ON SATURDAY MORNING, the four of us climb into Marcus’s car and we set off for the bed-and-breakfast Warwick now owns in the Catskills. We drive in near-silence, the atmosphere in the car too heavy for the small talk Austin and I try to start up. Marcus parks in the sole remaining space in Warwick’s parking lot, but even once he hits the ignition off, no one moves.
There are half a dozen cars in the lot, and through the large windows at the front of the building I can see patrons sitting at tables eating, and the flickering light from an open fireplace. It’s a large bluestone house, with a huge yard that’s been cultivated into an elaborate and immaculate garden. Snow is falling again today, and that gives the entire place a dreamy, romantic feel. Warwick’s B & B is a stunning property in an incredible setting, and I can’t help but think I might have liked to visit this place on an ordinary weekend away.
“He loved to garden at home,” Luca says suddenly.
“The garden fell to shit when he left,” Marcus replies, almost absentmindedly. “Until Mom met Jack and he fixed it up. She hates gardening.”
They fall silent again. I reach across and take Marcus’s hand.
“Let’s do this,” Luca announces, and he opens the door abruptly and climbs out. Austin follows and closes the door behind him.
Marcus reaches for the door handle. At the last second, he pauses and turns back to me. “Thanks for being here, Abs.”
“I would always have come with you.”
We walk up the path to the house, and the door to the café opens. There’s no mistaking Warwick Chester—he looks exactly as I imagine Marcus will in twenty years’ time. Warwick is tall and broad, too, but that oh-so-familiar curly brown hair is sprinkled with gray. Warwick’s eyes are surrounded by lines and shining with tears, but the shape of them is so familiar.
“You really came,” he says unevenly as we all crowd onto the little porch at the front door.
“Warwick,” Marcus says smoothly and evenly. It’s his business voice—the one I hear when he’s on the phone with his staff and VIP customers. He releases my hand just for a moment, then extends it toward his biological father. The two shake hands briskly, but Warwick brings his other hand to clamp it around Marcus’s wrist.
“Marcus,” the older man breathes. As calm as Marcus’s greeting was, Warwick’s is drenched in emotion. Marcus stiffens and withdraws his hand, then glances back at me as he begins an introduction. “Maybe you remember—”
“Abby!” Warwick interrupts him, and then he grins at me. “Of course I remember you. Welcome.”
As soon as I release Warwick’s hand, Marcus slides his arm around my shoulders and gently pulls me against him. We shift to the side a little to let Luca and Austin greet Warwick, but the awkwardness lingers even after introductions are done. It doesn’t help that Warwick is staring at his sons as if he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing, leaving long, uncomfortable pauses between pockets of small talk. It’s freezing out here, and I’m impatient to move inside, hoping I can position myself close to that open fire. When one silence stretches to a particularly uncomfortable length, Marcus clears his throat. Warwick seems to snap out of his reverie and he turns toward the doors. “Come inside,” he says. “Let’s sit down and have that chat.”
He’s reserved a table for us, and there’s an array of sandwiches and cakes laid out on it. We settle around, and a woman with an apron approaches us, notepad in hand.
“I’m Rita,” she greets us warmly. “So nice to finally meet you all.”
“Rita is my wife,” Warwick tells us, and Rita drops a gentle kiss on his cheek before she turns back to us. I watch Warwick as he watches Rita, and I’m struck again by that odd familiarity. Then it hits me—I know the intense affection he feels for Rita because I see it all the time when Marcus looks at me. Something about that recognition makes me like Warwick Chester, despite the fact that I’ve loathed the man for most of my lifetime.
“Can I get you all some coffee? Something else? Whatever you want, it’s on us today, of course,” Rita says. We order some coffees and then she leaves, and all at once, we all turn to Warwick.
“I thought a lot about what I’d say to you boys today,” he says heavily. He watches as Rita retreats, but then his gaze sinks to the neutral objects in the middle of the table as his shoulders slump. “I figure the best way to get this done is to get on with it, without dancing around the issue.”
