Chapter Twenty-Five

In the end, Kate was the one who persuaded Gen to go. Over coffee one morning in Gen’s apartment, while Jackson was sleeping in upstairs, Kate told Gen she was being a coward for avoiding the invitation. Though she said it much more politely.

“You’re good with people. I don’t see why this has you so freaked out,” Kate said. They were sitting on the Adirondack chairs on the patio outside Gen’s sliding glass doors, sipping from steaming mugs and looking off toward the ocean, which glowed a soft, silvery blue in the morning light.

“How can you not see? Ugh. Weren’t you freaked out when Jackson wanted you to meet his parents?”

“Not really. I thought it was sweet that he wanted to take that step.”

“See?! See?! It’s a step! That’s my whole point! It’s a step!”

“Well, of course it’s a step,” Kate said, scowling slightly. “And it’s sweet that Ryan wants to take that step, just like it was sweet of Jackson. Gen. Calm down, honey. This is a good thing.”

“I know.” Gen sounded miserable. She felt miserable. She knew Ryan was putting himself out there in a way that was important, that meant something, but the happiness that made her feel paled in comparison to the terror of facing the scrutiny of the senior Delaneys.

“You have to suck it up and do this,” Kate said simply.

“Why? Why do I have to?”

Kate looked at her pointedly. “Because Ryan is offering to take this thing between you to the next level. And if you decide not to do it—not to go to the next level—you’re making a statement about how you feel about him. And I’ll tell you what: He is a kind man with a soft heart. If you don’t have dinner with his parents, you’re not just rejecting dinner, you’re rejecting the whole next level. And that’s going to hurt him.”

“I … Oh.”

“You should bring a nice bottle of wine. Or maybe a pie,” Kate said, closing the subject.

 

Later that day, Gen took a deep breath, sucked it up, and called Sandra Delaney. She accepted the invitation and asked whether she could help in any way. Sandra shooed off the offer, saying she would take care of everything.

Gen thought it was still probably a good idea to bring a pie.

 

By the time Gen arrived at the Delaney house on the Sunday evening in question, the butterflies in her stomach had turned into hawks, or maybe falcons, flapping their massive wings and inadvertently scratching her with their talons. She didn’t know how to act. What kind of demeanor would say, I genuinely care about your son and I’m not in it for his fortune?

She’d carefully selected her clothing for the visit. Her usual gallery attire said I’d rather be in New York, so that was out. She knew the Delaneys were casual people; every time she’d seen Sandra at home, the woman had been wearing a football jersey and fuzzy slippers. So Gen opted for jeans, a pair of soft leather ankle boots, and a heather grey cashmere sweater.

She showed up at their doorstep bearing a pie she’d baked herself. She hoped that the fact she’d made the pie, rather than picking one up from a bakery, would make some sort of statement. What that statement might be, she wasn’t sure.

Breanna opened the door to Gen’s knock. Breanna was tall, like Ryan, with the same dark eyes and thick, dark hair. She looked slightly frazzled—probably from chasing the two boys around all day—but she greeted Gen with a smile that seemed warm and genuine.

“I’m so glad you could come,” Breanna said, ushering Gen inside. She leaned toward Gen and said conspiratorially, “I’ll bet you tried to think of ways to get out of it.”

“What? No!” Gen said.

“Right.” Breanna grinned. “The first time I had dinner with my husband’s parents, I was terrified.”

And there it was. That word. Husband. Is that where this was headed? Toward Ryan being her husband? The weight of it all bore down on her, and her knees almost gave out.

“You look kind of green,” Breanna observed.

“What? No. I’m good. It’s good.” She was babbling. She handed Breanna the pie. “Here. There’s pie.”

Breanna peered down at the pie, which was apple crumble. Gen was a pretty good baker, but she considered the apple crumble to be her best.

“Homemade,” Breanna observed.

“Um … yeah. I just … you know. Threw it together.”

“Sure.”

