Page 29 of Alfie: Part Two

“I remember,” Trip replied quietly. “You got divorced. You don’t talk much.”

Oh, this might get painful. While West and I had done our absolute best to avoid fighting in front of the kids, a perceptive creature like Trip would definitely pick up on the tension. And the silence. Hell, Ellie had too. Kids were usually way more observant than we gave them credit for.

Whenever they’d expressed their curiosity—usually tinted by sadness—about why we had divorced, we’d told them this happened sometimes with parents. That we loved being their fathers but we didn’t get along as a couple.

“We’ve been working on that,” West continued. He had his dad cap on firmly, which meant his voice was extra warm and radiating comfort. “We’ve been talking more lately, figuring out why we had problems in the past, and we…” He cleared his throat and covered my hand with his on the table. I was quick to turn mine so we could thread our fingers together.

“We miss each other,” I heard myself say. But that worked, didn’t it? Not too shabby. I wanted to keep going too, and Iwanted to address Ellie, because she was more like me. “You know how you sometimes get angry when you’re sad?”

She tilted her head.

West elaborated. “For instance, the other day when you were sad about not getting a pet. It made you angry with us.”

That made her huff. “Yeah.”

I felt my mouth twitch. “Daddy and I have been like that too,” I said. “For a long time, we were sad about not getting along, but we didn’t really understandwhywe couldn’t get along, so it made us angry instead. We started fighting.”

West squeezed my hand, hopefully in silent approval.

“And you’re a li’l hothead like me, baby girl,” I told Ellie. “You know how it’s easy to get angry when something hurts.”

“I guess…” She shifted in her seat to sit on her hands.

“Daddy and I were in a lot of pain,” West said. “That’s why we couldn’t see clearly. Feelings and emotions can be very confusing, even for grown-ups.”

I snorted softly. “Maybe sometimes more for us.”

West chuckled quietly and inclined his head, then returned his attention to Trip and Ellie. “If you have any questions about all this, you can always ask us. Whenever and however many times you want. But the bottom line is, your father and I have realized we miss each other very much. We love each other, and we’re working on talking more.” He took a breath, and it was my turn to squeeze his hand. “And we want to know what you’d think about us becoming a family that lives together again.”

Ellie perked up at that, and she chewed on her lip. “We’d all live here?”

I glanced at West. That was one of those things we hadn’t discussed yet.

“We haven’t decided on the place yet,” he answered. “I think…for now, the important thing is for us to spend more time together. The place doesn’t matter as much. But in the future, wemight buy a new house. I know, for instance, you like living in the city…? You also like having a backyard and?—”

“I need a pool in my life, Dads,” Trip said, very firmly.

I grinned. “We’d never take that away from you, sweetheart.”

He exhaled in relief.

But on a serious note: “You have your school here too,” I said. “We’ll find a good compromise when the time is right, but for the moment, we can spend most of our time here, and sometimes we’ll head into the city.”

My guess? We’d sell my house before the year was over. Then we’d see. Having spent time with Finn and Emilia at their house in Villanova, I could admit I was beginning to see the appeal of having that slice of heaven farther away from the city. Even though…yeah, I was always going to love the city. So…we’d see.

What I did know for sure was that I was in no rush, and I’d be a lot happier moving back in here now than I had been when I’d moved out. The house itself had hardly been the main problem.

“Wecanalso go fifty-fifty,” West reasoned. “I want you to be happy where you live?—”

“Trust, I’ll be ecstatic,” I chuckled. “We’ll figure it out. All I want is for us to be together. The place is fuckin’ irrelevant. Besides—” I turned to the kids. “Now that we’re a proper family again, I want weekends full of road trips and adventures.”

Yeah, that worked—on both of them. Ellie fist-pumped the air, and Trip lit up, presumably at the prospect of going to more water parks.

“Well, there we have it,” West chuckled. “I take it you approve, darlings.”

“Yeah!” Ellie couldn’t sit still anymore.

“I would have been super happy without adventures also, but now I’m super-superhappy.” Trip beamed. “Can we go to the water park in South Carolina?”

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