Page 89 of The Sky in Summer
“I’m not going to be seeing any of them.” He sees my surprise. “Nope. Not gonna happen. I only want to be with you.”
He finds the doorknob, slowly turns, and walks through. He sees Eden’s bed, and when for a moment our eyes meet, a look of wonder appears on his face. All for me.
Epilogue
Van
One year later
If I wrote my life story the prologue would be the years eighteen to thirty-eight. Every day after childhood and before Layla seem irrelevant. I thought I knew who I was. An overreaching confidence can do that. Apparently, I was aiming too low. Instead of the serial bachelor, irresistible to all the ladies, turns out I was the one-woman-man type. Irresistible to the only one who counts.
The idea of therightwoman never sounded believable. I thought all women were right. Until the time I would discover what was wrong with them. It never took long. What a boob. I blame my brothers, who came before me and made fucking around look so appealing. You’d have thought I would have figured it out by the time they found their own loves. But no, I did not. The state of suspended adolescence worked fine. I wasn’t aware of any negatives until I was.
My eyes scan the long table crowded with half-eaten breakfasts and steaming coffee cups. The players in my story sit talking and laughing. It’s a friggin’ Norman Rockwell painting come to life. A new character joined us in April. Princess Poppy, Parish and Scarlett’s daughter. Look at her. What a doll. Looks just like Scarlett. Six months old and dressed to impress.
The first granddaughter of the Lyon family has been showered with all the pretty shit made for girl babies. The women are always oohing and ahhing about how cute she looks. She does though. Once in a while I catch Layla looking like she wished she had the daughter experience. Who knows? We aren’t too old. Are we?
Poppy girl looks happy in her grand mere’s arms, bouncing to the streaming music in the restaurant background. Rarely have I seen my mother finish a meal when a child is involved. She is in her element loving on a baby. Does she miss those days? Scarlett wipes the drool coming from the toothless grin of her delighted child.
Dad is eating the last of his breakfast, soaking a corner of toast in the remaining hollandaise sauce of his Eggs Benedict. He washes it down with a sip of Bloody Mary. Only Gaston could eat like that before an international flight. I can hear him now, leaning over to Mom surprised he has to take a shit on the plane. He wears his Uggs. Paris or Billings, Montana, what you see is what you get. It is a great strength of his.
Dove and Layla are deep into a conversation about the big party Layla is staging on their property. The connection has turned into a friendship as well as a steady, well-paying job. Silver Staging has grown into a new business, concentrating on the year-round events Dove, the band, and their many contacts throw. I’m watching their animated faces and hand gestures. What are they describing? Whatever it is is tall. Dove’s eyes widen at the news.
Parish wears a look of such contentment it contradicts how well he writes his famously depressed, loner detective. Life changed drastically for Parish when he met Scarlett and Sam. How they met is something for a novel. Three wounded people standing against the sadness of death. I wouldn’t have taken odds the connection would hold. Now I know better. I think because of them, I have a little more hope and faith in life. Anything can happen and sometimes it’s remarkable.
He and Sam sit looking at something on their cells. Parish throws back his head and laughs his ass off. Sam looks happy as shit.
“It’s funny, right Dad?” Sam says, nodding his head in agreement.
I don’t think any of us have gotten used to him calling Parish Dad yet, but to the person, we love it. Especially Parish and my sister. If you didn’t know it, you would swear they are father and son. There is deep respect there. I believe Kristen is here watching the scene. Knowing Sam is safe.
Teddy is on break from his first semester at college. Sam the same. They miss each other, I can tell. The time is moving like a runaway train, passing us all in a relentless forward motion. It’s most obvious when I think of my nephews. They were little kids a minute ago.
“Sam! Send me that picture. I’ll hit her up on Instagram. Show her my guns!” Teddy flexes to prove he has the goods.
Maybe they are still kids.
Aargon is the lone wolf at the table, neither engaging in long conversations or commenting much on anyone else’s. The food on his plate has been pushed around too much to be considered normal. He’s filling up the moments that pass slowly for him, more content to be alone with his own thoughts. Since Teddy left a few months ago, things have looked worse. Now he is alone in the house and he likes it way too much.
I have seen three different people try to engage him in the last hour. It’s always the same. He joins in for a couple of minutes, then lets the conversation stall. When I look at him lately it seems there is a darker mood surfacing. I hate it.
The years since his wife’s death have made a quiet man out of an expressive optimistic one. Sometimes when I see my parents speaking to him, I hear a gentleness you use when talking to a scared child. They show strength and comfort all mixed together. They speak with the authority that calms someone who feels out of control. I have to do something about Aargon. Help him somehow. We have to.
Across the table, sit David and Tyler. I catch David’s eye.
“Want my O.J.? I didn’t touch it.”
He reaches across and takes it. “Yeah. Thanks.”
He and Tyler are turning into men. I see Layla attempting to hold on to the boy in them, but it is a battle lost from the start. I remember how smart I thought I was at their age. How much I had already lived. The thing is though, and I try to tell her, is that whatever remains of the boy is never going to change now. It will be there through their old age. For me, Nobel, and Aargon, it has been true.
I see our young selves every time we are together. I see it when they are worried about something, or when we play games. I could name a thousand ways it shows up. When I look at my siblings, I see their young faces. Especially Scarlett’s. The little girl who loved her boy bands long before puberty. It was funny as hell seeing a six year old lip syncing to the Backstreet Boys.
I missed every one of these people. When I returned to Paris, I tried coming up with a simple but well-crafted plan. Clear about what I wanted and where I was going to be. I’d move back to Montana, back out of my plan to sell real estate in Paris, reclaim my old job and begin an actual relationship with the woman I love. I’d start to get to know the twins on a deeper level. It sounds stupidly naïve now. It was more complicated.
It was taking longer than I wanted to lease the apartment. All my money was wrapped up in it. I needed to take the proper steps. It had to be the right person. How could I rely on renters to care for the perfect home and the contents I personally picked item by item? Who would give a damn about caring for the marble or the five thousand dollar toilet? Love that toilet. I’d have to store everything I could, but that would have been an imperfect solution to one tenth of my problems. Layla and I even talked about having a long-distance relationship. I could fly back and forth as my schedule and money allowed. It sounded totally fucked-up to me. She agreed.
But the answer to my prayers came when I got a call at five-thirty in the morning Paris time from my mother and father. I thought someone had died. Instead, their excitement was too great to be contained to my normal waking hours. In their defense, it was nine-thirty at night, Montana time. My father said ‘You’re young. You don’t need that much sleep.’