Gen entered the house and was immediately surrounded by noise and chaos. Lucas and Michael were running around the living room, playing some kind of game the rules of which probably only they knew. An older man Gen recognized as Ryan’s uncle Redmond was sitting in a recliner in front of the TV, watching a baseball game and intermittently grumbling at the screen. Through the doorway that led into the kitchen, Gen could see Sandra bustling around in her fuzzy slippers. She came to the doorway to yell at the boys to stop yelling, then vanished into the kitchen once again. Ryan’s father, Orin, was padding around in socks, looking for his shoes.

“Sandra? Where are my shoes? We’ve got company coming, and I can’t find my damned shoes!”

“Well, it’s not my job to keep track of your shoes! You’re a grown man. Though sometimes I doubt it. I swear!” Sandra yelled back.

“Mom? Dad? Gen’s here!” Breanna called out, bringing the disorder to a temporary stop.

Sandra came to the doorway of the kitchen, pressed her fists to her hips, and said, “Well, I guess you’d better come on in instead of just standing there.” Then she vanished into the kitchen again.

Orin looked up from where he’d been hunting all over the floor for his shoes, saw Gen, and grinned sheepishly. “Oh. Heh heh. Don’t mind my feet.” He wiggled his toes inside his socks. “I seem to be having a shoe crisis.”

“Oh. Um … Are those yours, over there?” She pointed to a spot next to the fireplace, where a pair of Timberland work boots were sitting askew beside the hearth.

Orin followed her finger to where she was pointing, and noticed the boots with a start. “Oh! Well.” He hurried over to the boots and snatched them up.

Lucas and Michael, apparently attracted by the presence of a new person, ran over to where Gen stood.

“Michael, Lucas, this is Gen. Do you remember meeting her when she was here to have tea with Grandma Sandra?” Breanna spoke to them in a tone of love and infinite patience.

“I like your hair,” Michael said. “It’s all curly and bright.”

“Well, thank you,” Gen said.

They ran off again, chasing one another around the coffee table.

She heard footsteps on the stairs, and looked up to see Ryan coming down in jeans and a flannel shirt, his dark hair still wet from the shower. He smiled at Gen, and she marveled at how his smile always made the blood rush to certain parts of her body that she couldn’t mention in front of his parents. Or the kids, for that matter.

“Hey,” he said as he descended. “It’s good to see you.”

Any further conversation was forestalled as the boys rushed to Ryan, throwing themselves at his body. With the ease of someone who’d done it thousands of times before, he hoisted Michael up onto his shoulders, and lifted Lucas up into one arm.

Laden with boys, Ryan came the rest of the way down the stairs and kissed Gen on the cheek as the boys giggled and squirmed. “Eww! You kissed her!” Michael cried.

“I did,” Ryan confirmed. “And I’m gonna do it again.”

This time, he planted a quick, chaste kiss on Gen’s lips.

“Ewww!” both boys cried out in unison, earning them a chuckle from Ryan.

Sandra appeared at the doorway to the kitchen again. “Well, I don’t know what’s taking you so long to get in here,” she said to Gen.

If Gen hadn’t already spent some time with Sandra, she’d have taken the comment as a rebuke. But as it was, she understood that this was Sandra’s way of making Gen feel welcomed into the heart of the family—the kitchen.

Pie in hand, Gen went into the kitchen and found Sandra working over a big Dutch oven. Gen set the pie down on the butcher block table in the center of the kitchen.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Well, I don’t suppose that salad is going to make itself.” Sandra gestured toward a collection of lettuce and other vegetables that had been set out on the table. Gen grinned and got to work.

Dinner consisted of a pot roast with potatoes and carrots, collard greens, a bulgur wheat dish with olives and tomatoes for Ryan, and Gen’s green salad. When Sandra called everyone to the table, there was a flurry of hand-washing, glass-filling, and seat-finding during which Breanna had to gently scold the boys more than once.

Gen found the general disarray of things, the noise and the chaos, to be reassuring and somehow comforting. In her own home when she’d been growing up, there’d been no such happy disorganization, since she was an only child, and her mother was more occupied with the task of finding another husband than she was with Gen. Then there had been New York, where children had rarely been a part of her world. She might have expected this kind of noise and disorder to be intimidating or distasteful, but instead, she felt a warmth inside her that was wholly surprising.

