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 weeping willow, that big, messy Muppet of a tree, had been there for all of them.
And it was her house and her tree, and it was staying.
After everyone was dry, they settled in to watch a movie. The Wizard of Oz had just started on cable. Dorothy meeting the munchkins, her whole world in Technicolor. Sam grabbed a handful of popcorn. “I love this movie.”
“Me too.” Liv draped a woolen blanket around their knees and kissed him on his deliciously salty mouth.
Ben and Dottie affected disgust. “Ewww!”
“Oh, stop it,” she said, poking them until they giggled.
By the end of the film, Ben and Dottie were curled into their respective parent, rosy and boneless with sleep. Liv snuggled next to Sam, his long arm draped around her.
“I love this,” he murmured.
An old movie and hot chocolate and their children safe and warm and happy. Everyone safe and warm and happy. “I love this too.”
He shifted to face her, his eyes turning soft and serious. “Happy birthday, baby. I hope you had a good day.”
“I had the best day.”
Outside, the rain roared. It didn’t unnerve her. Because the man next to her would be the single standing house after a storm that razed the entire street. His words were quiet, but sure. “I love you, Liv.”
She’d known this was coming. In the weeks and months prior, she was worried the words might make her feel anxious or guilty. When she’d spoken her wedding vows to Eliot Max Goldenhorn, she’d promised to love him, and only him, always. She’d never even considered loving someone else. But life had other plans. Now, she was here, with another man, and her child, and his child. All together, filling her with a contentment and ease she barely believed was possible. And so she’d be damned if she didn’t tell him God’s honest truth. “I love you too, Sam.”
Dorothy clicked her ruby red-slippers, sending her home, to the people she cared about.
But Liv was already there.
Later, after Sam and Dottie had left and Ben was asleep in bed, Liv was stacking the dishwasher when she heard movement in the front office.
Savannah was at her desk, working. Damp blond hair fell around her face like a curtain.
Liv yawned. “What are you doing here so late?”
“Tying up some loose ends from the Livingstone-Choi affair,” Savannah replied, vague.
“God, that was a lovely wedding.” Liv leaned back against the doorframe, hands in her dressing gown pockets. “The pictures are gorgeous.”
Savannah’s head snapped up. “The pictures are in?”
A minute later, Liv was clicking through the selects. She paused on the first kiss. A dynamic, fantastic shot. Multicolored confetti flying against a cerulean sky. The front row of family on their feet and cheering. Both women locked into a romantic, passionate embrace. Liv smiled. “That’s a framer.”
Something splashed on the keyboard. Liv whipped her gaze to the ceiling. “Jesus, was that a leak?”
Savannah sniffed. “Liv,” she said, in an oddly strained voice. “I have something to tell you.”
Leaks were expensive. And even though the business was back up and running, Liv had definitely not budgeted for a new roof. “Hmm?”
“I’m… I mean, I think I am… a little… or maybe a lot… gay.”
“Oh. Cool. Yeah, think I was starting to get that vibe.”
Savannah had never been wowed by any of the grooms. And overly wowed by the brides.
“I did the whole college lesbian thing for a minute,” Liv added. “Didn’t pan out.” She squinted at the ceiling. “You haven’t noticed any water in here, have you? It hasn’t rained in a while, and I might’ve missed—”
Savannah burst into loud, hysterical tears.
Oh. Not a leak.
Liv made peppermint tea. She’d never had to slip into the role of counselor and confidante with Savannah. Six months ago this would’ve disgusted her. Now, their knees were touching as they sat side by side on the pale pink sofa. Savannah unleashed: never meeting the right guy, always having very close female friendships, Feel Good and her parents and Honey and Honey’s ultimatum.
“I like her. A lot. But I don’t think I’m ready to be someone’s girlfriend, and that’s what she wants. What she deserves.”
“In a relationship, timing is everything,” Liv said. “Maybe the timing just isn’t right. It’s not easy, doing what we do,” she added. “Working every day with other people’s dreams, making them real. Finding love yourself and sustaining it long-term, when there’s absolutely no script—that’s hard.”
Savannah’s face was wet. “Be honest. Do you think I’m… That this is all… kind of… strange?”
“Strange?”
Savannah’s gaze dropped to her tea. The words were a whisper. “Wrong.”
The wave of desperate, maternal love took Liv by surprise. She lifted Savannah’s chin up so she could speak to her directly. “There is nothing weird or wrong about who you’re attracted to, or who you love. Heterosexuality is just more common. It’s not more normal.”
Savannah smiled sadly. “I don’t know if my parents would agree with that.”
“Exactly. You don’t know. After you tell them—if you choose to tell them—you’ll find out.” Liv put her tea aside to focus on Savannah. “But remember this: telling people things that they might not expect to hear, but that are true about you, is a way for them to deepen their relationship with you. To know you, and love you, even more. And speaking as a mom”—Liv’s throat thickened—“that’s honestly the best gift my son could ever give me. To let me in like that, and allow me to love him even more fully.”
She found herself reaching out to hug Savannah. For a long moment, Liv held her as she cried softly.
Liv could never have imagined that the overly made-up young woman handing her a copy of Eliot’s will outside the brownstone would end up here, in her arms, weeping about being a little, or a lot, gay. And for Liv to really, really care about that.