Another Piece of My Heart (42 page)

But somehow she knows that won’t happen; the nightmare is finally over. They will go through the process of legal guardianship, and all will be well.

All will be well.

“You’d better come inside.” Andi, her voice low and calm, pushes past them to open the front door. “I guess we do have things to talk about after all.”

Epilogue—Emily

I know everyone complains about the Northern Line all the time, how it’s the worst line on the Tube, but honestly? Even when it’s totally crowded at rush hour, and I’m standing squeezed in between hundreds of hot, sweaty strangers, I still think it’s completely cool.

Michael thinks I’m hilarious. After three years in London, he says I’m supposed to be taking it in my stride, but how can I take it in my stride when it’s so different from anything I ever knew before, and I still pinch myself every day, knowing how lucky I am to live here.

So every day, when I’m getting the Tube home, I don’t care that I’m shoved into a corner, and I still think it’s funny that if I nudge someone by mistake, or fall against them when the Tube jolts, they’re the ones who will look up and say
sorry
.

I guess it’s an English thing.

Tonight, I’m lucky. A woman gets off at Warren Street, so I get a seat pretty much the whole way home, and it’s lucky because I’m carting back a ton of food to get ready for the family’s coming for Thanksgiving.

I had to go grocery shopping during lunch. A bunch of the other students were going to the pub around the corner, and they invited me to go with them, but there’s no other time to get this stuff done, so I had to say no. I try to say yes when I’m invited, because now, at the grand old age of twenty-four, I’m so much older than them, I want them to know how grateful I am to be included at all. I just couldn’t do it today.

It’s strange being back at school at this age. I love that I’m at this incredible art school, but it’s weird being the oldest and, I guess, weirder still that I actually want to learn.

Most of the others are a few years younger and living a different life entirely. Booze, clubs, partying.
Been there, done that.
I pretend to be interested, but boy, am I happy that’s not my life anymore.

I never expected to feel so grown-up, but working for the past four years, saving money to put myself through school, going home every day to my boyfriend in a country that isn’t my own, has definitely made me mature way faster.

I had so many lifetimes before I even touched the soil in the United Kingdom. My childhood in Mill Valley, then life postdivorce with all the terrible teenage trauma that came with it—oh, my
God
!—how grateful am I
those
days are over—then the pregnancy; being a mother for all of five minutes, working on the farm and discovering who I am over in Oregon, and, finally, Michael.

We are now talking marriage. Not actually doing it, not yet, but definitely recognizing that this is it for both of us. Someone said to me recently that they didn’t think relationships as good as ours existed. I laughed, but it got me thinking. I absolutely did think that relationships like this existed; I just never thought it was going to happen for me.

I was always scared I’d end up a lonely, middle-aged woman, with skanky boyfriends and no hope. And here I am, with a boyfriend who’s not only clever and handsome and cute and brilliant and funny, he’s also been my best friend for more than ten years.

And let me tell you, that counts for one hell of a lot.

I get off at Chalk Farm and walk quickly down the road, not stopping to window-shop like I usually do. It’s freezing here, the kind of freezing I don’t ever remember experiencing on the West Coast of the United States, and I’m wishing I thought to bring a hat and gloves when I left the house this morning.

Actually, I’m wishing that I even owned a hat and gloves.

I rest the bags on the doorstep as I fumble for the key, then I’m in, and it’s toasty warm, and I go down the hallway to the kitchen and dump everything on the counter.

A quarter to four. My family won’t be here until seven. There was some mix-up with the flight, and they had to have a layover, and the whole thing’s messed up, but I’m relieved that I can get ready for them.

I love having them here; having them see me as a grown-up; hosting them in my home. We started having Thanksgiving here two years ago. It was Andi’s idea, and I was happy because the Thanksgiving before that we went to some friends’ here in London, people Michael works with, and although it was great to have all the usual food—their pumpkin pie was insane!—it felt kind of sad for me, not being with my family.

