Andrea was ready for battle when he stepped outside. Her feet braced apart, jaw set in a hard line, eyes glittering in the semi dark of the loading dock.

“I’m not sure what you’re upset about.”

“Oh, of course not. How could you?” She jabbed a finger back toward the door. “If my sister could see you, dancing with that woman, falling in love with her, Aimee would never forgive you.”

Her words hit right where they were intended to. A sharp punch to the gut and then a stab right through his heart.

He had no doubt that she meant what she said. He heard the honest hurt in her tone.

As cold and down-right mean as Andrea could be, she loved her sister more than anything else. He couldn’t hold that against her. They’d both loved Aimee, but it was Andrea who didn’t want to share and when Juliet was born, Andrea’s first reaction was to disappear from their lives for a while, worried that Aimee had completely pushed her out of their lives.

“Well?” She spat the word at him, but didn’t seem to want to wait for an answer. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Logic didn’t work well when Andrea was this upset. Sometimes it was best to let her work through the anger on him. She’d never tried to physically hurt him, but she had no qualms whatsoever about laying into him with verbal barbs.

“A guilty conscience? Well you should be embarrassed.”

“I’m not.”

It hurt him to keep his tone measured. Calm.

“How could you even think about putting another woman in Aimee’s place?”

“Juliet needed a pair of parents to perform. Laura is Juliet’s first ballet teacher. A teacher,” he added, hoping to get her to understand something, “who Juliet wanted to invite to perform with us.”

“Right. Juliet,” she scoffed, “a young impressionable girl missing a mother. What do you do? You let her pick? How do you know that woman hasn’t been trying to wheedle herself into Juliet’s life?”

“Excuse me?” He felt anger rise up in his throat like bile.

“You heard me. Aimee had money. You had a very lucrative career, maybe she doesn’t know you’ve reduced yourself to that ridiculous family thing.”

“Family thing?” He laughed out loud. “I left corporate law because I wanted to spend more time with Juliet. I decided to work on family law to protect people like Juliet. How is that ‘reducing’ myself?”

“Corporate law means more money, more prestige. When it comes time for Juliet to get into a college, the more pull your name has, the better she’ll do on applications. You’ll be able to afford to send her to the best schools. She’ll have the best chance at a good, solid future.”

“What’s wrong with where she’s headed right now? She’s a happy little girl, Andrea. That’s my main concern. She’s smart. She’s talented. And she has the biggest heart of anyone I know. What’s wrong with that?”

“Listen to you!” Her whole body tensed up. “Heart? Talent? Do you know where that will get you in the world? Nowhere. Aimee’s daughter deserves more.”

He heard the dig in her tone. She was going for the jugular like she’d done so many times before. She brought up Aimee when she wanted to hurt him. Which was nearly every time they’d seen each other since Aimee died.

“I’ve never understood why you think I’d give Juliet anything less than the best life I could. I love my daughter, Andrea. I loved Aimee, and-”

“Do you hear yourself?”

“What? What is it Andrea?”

He wanted to ask, ‘What now?’ He just didn’t want to throw fuel on the fire. Andrea didn’t pull her punches.

“Your words!” She drew in a long shuddering breath and shook her head over and over. “You said it. “You love your daughter-”

“Andrea.”

“But you loved Aimee. Loved.”

He felt like he’d walked into a brick wall. His head started to throb with pain.

“I will always love Aimee, but-”

“But you’ve moved on!” She took a few steps toward him, her hands fisted at her sides. “You’ve put Aimee in the past-”

“Never.” He bit the inside of his cheek. “Aimee will never just be the past, Andrea. Juliet is her daughter. Every day I look at her and I see Aimee in her smile. I hear Aimee in her laugh. I would never want Aimee to be gone from my life, Andrea, because Aimee is a part of Juliet. We’ll always have her in our lives.”

“So that’s it? That’s all you’re thinking about?”

Matthew lifted a hand and pressed his fingers against his temple. “Andrea, I don’t understand-”

“That’s right, you don’t.” She reached her hand into her bag, almost pulling the bag right off her shoulder. When she pulled her hand out again, she had her keys in it. “You’ve got it all figured out, except for one thing.”

“And what is that, Andrea. Please, tell me.”

She looked at him and for the first time in all the time that he’d known her, he saw real pain in Andrea’s eyes, not anger.

“You can move on,” she told him, almost gasping for air, “you have Juliet. You have that part of Aimee with you always, but I don’t have anything. When Aimee di- died. I lost my sister, yes... but I lost the last person in the world who loved me.”

Matthew was stunned. He’d never seen Andrea as anything but the angry, self-assured woman that she’d always been around him.

“When you met Aimee, I knew it was going to happen. I knew from the first time she talked about you that she was going to fall in love with you.

“And then she married you, and I saw her less and less. She tried to spend some time with me, but once she got pregnant it was all but over. Piece by piece you took her away from me, Matthew.

“And now this is the final straw. Parading your little happy family in front of me. I’ll never forgive you for this, Matthew. Never.”

She spun on her heel and started for the parking lot.

“Aunty Andy, wait!”

Matthew turned and saw Laura and Juliet in the doorway, both still in costume. Juliet launched herself from the doorway and ran straight past him.

From the doorway, Laura released her lips from the tight white line of tension and mouthed SORRY.

