of that."

"I'm going to go up to the lake for a few days before Christmas. Why don't you join me? We're still waiting for Fran to cool off and tell us the plan for Christmas Day, anyway."

I hold on to the warmth of the mug and wait before drinking it to say, "You don't think she'll still be mad at me by Monday? She wouldn't keep me from the kids on Christmas, right?"

"No." Heddy waves me away. "I'm sure she'll get over it. In the meantime, you and I can snuggle up together like snowflakes from the same cloud, drink hot chocolate, watch a sappy movie."

I take a sip of coffee.

Back to the lake house and the empty house next door. The dining room where my father has twice now called Adam a piece of shit . The bedroom where I cried myself to sleep.

Reading my mind, Heddy says, "I'll sage it before you get there."

What else do I have going on for two weeks?

"Okay," I answer. "Christmas at the lake house. Sounds…magical."