It Had to Be You, Georgia Clark [phonics reader TXT] 📗

were having, this wasn’t the way you said things like this. Fear, anger, and sadness muted her truth. Like it so often did.

Zach wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, looking undone and messy and tragically romantic. “So, what—was this all about the money?”

A whip of anger cracked through her. “No, it’s not about the money, I don’t want your money, and fuck you for telling Bitsy. She basically said I’m a call girl.” The truth of it boiled in Darlene, and she became more furious. She was making it worse, but she couldn’t stop. “I guess because I didn’t drop my pants for you right away like the one million girls you’ve banged in New York, you purchased me. Do you have any idea how messed up that is? God, in what world did I ever think you’d change? You’re nothing more than a privileged little boy too scared to stand up to his own parents.”

Something inside Zach’s face collapsed. He sagged, wincing, like he’d just been punched in the stomach. Then he took another slug of wine, half of it splashing down his chin. “Wow. Tell me what you really think.”

Regret consumed her. She was supposed to be making things better. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I quit.”

“You quit what?”

“Us. This. Our band. You and me.” He started stumbling back toward the party, “I’ll mail you the check.”

“Zach, wait. I didn’t mean—”

He yelled over his shoulder, each word bitter and hard. “But thank you so much, Mitchell. For always seeing the best in me.”

The farewell she’d given Charles in the bookshop. But it had never been Charles who saw the best in her. It was Zach.

71

Liv, Sam, Ben, and Dottie thundered up the steps of the brownstone, squealing and thoroughly soaked. The afternoon storm had come out of nowhere.

“Oh my gosh!” gasped Liv, as they flung open the front door. “We’re drowned rats!”

They made puddles on the hardwood floors as they trooped inside, all talking and laughing at once. Sam toweled off Ben’s hair and carefully wiped his glasses while Liv fashioned a cozy dress for Dottie out of an old pink T-shirt.

“Pink’s my favorite color,” Sam’s daughter told Liv.

“Last week you told me blue was your favorite color,” Liv replied, tucking a lock of blond hair behind Dottie’s ear.

Dottie grinned as if caught out in the most fun lie possible. “It’s also pink.”

“You can have two favorites,” Liv told her, kissing the top of her head. “You can have as many favorites as you like.”

It hadn’t always been this easy. In fact, this might very well have been the first easy day.

Ben had taken relatively well to Sam being Liv’s boyfriend. “I already guessed.” There’d been a few rough patches, but overall, her son was doing much better. Sleeping through the night, more confident with strangers. Dottie had taken more work. She wanted to know if Sam and Liv were going to get married, if Liv was going to move in, if this meant she would see less of her real mommy. They worked through her questions and concerns, but Dottie hadn’t allowed Liv to play with any of her toys until recently. Consistency and patience had been the key. An interest in fairy costumes didn’t hurt. Slowly, the kids got used to a new routine of dinner together when Dottie wasn’t with Claudia, who had an empathetic smile and an easygoing parenting style Liv admired.

And then today—today had kind of been perfect. They fed ducks in the mucky park pond, played a boisterous game of tag among the piles of yellowed leaves, then set upon one of Sam’s elaborate picnic lunches. Ham and gruyere sandwiches, ginger lemonade, and, the big surprise, a double chocolate cherry cake, with five candles. Liv blew them out in one blow.

For years, she’d been ambivalent about turning fifty. For most of this year, she’d been downright dreading it. She’d no longer be young. Things would get more difficult; healthwise, careerwise, wrinkles-and-flappy-skin-wise. But as she sat on the plaid picnic blanket in the brisk autumnal air, rugged up and laughing with the ones she loved, Liv wasn’t thinking about what was ending. She was enjoying what was beginning.

Now, back home, the brownstone was a cacophony of hot showers and changes of clothes and Who wants hot chocolate? and Me, me, I do! It reminded Liv of years ago, when they’d have the cool neighborhood parents and their kids over for Phone-Free Fridays. The little ones hanging from the willow tree in the then-landscaped backyard, the adults cracking open beers to talk national politics or neighborhood gossip. When Eliot was at his best and things between them seemed pretty good. When it was a home, not just a house. When they were a family, not just the two of them, unmoored and trying to find their way. Now, watching Sam help the kids get into their pj’s, she recognized that family and happiness could be rare, transitory states, not guarantees. It made her value them even more.

The overgrown backyard was getting pelted with rain. Sam peered out, folding his arms. “You know that willow tree’s got to come down.”

It felt like proposing she get her teeth yanked out and replaced with dentures. “So you’ve been saying.”

Sam rubbed his neck. “No, you seriously need to get it out. It’s hurricane season and—”

“I know.” She pulled him away. “Why don’t you go microwave some popcorn.”

“Real men don’t microwave. We make it from scratch.” He headed into the kitchen. Liv stayed by the patio doors. The willow was dying. But what Sam didn’t know was she and Eliot planted that tree. The year they got married and bought the brownstone, over two decades ago. It’d been there for all the milestones: Ben’s birthdays and sitting shiva for her father and sticky summer evenings watching the green-gold fireflies blink on and off, like bits of floating magic. Even though their marriage had ended, the relationship held more good memories than bad. The