He shook his head. He should have known that Juliet would have insisted on coming out to check on him. So he turned around just in time to see his daughter wrap her arms around her aunt.

The same aunt that barely made time to see her, even when her mother was alive.

Matthew wasn’t going to argue or say a thing. His daughter was just like her mother. There was a heart inside of her that was larger than it was physical, and right now it was nearly bursting free of her body.

As Andrea began to sob and her knees began to buckle under her, Juliet just held on.

He couldn’t hear all of the words that Juliet was saying to her aunt, but he could see the strain fading from Andrea’s shoulders as she wrapped her arms around her niece and hesitantly pressed a kiss to her cheek.

He felt the same release of tension in his own body. He’d never quite understood Andrea’s attitude about him. He’d tried to become her friend and when that had failed, he’d just kept away from her as much as possible without being rude. She’d always seemed so much happier around Aimee anyway.

And Aimee had always told him that she understood Andrea and someday, he would too.

It was too bad for all of them that the day had come after Aimee’s death.

Making his way to Andrea’s side, Matthew put a hand on Juliet’s shoulder. Leaning back a little she looked up at him. “Dad, why don’t we bring Aunty Andy with us to dinner after the rehearsal?”

Smiling back at her, he turned to look at Andrea who was quickly wiping the back of her hand over her eyes.

“I don’t want to impose-”

“You’ve never been an imposition, Andrea. I just didn’t understand why you didn’t seem to like me at all.”

Her lips thinned into a pale line and quivered a little. “I didn’t understand you either.” And then a miracle occurred. One corner of her mouth curled up in what was almost a smile. “I’d like to go to dinner if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course it is,” Juliet leaned into his side. “We just have to get changed and get Laura to come with us.”

Matthew turned to look at Andrea, worried about her reaction.

“That’s the woman on stage with you?”

He nodded, hating that he felt he needed to brace himself for whatever happened next.

Andrea turned to look at Juliet and he saw Juliet reach her hand out and take Andrea’s in her own.

“She’s really great, Aunty. You’ll like her.”

Nodding slowly, Andrea gently pulled Juliet into a hug. Looking over her shoulder and into his eyes, she spoke again. “I’m sure I will,” she sighed, “if she means so much to you, I’m sure I will.”

Matthew reached over and touched Juliet’s head. “I’m going to go get changed and see if Laura’s ready to go. Make sure you get changed too okay?”

He could almost see his daughter rolling her eyes. “I will, dad. I’m going to talk to Aunty Andy for a minute and then I’ll go get ready.”

“Watch out for your pointe shoes.”

Juliet stepped back and looked at him. “Listen to you. You’re a total dance dad now. Love it!”

Downstairs, he stopped by the women’s dressing room and knocked on the doorframe.

“Who is it?” The voice that sang out through the cracked-open door wasn’t familiar to him.

“Uh, it’s Matthew Benson, I’m looking for-”

“Laura?” The door swung open and Adrienne stepped outside half-dressed as Mother Ginger from the second act. It took him a moment to compose his features.

She followed his gaze and met his eyes again with a shrug. While the top of her costume was an intricate Mother Hubbard-like top with huge flounces and drapes at her hips, her legs were only clad in psychedelic patterns of varying shades of purple. “It looks different when I’m strapped into the stilts and hoopskirt,” she acknowledged, “But it’ll do for now.”

He nodded, having seen the contraption during a tech rehearsal.

Her expression sobered a little. “Laura left.”

“What, I-”

She clapped a hand down on his shoulder. “She’s not mad or anything like that. She said that your wife’s sister was here and was upset seeing her with you. Laura didn’t want to make things difficult for you or Juliet. So she left.”

Matthew had listened carefully to Adrienne’s tone. She meant what she said and wasn’t just trying to make him feel better. “How is she getting home?”

“One of the stagehands was on his way home so he took her, I think.” She looked over at the stairs. “Everything okay with your sister-in-law?”

He nodded. “We’re working it out.”

She sighed. “It’s tough. Families.”

“I guess I just didn’t try hard enough to get to know her before… before we lost Aimee.”

“I’d say there’s always time to fix things, but that would be wrong. But, you know that as well as I do.”

Matthew smiled back at her. “That’s true.”

“And you and I don’t really know each other well-”

“But?” He laughed.

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Smart aleck. So, I guess you know where I’m going with this?”

“Nope. I seem to have left my Magic 8 ball at home. I know it’s about Laura, but as to what specifically…”

“I think you’re falling for her. I’d say it’s a good thing. The man she was with all but disappeared from her life after she was hurt. He’d fallen for the principal dancer ready to become a nationwide sensation.

“If you’re falling for her because ‘gosh, she’d make a really great babysitter’ you’re going to break her heart and I’m going to break your teeth.”

“But,” he struggled to make sure he got his thoughts together, “if I’m falling for her because she makes me feel like I’m a better person around her. Like when she smiles at me I want to be the man that makes her smile like that every hour of every day from now on. Like I’m so afraid that if I take her in my arms and kiss her I might just never let her go.”

He cleared his throat and let out a long shaking exhale. “Would that be good enough?”

They stood there for a long moment of silence before Adrienne reached out her hand and grabbed his from his side, giving it a good strong shake.

“I think I like you, Matthew Benson. Your teeth are safe from me… for now.”