I never minded before, which is weird. When I left Mill Valley for Portland, nothing dragged me back for three years, but everything changed after they adopted Cal.

I flew back to sign the papers. I stayed with my mom, but I spent a little bit of time with my dad and Andi. It was pretty hostile between Andi and me at first. We never talked about the time I said I was taking Cal, and the awfulness of that day, and how I thought she had always hated me.

Now I know that isn’t true. She never hated me.

I think I hated myself.

But on that trip Andi and I were both superpolite with each other. My mom said Andi didn’t believe I was really going to go through with signing the adoption papers, and no one could blame her for not jumping back in to be my best friend.

I did sign the papers. We all went to the lawyer’s office together, and when it was done, Andi came up to me in the waiting room, and said thank you. She started crying when she said it, but tears of happiness, I think, and I said that’s okay; and then it was really freaky: we just kind of fell into each other’s arms.

I never would have expected it, but we stood there for a really long time, both of us crying. I think I was crying more from relief than anything else, and she … well. She was just over the moon.

I saw my dad a few times after that, before I flew back to London, but I didn’t see Andi again. We all agreed it was best if I left her, and Cal, alone.

One night my dad called and said they were thinking about coming to London for Thanksgiving. Everyone. Sophia and Cal, too. I got so excited, I was practically dancing around the living room.

Michael and I went all out. I got up at five
A.M.
to roast my first-ever turkey, and Andi came over by herself in the morning to help me with the sides.

I did the sweet potato pie and green bean casserole, and a nut roast for me, and she made the cranberries, mashed potatoes, and creamed onions. That’s what we now have every year. I had no idea what I was doing that first time, but Andi helped me, and we had fun. Together. Who would have thought it?

She wasn’t fake, or judgmental, or a bitch. I didn’t feel that she resented me, or hated me, or thought I was hopeless. She was relaxed and happy, and I wanted her to be there. I wanted to tell her about my life. She felt, for the first time, like a really good girlfriend.

She completely messed up the onions the first time around, and then she messed it up again—we were talking so much she forgot to check them, and not just once, but twice. The second time it happened we were upstairs—I was showing her some photographs I’d taken recently—and we smelled burning.

“Shit!” she yelled, and we flew downstairs to the kitchen. She took the lid off, and sure enough, there they were again: black onions. Burnt to a crisp. And she looked up at me in despair, and suddenly we both started cracking up. But not regular cracking up: this was clutching our stomachs, sinking to the floor, tears falling down our cheeks cracking up.

Honestly, to this day I have no idea what was so funny, only that it took us about half an hour to recover, and for the rest of that day all we had to do was catch each other’s eye, and we’d start giggling again.

“What’s the matter with the two of you?” my dad kept asking with this big smile, and I could see that what he was happiest about was that Andi and I were getting along. We tried to explain, but nobody else got the joke.

It marked a turning point for Andi and me. That night, at the Thanksgiving table, I made a point of saying grace, and I changed it, on the spur of the moment, to say that I was so thankful for my family: my sister Sophia and my brother Cal.

I opened my eyes when I said that, as did Andi. We looked at each other across the table, and she nodded at me. If it is possible for a nod to contain acknowledgment, gratitude, and love, I would say that nod contained all three.

Things have gotten better and better since then. I used to sit on the phone with them, but now we Skype, and we do it all the time. I can start with Andi, then Sophia will come home and shove Andi out of the way, while Cal leaps up and down behind them, making me laugh.

I have come to know him, truly know him, thanks to technology, and I can honestly say that I love him. For real this time.

Giving him up was a way to let go of the guilt that kept me away those three years with barely any contact. Giving him up gave me the space to get to know him, to really enjoy him, on neutral terms. Since the minute I signed those adoption papers, I have felt nothing but pleasure at getting to know, and love, this truly great kid, and my truly great stepmother.

I have a family that I love. Without exception.

