Without breaking eye contact, I nodded and said, “I would be honored to wear your princess crown.”
For this little girl, for both of them, and their mother … I would be honored to do anything.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We were married quickly—three months after that Christmas, to be exact—and while I’d like to say that our families rejoiced our union, they didn’t.
I hadn’t expected much from my parents, of course. They hadn’t cared about anything in my life thus far, so why would I expect them to care now when I was getting married? Still, I had made the unceremonious announcement to them on the front porch the day after Laura and I decided spontaneously to get married, and the most I had gotten from them was an indifferent grunt from my father and a slow, bored blink from my mother.
And I guessed I understood why Laura’s parents would be suspicious … and they were. She had only just left her husband of five years, only to agree to marry another man a handful of months after the divorce was finalized. They had treated their daughter like she’d fallen on her head and lost her mind, but—as she’d explained to them—our love wasn’t new, and after years of separation, neither of us wanted to waste another second being apart.
Anyway, marriage had made sense to us, and I had hoped that it would at the very least make sense to my sisters, Ricky, and Sid. I was desperate for their support, having gotten none from anyone else … but I didn’t get it from them either.
“Listen, I’m happy you’re happy,” Sid had said reluctantly, “but don’t you think this is jumping the gun a little bit? You were togetheryearsago. You werekidsback then. You’re adults now, with adult baggage and adult bullshit. How do you even know you’re compatible now?”
“Because I know,” I had replied.
“Fuck, you were hardly compatible back then,” Ricky had added, not helping anything. “You couldn’t commit, and she put up with it for way too long. I’m not sure it’s the smartest thing to rush into it now. What the hell is the hurry anyway?”
It was easy for them to criticize. Both of them had had years under their belts with Lucy and Grace before they even began to talk about marriage. Hell, Sid had only recently, just after Christmas, bought the ring he had yet to give to Grace. But they had that kind of time. They had that freedom. But I didn’t. Not with the current state of my mental health. IneededLaura. I found my peace with her, the strength to remain sober and the power to continue a life that didn’t want me in it. They couldn’t understand that, and I didn’t expect them to, but they could’ve been happy for me … and they weren’t.
But nobody—and I mean,nobody—was more unhappy than Laura’s ex-husband, Brett.
Yet, despite all the discouragement and protests from our respective friends and family, we were married. Laura became my wife, and her girls became my stepdaughters, and I hadn’t been prouder of anything since I’d made a name for myself in the Army.
We made a happy little life for ourselves in that beautiful, old colonial.
That first year, Laura suggested I pick up a hobby, and I began to dabble a bit in carpentry and home repair. The money I would’ve spent on booze was instead spent on freshening up the house and finishing the basement, making a designated playroom for the girls and reclaiming the dining room for its intended purpose—eating.
Despite the initial disapproval from my friends and sisters, that dining room became the place where the six of us spent our Saturday nights playing board games into the early morning hours while Lizzie and Jane slept at their dad’s apartment and Ricky and Lucy’s infant son, Graeme, slept in his portable crib in the living room. I was no longer a fifth wheel, and our bond as a trio of couples helped to heal my soul nearly as much as my relationship with Laura itself.
Then Christmas rolled around again, and the oddest thing happened.
Dad called one night to formally invite us—Laura, the girls, and me—over for Christmas Eve dinner. He had yet to meet them—not including that moment he’d briefly met Laura in the front yard many years ago—and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted him to. But he insisted.
“Oh, and do you have a picture of you all?” he asked before hanging up. “I’d like to hang it on the living room wall.”
It immediately felt like a trap. A setup. An integral part in his master plan to make my life a perpetuating nightmare. But I told him I did have a picture and that we would be there.
Laura wasn’t thrilled about the arrangements. She was rightfully worried about the things my dad might say or do in the presence of her daughters. She was even more rightfully worried about the things he could saytothem. I promised that the moment things turned sideways, we would leave, and I meant it.
But by some extraordinary miracle, it never came to that.
Dad was, as some might put it, a perfect angel.
He spoke kindly to Laura and her daughters. He welcomed them into his home with open arms. He treated Lizzie and Jane as much like his grandchildren as he did Graeme, showering them with presents and a gentleness I had never seen in him in my entire life. Mom was even present for a blip of time, coming down for dinner and a short visit afterward before saying she was too tired and needed to get back to bed.
But more astonishing than anything else was the way Dad treated me.
The moment I’d entered the house, he’d assessed me with a critical, almost-curious eye, as if he was granting himself permission to look at me for the first time. I stood, allowing it. My fists balled at my sides, prepared to fight if need be.
Then, he shook my hand, took my coat, and asked if I’d like a drink.
“I don’t drink anymore,” I’d replied.
He looked surprised by this and asked why.
“Because I spent two and a half years drunk, and I don’t want to subject my family to that. I don’t need it anymore,” I’d answered honestly.