“We know you left,” Luca says stiffly. “We know you didn’t come back. That’s about all we know.”
Warwick nods, then clears his throat and says softly, “I guess you boys also knew your mom and I were having some rough times before I left.”
I glance at Marcus, in time to see his neutral expression shift into a frown. “No. We don’t know that at all.”
“Well, we tried to protect you from our troubles but...we talked about separating quite a few times,” Warwick says. “I thought two happy houses would be easier on you than one bitter one, but we kept convincing ourselves we could do better if we just tried a bit harder. But, boys—we married too young, and we really didn’t know ourselves yet, let alone how to raise two kids and care for each other. And then...”
He clears his throat, then pauses. With every second that passes, the guilt in his face intensifies, until he’s slumped toward the table.
“Then,” Warwick admits weakly. “Then I met Rita.”
This particular pause is more “shocked” than “awkward.”
“This Rita?” Marcus says, altogether failing to hide his disbelief. “You’re still with the woman you left us for?”
“I never left you boys,” Warwick says fiercely. He straightens his spine and he meets Marcus’s gaze. “Never.”
“It sure fucking felt like you did,” Luca says, and his tone is a perfect blend of wry humor and intense bitterness. Warwick glances toward Luca, then he slumps again.
“At least...” Warwick swallows. “I never meant to.”
“Wait a second,” Marcus says impatiently. “You were unfaithful to her for years. You left because she was going to throw you out if you didn’t.”
“Who told you that?”
“Grandpa Don,” Marcus says abruptly.
Warwick frowns as he shakes his head. He looks genuinely bewildered.
“I stuck it out with Lindy for years after we realized we’d made a mistake. I only left her when I met Rita at work and I realized how unfair it would be to stay in that miserable marriage when I was in love with another woman.”
“Okay, fine,” Luca says. “But it doesn’t explain why you never came back for us. One minute you were there, the next you were gone. How the fuck can you excuse that?”
For the first time, I feel like an intruder here, and I glance at Austin and he grimaces at me, so I know he’s feeling the same way. We’re surrounded by men who look exactly like Marcus—Luca a scruffy version of him, Warwick an aged one—and it’s eerie and uncomfortable, and if not for the fact that Marcus needs me, I’d find an excuse to leave.
But I can feel how much he needs me—in the way his gaze constantly floats back to me, and in the tightness of the grip of his hand against mine.
There’s very little I hate more than awkwardness.
There’s nothing I love more than Marcus. I can deal with these difficult moments in our lives because he needs me to. Running away doesn’t even register as an option anymore.
The café is bustling around us, staff and other patrons carrying on their mornings as if a broken family isn’t thrashing it out by the window over an untouched tray of gourmet cakes.
Warwick raises his chin now, and pushes his hair back from his forehead, then he clears his throat and he says carefully, “I won’t say a word against your mother—I know she raised you mostly on her own and she’s a fiercely proud, brilliant woman. But I had to juggle her needs with mine, and there was no escaping the fact that she was devastated and furious when I left. I called every night for a few weeks but...usually we’d both end up shouting, and I’d hear you boys in the background getting worked up because she was upset, and mostly she’d just hang up on me. Eventually I thought—I’ll give it a few days, you know? Let her cool off.”
Rita returns, carrying a pot of coffee. She silently starts to pour it into the cups, and Warwick’s gaze lifts to her face. They share another glance—she offers him a very gentle smile, and he just stares at her, as if he’s drawing comfort from her return.
“The problem was, when I left a gap between my calls, Lindy was angry about that, too, and I just didn’t know what to do. So I got Don to liaise with her so I didn’t have to upset her more. Or maybe, because I was a coward and I needed to hide from how I’d hurt her, and how I was hurting you boys.”
“Baby, maybe you made some mistakes right at the beginning, but you figured that out pretty quick,” Rita scolds him very gently. “And we tried everything to fix it.”
“For a while, I just kept trying but...eventually Don insisted I should give it a break. Give her some space to calm down. He said she was a mess and you boys were suffering for it.”
