I stare at her, at a loss for words.
“You know,” she says, leaning against the deck again, sipping her coffee. “This was supposed to happen years ago.”
“What was?”
She gestures around us, the half-stripped wooden arch, rose petals and remnants of evergreens carpeting the deck. “This. The wedding.”
“Oh.” I scrub my neck. “That. Yeah.”
She rolls her eyes. “Ollie. You don’t have to act like you don’t know. Like we weren’t engaged for three years and it took me that long to work up the courage to go through with the wedding, not because I had a single doubt about the man I love more than my own life, but because I couldn’t figure out how to face that day without my mom.”
Her smile fades as she glances out at the woods around us, eyes darting up to the treetops. “Even though she’s been gone for years, it felt like a new grief when I realized I’d walk down that aisle without being on her arm, without her teasing me to make me laugh when I got nervous beforehand, without her nagging me to put curl cream in my hair so it wasn’t a frizz ball on my wedding day.”
She sighs heavily, tapping her ring against her coffee cup. “It was just…this raw, terrible loss, all over again. Then, once I felt like I’d gotten my bearings, wrapped my head around it enough to be able to set a date, I started worrying that my sadness, missing her, would ruin the happiness of the day, that I’d disappoint Ryder, the family. I kept waiting to finally feel okay enough to do it.”
“Did you?” I ask quietly.
She shakes her head. “No. The okay-ness never came. I just realized I’d been missing the whole fucking point.”
“What point was that?”
Her gaze slides my way; her eyes hold mine. “I was waiting for it to get easier. Thinking I should be able to handle my grief better, at Christmas, at New Year’s. On her birthday. On mine. On my wedding day. But grief doesn’t get easier. It just gets familiar. You learn to live with it, and if you’re lucky, you find people who’ll love you while you do.
“Ryder has loved me every step of the way for exactly who and where I am. Delaying our wedding day, fearing my sadness would somehow diminish the joy of our wedding, did a disservice to the depth of his love and mine. Our whole relationship, our love for each other, has grown and deepened through the hard moments, not because we haven’t faced any.
“You and Gavin have both been hurt in the past. You have wounds and fears, and there’s no getting around them. If you choose each other, you’ll choose to see those parts of each other and treat them gently and try to understand them. Maybe you feel ready to do that. But if I had to guess, Gavin’s still figuring out how it works, whether he thinks he’s capable of entrusting that to you. I know it took me a while to wrap my stubborn head around it.”
I swallow roughly. “I do think I understand how it works, but the readiness part…understanding it, doesn’t make the thought of doing it any less scary.”
“It’s okay to be scared,” she says. “If you feel ready, if he comes to you, tell him what you’re afraid of. That’s intimacy. Being brave in trusting him with your truth.”
Gently, she wraps an arm around me and sets her head on my shoulder. “You got this, Ollie. And remember: you are enough, just as you are. If Gavin does it right, he won’t leave you in a bit of doubt about that.” She taps the space over my heart. “And you need to do your part, too. Believe in yourself, in your worth, that you’re enough. Because you are.”
I nod, dabbing my eyes on my shirt sleeve.
Smiling, Willa pushes away from the deck and drains the last of her coffee. “Well, I’d say my work is done. Off I go.”
“You don’t want to stay for goodbye brunch?”
She shakes her head. “Nah. I’ve got a husband I plan to go home to, wake up the fun way—”
“Ay!” I scrunch my eyes shut. “None of those details. Get out of here.”
She’s still laughing when she shuts the door behind her.
Cleaning up from goodbye brunch is the usual chaos—all of us in an assembly line of interweaving duties to clean up the remnants of coffee cups and juice glasses, platters and plates and leftover food.
Theo cries as Freya tries to nurse him to sleep. Linnea continues to tantrum from the middle of the great room floor because she wasn’t allowed to eat wedding cake for breakfast. Viggo’s hung over, scrolling moodily through his phone with the volume on too loud while scraping dishes clean, then handing them to me to rinse. Rooney scrubs dishes alongside Aiden, who rinses them clean while Ziggy dries them, her noise-canceling headphones blocking out the world. Ren puts away clean dishes while Frankie wipes down the table and kitchen surfaces. Mom and Dad smile at each other tiredly as they tidy up the living room.
“Viggo,” Axel snaps, strolling in from his garbage-hauling trek outside and setting a fresh bag in the bin. “Turn that down.”
Viggo glares at Axel. “Would it kill you to ask nicely?”
“Yes,” Ax says. “Now turn it down.”
Viggo grumbles, picking up his phone from the counter, just as the clear voice of a news announcer says, “And now, highlights from the press conference given early this morning announcing soccer legend Gavin Hayes’s retirement.”
I nearly drop the plate I’m rinsing, before setting it hastily in the sink, madly drying my hands on my shirt. “Don’t. Don’t turn it down.”
Lunging for Viggo’s phone, I grab it and have grand plans to run somewhere private to watch, but the moment I see Gavin, my legs stop working. I sink to the nearest chair at the table with a clumsy flop.
My heart splinters as I look at him, drinking him in. Blue suit. Blue-and-gold tie. His beard neat, hair neater. He stands, tall, stoic, clutching a piece of paper.
“…Playing this game has been the greatest privilege, the richest joy. Saying goodbye to it, for years, has been my deepest fear and sadness.” He swallows thickly, sets the paper down and runs his hand flat across it. “But I cannot sustain this level of play. My body has reached its limit, and as much as I wish it were not the case, I have had to listen to it, to respect it, after it brought me this…incredible opportunity—” He swallows thickly again, bites his cheek. “And so, it is with gratitude for the journey that I have been fortunate enough to know, the players I’ve called teammates, the coaches who have shaped and directed me, that I announce my retirement from professional soccer.”
I wipe away tears, my chest aching. A hankie appears in my peripheral vision. I don’t question it, just accept it and loudly blow my nose. How long has he known? Why haven’t I known? I could have been there for him, comforted him—
He didn’t want you there, did he? that despairing voice whispers. He hasn’t wanted you for weeks, since he knew he was done here. You were just an insignificant pit stop, and now he’s moving on.
I shake my head, willing away those hopeless thoughts, reminding myself what Willa said—You need to do your part, too. Believe in yourself, in your worth, that you’re enough.
I watch Gavin on the screen as he folds up his paper, dabs the corner of his eye. So composed and calm, even though I know his heart is breaking. I want so badly to be right there beside him, to be the arms he turns to when the lights go out and he clears out his cubby and he comes home.