“Thanks for letting me know.” He started to shut the door, but his aunt blocked it.
“I’m not finished.”
“Are you here to lecture me for daring to put my hands on her? For making the family awkward? Because I swear to God, I had no idea who she was when we met, and it wasn’t my idea to keep us a secret.”
“No. I’m here to give you some perspective.”
Well, that was just fucking peachy.
But he backed up to let her in. Figuring he’d need it for whatever was coming, Mitch headed to the sideboard in the dining room and poured himself a generous glass of bourbon.
“Sit.” The single word held all the authority she’d once wielded as the high school principal.
Mitch found himself sitting, though more from dread than intimidation.
“What has Tess told you about her parents?”
“Not a lot. We talked about Trey some. A little about her mom. It wasn’t something we discussed really.”
“You know they’re divorced. Have been for years.”
“Sure. But I don’t know why she thinks that’s the automatic outcome here.”
“Probably because there are a lot of similarities between your situation and that of her parents.”
“What? They had a vacation fling and got pregnant?” He said it with sarcasm, but stopped with the glass halfway to his mouth when he caught her level stare.
“Not vacation fling, no. Trey and Maura dated for more than a year. But yes, she got pregnant, and they got married.”
Mitch sipped his bourbon and let that sink in. So when she’d said she wouldn’t be here if not for this exact situation, she’d meant she literally wouldn’t exist. That hadn’t been a slap at him, but at her father. Who had instantly asked if they were getting married.
I’m saving us both from the prison of your convictions.
“They only got married because of her,” he realized.
“Not entirely, but mostly. Chances are, the relationship would have fizzled out if left to run its course.”
But it hadn’t been left to run its course. They’d gone with convention, gotten married, and as the child of that union, Tess had been a first-hand witness to the fallout.
Eventually the heat that brought us together in the first place will burn out. Until there’s nothing left but ash and a resentment that will block out everything but the dimmest memories of anything that was ever good between us.
Jesus. Was that what her parents had been like growing up? The aftermath of some kind of cold war? It was so far from his own experience, with that multi-generational family and the sloppy dog, Mitch couldn’t even wrap his head around it. But he was beginning to understand what vastly different backgrounds they came from.
“I thought she was worried the baby would change things because she didn’t think I was okay with being a father. I was trying to make her see that I’m totally on board with the whole package, and instead I made her think the package was the only thing I cared about.” Because saying marriage was the right thing put him in the same boat as her father and made everything about the baby. Exactly what he’d wanted to avoid.
“Probably. Their divorce was extremely hard on her, obviously harder even than Trey realized. And she saw more than they meant for her to. That’s what she comes from. She doesn’t have all the examples of solid relationships you have, so she doesn’t know how to trust you when you say that everything will turn out all right in the end. For her family, it didn’t.”
Mitch tossed back the rest of the bourbon, feeling a little clarity come with the burn of the alcohol. “I think she’s afraid of us. Our whole family and way of life. I’d thought it was just her being weirded out and not knowing how to act around you as his second wife, but she’s outright terrified
of what we represent.”
“Maybe. For someone like her, our family is a bit like a fairy tale.”
“She deserves the fairy tale.”
“Can you give it to her?”
He wanted to do that more than anything. Because she was his fairy tale, too. “I’m sure as hell trying. But she thinks my loving her is only because of the baby.”