CHAPTER TEN

Rosemary was in a silk blue robe, her long black hair up in a tight bun. She poured herself another glass of wine. Once she’d filled the glass almost all the way to the brim, she grabbed it by the stem and tilted it toward him. “Thanks again,” she said. “I can’t imagine dealing with Ava’s attitude at the Hilton.”

“She doesn’t have an attitude,” Ethan replied. “She’s upset about her father being a humongous creep.”

Rosemary glared at him.

“I’m serious,” Ethan said. “Look, Kelsey might be a good governor, but she can’t get away from what he did. Neither can you. Both of you are going to live in its shadow—in his shadow—for the rest of your lives.”

“I know that.”

Ethan sipped his wine. It was heady and relaxing. He hadn’t realized just how much he needed a drink after the day he’d had. “But she didn’t make a choice,” he said. “You’re the one who decided to stay with him.”

Rosemary glared again. “She doesn’t get to make a choice,” she said. “She’s a child.”

“I know,” he replied. “And whatever decision you make, it’s your decision. That doesn’t mean she isn’t going to be affected by it. She clearly already is.”

Rosemary bit her lips. She leaned back and sighed heavily, dropping her shoulders. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she said. “I’m doing my best.”

“I know,” he said. He grabbed her shoulder and squeezed it. “I know you’re doing the best you can. Kelsey should have never put you in this position.”

She nodded. “But he did,” she said. “And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know if Ava is going to get through this and…”

“And what?”

“And I know it’s selfish,” she replied. “But I miss my husband. Or the fiction of my husband, I guess. Through all this time, I thought he was a good, committed man. I thought we could make it.”

“And now?”

She groaned, throwing her head back. “Now I don’t know who he is,” she said. “Now I think Mom might have been right all along.”

“Really?”

“She did always say white men were terrible,” she said with a snicker.

Ethan sighed. “Dad loved that.”

“Loved it,” she said. “Do you remember how mad he would get? He would go out to his garage…”

“And build a bird house,” Ethan said. “Or a squirrel feeder.”

“When Kelsey and I first moved in together, he wanted to give them all to me,” she said with a snicker. “I told him we didn’t have a yard, and somehow, that didn’t seem to matter.”

He snickered. “I never told you this, but when I came out, he painted one of them with the rainbow flag colors,” he said.

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” Ethan said. “I mean, it was weird. I was sure they were going to hate me, but neither one said a word about it. Like at all.”

“Ever?”

“Ever,” Ethan replied. “A week later, I’m taking the dog out for a walk and I see a random bride bird feeder in our garden. Not going to lie, I teared up a little bit.”

Rosemary sighed. “I miss him,” she said. “Things were easier when he was around.”

Ethan nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “They were. Things were easier when we were kids, though.”

“So much easier,” Rosemary said. She glanced at Ethan’s bedroom door and swallowed. “Do you think I’m damaging her?”

“Probably,” he said. “But isn’t that your job as a parent?”

She chuckled dryly. “I guess,” she said. She refilled her glass of wine to the top again. “I just want to know if I’m doing the right thing, but I guess I won’t know that until I’m older and she’s deciding what she’s supposed to do with me.”

He laughed. “At least you both have that to look forward to,” he said.

She sighed, then took a deep breath. “Thank you, again,” she said. “I know you’re expected to do this, but you know. For not asking me questions. For not pushing me to make a decision one way or the other. You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I get it. You’re having a hard time right now. This is the kind of shit that can take years to process.”

She nodded. “Speaking of which,” she said. “How are you doing?”

“You know,” he said. “I’ve been better.”

“Max?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s been… weird.”

She smiled at him, her brown eyes sparkling. “You like him.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I do like him. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Oh?”

“This is about more than that,” Ethan said, shaking his head. “Relationships are complicated enough. Then you mix them with politics and they get so much harder.”

She nodded. “Ain’t that the truth,” she said. “Are you still mad about it, by the way?”