Ryan took her hand and led her to a seat at the table next to his own. Her anxieties melted away, and it was as though she’d always been here, had always been a part of the loud, squirming organism that was this family.

She dug into the pot roast and potatoes as Orin talked about his day and about the business of the ranch. Redmond groused about the game he’d been watching, and Breanna chatted with the boys about an outing they were planning for the following day. Sandra asked Gen about the gallery and about “that artist you got living in our guest house,” and Gen talked about Kendrick and about how she’d come to live in Cambria after her time in New York.

When dinner was done, including Gen’s pie, Michael and Lucas took Gen by the hand and pulled her into the living room, where they insisted that she play a game of Sorry! with them. At only five years old, Lucas needed help reading the cards and counting spaces, but his brother, two years older, seemed to enjoy showing off his own more advanced abilities.

At first, it felt strange and awkward to Gen sitting on the floor playing with small children. She’d had such limited experience with kids that it felt like they were small aliens come to take her to their own strange and miniature-sized planet. But she was charmed by how quickly they had warmed to her, how readily they accepted her as a playmate. Before long, all three of them were laughing and exclaiming over the twists and turns of the game, yelling “Sorry!” when someone got bumped back to start.

Gen was surprised and touched when, during a rare quiet moment in the game, Lucas leaned over and rested his head against her side.

 

Ryan watched from the kitchen doorway as Gen threw up her hands in triumph and shouted “Sorry!” to Michael as his game piece was sent back to Start. He saw Lucas lean his head against Gen, saw her put her arm around him and rub his small back with her palm.

Sandra came and stood next to Ryan and watched with him for a while.

“If you don’t hang on to this one, you’re an idiot,” she said in her usual blunt, Sandra way. “And I didn’t raise any idiots.”

“Well, I plan to hang on to her,” he said mildly. “But it’s not just my choice, is it? She’s still talking about moving back East.”

Sandra waved a hand and made a scoffing sound. “That’s not what she wants. She thinks it is, but it’s not.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows. “You seem awfully sure.”

“You wait and see,” she said.

“Well.” He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. “I hope you’re right.”

“Wait and see.”

 

At the end of the evening, Ryan walked her to her car. When they arrived, she leaned back against the driver’s side door, and he kissed her.

“That was really nice,” Gen murmured, her mouth still close to his.

“The kiss, or the dinner?”

“Mmm. Both.”

The evening air was mild, with a light mist from the ocean softening everything, like a photo blurred at the edges.

“They like you,” Ryan said.

“I like them.”

He nodded. “It showed.”

“Your mom …” she began.

“Aw, don’t worry about her. She puts on a big show of being all gruff and crusty, but …”

“I love your mom,” Gen assured him.

He grinned. “You do?”

“Oh, God, yes. Coming from New York, I know so many people who are all sweet and charming to your face, but then cut you down the minute you turn your back. Your mom is refreshing.”

He chuckled. “Well, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone describe her as refreshing. But she’s genuine. If she doesn’t like you, you’ll know it. And if she does, well, that’s that. Once the decision is made, she sticks to it.”

“And she likes me?”

“She does.” He kissed her again, gently.

“That’s … well. I’m honored.” And she meant it. Tears came to her eyes suddenly, and as hard as she tried to blink them away, a few spilled down her cheeks. She quickly swiped at them with the backs of her hands.

“What’s wrong?” Ryan sounded alarmed.

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. It’s just … Tonight was really nice.”

He held her, rubbing a hand in gentle circles on her back. “I’d like to meet your family sometime.”

“Oh.” She gave a shaky laugh. “I don’t think you’d like it as much as you think.”

“Why not?”

“My family … they’re not like yours. My mother’s been divorced four times. My father sends cards at Christmas and on my birthday. When he remembers.”

“That’s rough.”

“It is.” She looked up at him and into his liquid brown eyes. “You’re lucky, Ryan. You’re so lucky.”

“I feel pretty lucky right now,” he said. They kissed, and it was a long, warm kiss that made Gen feel cherished and protected. It made her feel safe.