Marcus is staring at the other side of the cake tray now, his gaze distant.
“Why are we only hearing from you now, twenty-five years later?” Luca suddenly demands. Warwick sighs heavily.
“From there, everything snowballed. Every time I tried to get in contact again, Lindy was Don’s priority—of course she was—and he never thought the timing was right. But then she met Jack, and he said you seemed to have settled into a new family and I should leave it be...”
“But we kept asking,” Rita interrupts. “Boys, Warrie kept asking—every few weeks for years. Don always had some reason, some excuse, why we shouldn’t come for you—and we were scared to upset him because he was the only link we had to you. At least while Don was keeping an eye on you boys, we knew you were okay, you know?”
“And then by the time you were adults,” Warwick whispers unevenly, “I knew I could try to track you down directly but...I was scared if I did you’d tell me you didn’t want me in your lives and Don would be furious and he’d stop giving me updates. I couldn’t bear... I just couldn’t bear not knowing if you two were okay.”
Warwick keeps talking—more and more detail, until he’s giving us all far too much detail in a blatant attempt to prove he’s telling the truth. His regrets pile upon regrets until he’s openly sobbing and Rita leaves the café duties to their young staff so she can sit beside him and hold his hand. Luca softens a little over the course of the conversation. The hardness and the anger in his eyes gradually fade. Soon, he just looks sad.
I keep waiting for that same softening to happen in Marcus, but his gaze remains guarded, and his hand stays so tightly wrapped through mine that I gradually lose the feeling in my fingers. When Warwick runs out of words and the gap between his apologies grows, Rita starts talking for him.
“You didn’t try my cakes...you must still be hungry. Can I fetch you some proper lunch, or maybe you could—”
“Actually, it’s a long drive back so we’d better get going soon,” Marcus interrupts her quietly, and I glance to Luca and Austin, who both stiffen. “Thanks for your hospitality.”
And then Marcus stands abruptly. I stand, too—well, he’s still holding my hand so it’s not like I have much choice. Luca and Austin join us with visible reluctance.
“It was nice to see you again,” Marcus says stiffly to Warwick, who’s looking a little worse for wear as he stands and walks around the table toward his sons. Luca offers him a brief hug. When he steps back, Warwick shakes Austin’s hand, and then he turns to Marcus, who extends his hand for a very stiff shake and then takes a few steps toward the door without further preamble.
“I...” I’m tempted to apologize, although I’m not really sure Marcus has done anything wrong, and to do so feels disloyal. So instead, I pull Warwick close for a hug, and whisper into his ear, “Give him some time to get his head around all this, okay?”
He nods curtly, then embraces me again.
“I’m so glad you two are together, Abby. Your father and I used to joke about who was going to pay for the wedding,” he whispers back, and I flush and laugh softly as I shake my head.
“There won’t be a wedding,” I say, but I do so absentmindedly, because my gaze is already on Marcus. His back is stiff, his jaw is set and to anyone else he’d seem almost expressionless, but I can see the turmoil he’s trying to hide. I step quickly toward him and wrap my arm around his waist. He glances down at me, and he offers me a half smile.
“Let’s go home,” he murmurs. Rita is hovering around as we make our way to the door, and just as Marcus pulls it open, she blurts, “You know, if you’re tired, I kept two rooms free for tonight just in case you wanted to stop awhile.”
The offer hangs heavily in the air for just a second, before Marcus shakes his head.
“Thank you, Rita. Very kind of you, but we really need to get back.”
We offer a final round of farewells at the car, and then Marcus starts it and without pausing pulls out onto the road.
“Do you think any of that was true?” Luca says as Marcus quickly accelerates to the speed limit and focuses hard on the road. He activates the voice controls on his phone and says curtly, “Call Mom.”
Lindy answers a few seconds later, her voice bright and cheery. “Marcus! Darling, how are you? So—”
“Mom,” he says abruptly. “After Warwick left us, did he ever call?”