Life may not have turned out the way any of us expected, and God knows there have been some harsh and painful twists and turns, but today it feels like it is all supposed to be, it all happened for a reason, even though we couldn’t see it at the time.

And it’s all good.

*   *   *

I go into the spare room and make sure there are clean towels in the bathroom, and flowers on the table. Sophia always stays here, my dad, Andi, and Cal in a hotel in Swiss Cottage.

Last year Sophia tried to persuade Cal to have a sleepover here, with her, but the lure of the indoor swimming pool was too much, and he refused. He’s six now, and hilariously strong-willed. If Cal decides he isn’t going to do something, hell will freeze over before he does it. I can’t think where he gets it from.

I unwrap the cheeses and put them on a platter with fresh organic grapes and the gluten-free crackers that Sophia likes, and put the white wine in the fridge. Dad said he wanted to take us all out for dinner tonight, and it would be fine to bring Cal because he’d be on California time so it would be lunch for him, but we’re going to meet here for drinks, like we do every year, before tomorrow’s Thanksgiving feast.

*   *   *

“Oh, my God! He’s gotten so big!” My hands fly to my mouth as they walk in, and hugs are exchanged, and coats are handed to Michael, who throws them on the bed in the spare room, and everyone’s laughing and talking, and saying they can’t believe how cold England is, and I can’t take my eyes off Cal: six years old! I know I see him on Skype all the time, but I didn’t realize how tall he’d gotten! So tall, and grown-up, with a big-boy haircut for the first time ever.

“How about our boy, eh?” Andi sidles up and nudges me with a smile, seeing me staring at Cal, saucer-eyed. “I told you he’d grown!”

“He’s beautiful,” I say, and I like that she called him “our boy,” even though he’s not. I only gave birth to him; he’s their boy.

“He’s just like you,” she says with a laugh. “Two peas in a pod.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t turn out like me.” I make a face, attempting a joke, but also thinking about my teenage years of drinking, and doing drugs, and hooking up with really, really awful boys.

Andi steps back and frowns at me. “Are you kidding? You’re a beautiful, brilliant, talented woman. I hope he turns out to be
just
like you. Nothing would make me happier.” There are tears in her eyes as she says it, and she means it. I can tell. There is nothing fake about her words, and I just stand and stare at her, mumbling something about the bathroom, and I go in the bathroom, shut the door, and lean back against it.

I am not used to compliments. When I get them, I usually just brush over them, or pretend I didn’t hear; that they don’t mean anything to me, but what Andi just said
means
something. They are the words I have been waiting to hear ever since she came into our lives. Not that she hasn’t said stuff like that before, but this is different. This is real.

I take some steps over to the vanity and lean on the counter, looking at my reflection in the mirror, trying to ignore everyone shouting outside the door for me to hurry up, with my dad asking, as he always did when I was a kid, if I’ve fallen in.

“Be there in a sec,” I yell, taking some deep breaths, Andi’s words reverberating in my head. I lean forward, my face inches from its reflection, looking myself in the eye, noticing the shimmer of peace, and joy, and love.

“You know what?” I whisper, a slow smile spreading on my face, a glow of contentment radiating out from my heart.

“I hope he turns out just like me, too.”

ALSO BY JANE GREEN

Straight Talking

Mr. Maybe

Jemima J

Bookends

Babyville

To Have and To Hold

The Other Woman

Swapping Lives

Second Chance

The Beach House

Dune Road

Promises to Keep

Jane Green is the author of twelve bestselling novels, dealing with real women, real life, and all the things in between, with her trademark wisdom, wit, and warmth. As well as writing a daily blog,
www.janegreen.com
, she contributes to various publications, both online and in print, including the Huffington Post, the
Sunday Times
, Wowowow, and
Self
. A foodie and a passionate cook, she spends most weekends cooking for a minimum of twenty people in her home in Westport, Connecticut, where she lives with her husband and their six children. When she is not writing, cooking, filling her house with friends, and looking after their animals, she is usually thanking the Lord for caffeine-filled energy drinks.