“About Max? No,” Ethan said, shaking his head. “Not at all. You were right, he is my type. Not physically, but… I don’t know. There’s something about him.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You know who he reminds me of?”

“Who?”

“Tim,” she said. “That boy you had a crush on in high school.”

“Tim? He was such a dick,” Ethan replied with a snicker. “I only liked him because he was broad-shouldered. You know how I feel about guys with broad shoulders.”

“I do,” she replied. “You don’t see it?”

Ethan smiled. “I guess,” he said. “He does have the same kind of air about him.”

“Arrogant?”

“I was going to say self-assured,” Ethan said. “But sure. Arrogant works.”

***

“I’m coming with you,” Alois had said, walking into Ethan’s study without knocking. Ethan took a while to process what he had just heard his fiancé say, but when he finally got it, he had to stop his jaw from dropping.

“No,” he’d said. “You’re not.”

“I’ve been to warzones before, Ethan,” Alois had replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do I have to remind you of where we met?”

“No,” Ethan replied. “You don’t. Not at all. I just…”

“You what?”

Ethan had swallowed, his throat dry. “I just worry about you.”

“I know,” Alois had replied. “And I worry about you too. How do you think I’m going to feel when you go?”

Ethan had walked over to where Alois was, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. “Al,” he said. “You’re going to be busy. We have a wedding to plan.”

“Maybe,” Alois had replied. “Or maybe I’ll be busy worrying about you, wondering when you’re going to get home.”

Ethan had sighed. “You shouldn’t go with me.”

“You know,” Alois had replied. “I know that you think me being here and staying at home while you do your job makes my profession less important than yours—”

“I didn’t say—”

“You didn’t have to say,” Alois replied. “The fact that I’m sitting here and translating legal documents day in and day out as I try to save money for our wedding doesn’t mean I’m not an expert in what I do.”

“I know that.”

“Do you speak Arabic?”

Ethan had shaken his head. “You know I don’t.”

“Then you’ll need an interpreter,” Alois had said. “Don’t worry.  I already talked to your magazine, they’re willing to hire me too.”

Ethan had opened his mouth. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“You don’t just get to leave me behind, Ethan,” Alois had said.

Ethan had nodded. “That was never my intention,” he’d said. “Look, I was—my career matters to me. I know your career matters to you too. I didn’t mean to imply that it didn’t. I just… I don’t want to be away from you after we get married. Al. You’re the most important thing in my life.”

Alois had nodded. “What about before we get married?”

“I didn’t want to get you involved.”

Alois had flashed him a dazzling smile. “Yet somehow,” he’d said. “I found a way.”

Ethan had laughed, shaking his head. “I love you,” he’d replied. “I’m glad you’re going with me.”

“Yeah,” Alois had said. “Well, you’re welcome.”

***

Ethan took a deep breath as he looked at himself in the mirror, the steam dissipating around him. He could hear Rosemary and Ava talking to each other in hushed tones, which meant they were fighting about something.

They had been there for a week. Ethan had meant it when he said they could stay as long as they wanted, so it wasn’t like he could kick them out, but he was used to his own space and sharing a place this small with his sister and his niece was driving him up the wall. It didn’t help that he’d dreamt about Alois almost every night since he had last spoken to Max—something was always happening. They were fighting, or laughing, or eating ice cream together.

They were on a plane, Alois sounding words out that Ethan could hardly say.

The dreams always ended in the hospital, a nurse ushering him away in a language he couldn’t understand, tears streaming down his face. Then the doctor, so tall and gorgeous, like a soap opera actor, coming out and telling him to sit down in perfect, unaccented British English, making Ethan think about whether he’d taken elocution classes, making him think about anything but Alois.

Every morning, he woke up with the sheets he’d put on the couch fold-out covered in sweat. A few times, he was sure he had woken up with tears in his eyes.

Because of that, Ethan had been avoiding sleeping as much as possible, but it was catching up to him. He could see it in his face, in how cloudy his eyes were as they stared back at him. He had tried to spend as much time outside as possible, but lately, even going on those long walks that used to help him so much didn’t seem to do much at all for him.