I can almost hear Lindy’s smile deflating over the line. After a pause, she says stiffly, “At first, yes. Don’t you remember? When he stopped calling you started sneaking out of bed and I’d find you sleeping on the floor in the foyer by the phone.”
I glance at Marcus. He’s white as a ghost.
“I thought...but I thought I was waiting for him to come through the door?”
“Well, maybe that was part of it. But you’d always put your pillow under the table in the hall where the phone was, so if he rung, the noise would wake you up. You boys spent half your life beside that phone in the months after he left. If you weren’t talking to him you were waiting for the next time you could, which is what made it all the more cruel that he stopped calling so suddenly.” Lindy’s sad tone soon gives way to a slightly defensive “Why are you asking me this?”
“Did he keep in touch with Grandpa?” Luca asks from the back seat.
“Luca? Are you boys together today? What’s going on?”
“Did he?” Luca asks insistently, and Lindy sighs heavily.
“I guess he must have. Grandpa never told me the details. He just passed the checks on when they came.”
There’s a moment of awful silence before Marcus says incredulously, “Checks? What checks?”
“The child support, Marcus,” Lindy says impatiently.
“He paid you child support?”
“Of course he did. How do you think I fed you boys? The man has his flaws but he always provided for you two financially. I had to get Grandpa to tell him to stop once you’d both finished your studies, because the checks kept on coming long after me and Jack stopped cashing them.”
“And you didn’t think to mention this to us at some point?” Luca snaps.
“Honestly, Luca Joel, when I was raising twin boys on my own it wasn’t high on my list of priorities to make sure you fully understood the one thing your rotten father had done right by you,” Lindy says. I can hear her defensiveness rising, and the tension in the car is winding tighter with every second that passes.
“Did he ever ask to see us?” Marcus asks suddenly. I hear Lindy’s sharp intake of breath, and I find myself holding my own as we wait for her reply.
“Well, in the first few weeks he did, sure, all the time...but... I was just so angry when he left, and when he called we kept quarreling. I never intended to keep you boys away from him forever. We all just needed some time for the dust to settle. Honestly, I couldn’t believe it when he just disappeared altogether. I even asked Grandpa to see when he would come for a visit, but he said he had tried and Warwick wasn’t interested.” She pauses, then she demands, “Now you tell me right this instant why you’re dredging up the past like this!”
“We saw him,” Marcus says stiffly.
“I know,” Lindy says carefully. “I saw him at the funeral, too. I didn’t realize you talked to him. He seemed to stay way back.”
“He did,” Luca says quietly. “He stayed all the way out of our way, like he wanted to pay his respects without upsetting anyone.”
“So, what’s with all the questions?”
“He looked us up on Facebook,” Marcus murmurs. “We met with him today.” Lindy doesn’t say anything at first, until he prompts, “Mom? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she says stiffly. “I...I’m just surprised, that’s all. All this time...”
“Maybe Grandpa didn’t tell us the whole truth, Mom,” Luca says cautiously. “Maybe Warwick still wanted to see us, but Grandpa never passed the messages on. Do you think...”
“Grandpa hated Warwick from the moment we told him I was pregnant,” Lindy admits, then she sniffs. “But I don’t know about all that. He left us. He left me, and he left you two, and he never came back. That’s all I needed to know.”
By the time Marcus and Luca have said goodbye to their mother and hung up the phone, the atmosphere in the car is so tense it’s almost stifling.
“I’m confused about who I should hate most right now,” Luca says with a frustrated growl. “How could Mom let Don manipulate us all like this?”
“You said it yourself, weeks ago in the bar,” Marcus murmurs almost absentmindedly. “Don never said any of that shit about Warwick when Mom was around. Sure, she made mistakes along the way, too, but if you’re trying to figure out who to hate here, you’re wasting your energy because the bastard who played us all is dead.”
He falls silent, his jaw set hard.
“You okay?” I ask him under my breath. He nods curtly, reaches down to his thigh to rest his hand over mine, but his eyes are locked on the road ahead of us, as if he just can’t bring himself to look back for even a second.