He didn’t know what was wrong. Every time he tried to think about it, his mind would drift back to Max. He wasn’t sure why, exactly. All that he was sure of was that he couldn’t go back to Max—Max wasn’t interested and Ethan was trying to respect his wishes.

Rosemary had off-handedly mentioned him a couple of times. Every time, Ethan had to stop what he was doing and pretend that he hadn’t heard, or simply moved the conversation along to something else. For someone that he had only known for a few days, it felt like Max had made too much of an impact in his life. There was nothing Max had done that should have had that much impact on Ethan, but he couldn’t help but let his mind wander back to when they had first kissed or when Max had made him crawl to him.

For some reason—for whatever reason, though Ethan was struggling to figure it out—he missed it. He missed him. Ethan wasn’t supposed to miss Max, and he had almost forgotten what it felt like to miss somebody.

Somebody he might get to see again. Missing someone when they were really, truly gone… well, that was different.

There was something bittersweet about missing Max. He understood that it was likely that they would never get together—not really—but Ethan wanted to know what would happen to Max in the future. He wanted Max to find a boyfriend, a real one, so that he could do what he had intended to do in the first place. He wanted him to be successful in his campaign.

If that meant that Ethan had to watch from the sidelines, then Ethan supposed he had to be okay with that. Ethan knew he shouldn’t have pleaded with Max to do it as quickly as he wanted to, because Max’s life was none of his business. He owed Max an apology, but he had told himself he wasn’t going to be the person to reach out to Max.

If Max wanted to talk to him, he had his phone number. Right then, what was most important was to be there for his sister and his niece.

Someone was knocking on the door of the bathroom. Ethan rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. “What?”

“It’s me,” Rosemary said. “Come out. I need to talk to you.”

“One second,” Ethan said. He grabbed the shirt he had laid out for himself, put it on and then messed up his hair. He took a long time to leave the bathroom. “What’s up?”

“We’re leaving,” Rosemary replied as soon as Ethan walked out the door. “Today.”

Ethan blinked. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” she said. “Kelsey called Ava today.”

Ethan cocked his head.

Rosemary licked her lips. “He said he’d go to counseling with her,” she said. “He said he would go to counseling with all of us.”

“Good,” Ethan said. “You really need to.”

Rosemary raised her eyebrows. Ethan grimaced. “Sorry,” he said. “Was that judgmental?”

“Yes,” his sister replied. “Yes. Super judgmental.”

“Sorry,” Ethan said again. “I just want you two to be happy.”

She sighed, grabbing his hand. “I know,” she said. “And I’m really grateful you have let us stay this long. You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”

“It’s fine,” Ethan said. “You know that you’re always welcome here.”

“I know,” she replied. “But I don’t think I want to stay here for that long. It’s a little cramped.”

He stuck his tongue out at her. “You’re welcome.”

She laughed. “I’ll send you a fruit basket,” she said, winking at him.

He smiled at her. “I do mean it, you know. You and Ava deserve to be happy.”

“I know,” she said. “She definitely does. I’m not going to let a man stand in the way of that.”

“I never expected you to,” he said. “You’re a good mother, Rosemary. You shouldn’t feel bad about anything that has happened.”

Rosemary took a deep, shaky breath. “Thank you,” she said, tears welling up in her face. “I guess I didn’t realize just how much I needed to hear that.”

He took her in his arms, giving her a long hug. She hugged him back. It was the longest, most comforting hug of his life thus far. Neither one of them had ever been huggers, but then again, he supposed neither one of them had really needed it nearly as much as they did right then.

She moved away from him. “Okay,” she said. “That’s enough of that.”

“Right? Gross,” Ethan replied, a smile on his face.

She laughed a little. “Do you mind if I ask you for one last favor?”

“No,” he said. “Whatever you need.”

She smiled. “I want you to come with us,” she said. “I want you to drop us off.”