Healing Tea Page 11

  “I’m sure there are a million stepparents out there doing a great job who don’t break bread.”

  “I don’t understand you. You keep flip-flopping back and forth on all this stuff.”

  “I know. And I’ve given it some thought, and I think I know why.”

  “Great. Why?”

  “Because you keep going from one extreme to the other. You hate Jessie, and then all is forgiven. Joy is a lunatic you have to protect Joynessa from, but now you want to be her friend. I keep reacting to your over-the-top reactions.”

  “So it’s my fault.”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, maybe you’re right. I’ll talk to Jessie and tell him that maybe we should wait a while before we do something like that.”

  “Smart.”

  “But will you just give her a call and check on things? Make sure she doesn’t need anything?”

  “I can do that.”

  I called Joy. She was very polite and obviously trying really hard to tamp down any negative feelings she has so that she could do the best thing for Joynessa.

  I told her all about our new house. She calmed right down.

  What Teagan doesn’t seem to understand yet is everything can’t be about Joynessa. She has to treat Joy like a real person, not just like the thing that gave birth to Jessie’s child.

  Balance.

  That’s what we all need.

  I need to remember that.

  A.J. got home early. That’s unusual these days. “I got the paperwork to look over. I haven’t even taken a look at it yet.”

  “Did you want to invite Suzi over to look at it?”

  “That’s nice, but as far as I’m concerned, she isn’t part of the actual home-buying process. It’s our house. She will just be living there for a while until her life takes off.”

  “I agree.”

  “But I did call your dad and asked him to come by tonight. He had plans for dinner, but he’s going to be here about eight. He is going to look over the contracts with us. He knows everything about everything, so I figured we could use another set of eyes.”

  Okay, I didn’t really attack attack A.J. But we ended up eating a really quick dinner over the kitchen sink so we would be ready for my dad when he got there at eight.

  The contracts look good. Daddy suggested the name of an inspection company he knows. They’ve done several inspections on “the block.” Mom and Daddy have had that house so long they have seen lots of neighbors come and go. Some have come back again.

  Although A.J. had already decided on the inspectors, he said he would give a call to Daddy’s guys in the morning. Looked up their number and everything. I’m not sure if he is just being nice or if he really intends to use them, but either way, my dad seemed to really enjoy the evening, and that was almost as important as buying the house.

  I never thought I would find someone who would understand how I feel about my family. I’m not sure A.J. understands it, but he supports me completely and accepts me, and that’s all I really wanted.

  EIGHT

  TODAY, WE SPENT the first half of the day running around getting errands done. We now have a shared bank account for the house. A.J. wanted to just blend his personal account with my personal account. He has a separate business account at a different bank.

  I didn’t want to do that.

  Which I think hurt his feelings. But I didn’t want to discuss it in front of the bank lady. We had already discussed opening a joint account, but my idea of that action and his idea of that action were two very different ideas.

  We ended up putting an equal amount from each of our accounts into a joint account. We decided all of that money will be for the house, and if either of us is going to spend more than one hundred dollars, we need to check with the other of us.

  We went out to lunch at the diner across from A.J.’s studio in Old Town.

  Once we were seated — by a guy with pink hair and more makeup than me, not the girl that is always after A.J. — we could actually talk. A.J. seemed to be in a mood.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “I’m not mad. I’m disappointed.”

  “Oh, God. That sounds like my mom when Teagan and I did something wrong.”

  He laughed. “Okay, I’m confused. I thought we were in this together. You’ve told me over and over again that we’re as good as married. I’m all in. That includes money. When we left the apartment this morning, I thought we were on the same page. We get to the bank, and we aren’t even in the same ballpark. I thought we were going to the bank to open a joint account. I thought that meant we put our money in the same account. You don’t want to do that? You, the person that’s more traditional than anyone I know? I just assumed what is mine is yours.”

  “But we aren’t starting out even.”

  “What?”

  “You have more money than me. You have the inheritance from your grandpa. I don’t want to start off with me putting in so much less than you did.”

  “Really? Is that the only problem?”

  “I don’t want it to be a problem. I don’t want to look back at it some day and know that I didn’t bring my share to the party. My whole life, my mother told me that if you want to start a life with someone, you start it equally. That’s why the tradition in my family has always been for the man and the woman to each pay for half of their marriage license. It’s kind of a symbolic thing that you come to the marriage fully knowing and fully equal.”

  “How about I take the money my grandfather left me, and I put it in another account? I never planned on spending it anyway.”

  “Okay.”

  “I always had that money set aside — at least in my mind — to help out Gran if she ever needed it. I thought it was stupid Suzi and I got money while Gran is still alive. She has plenty right now, but you never know what might happen. When Suzi spent hers, it kind of pissed me off.”

  “Suzi gave a lot of it to me.” I didn’t want him to find out later and get mad.

  “No, Suzi paid you back a lot of money she owed you. There’s a difference.”

  “Okay. So how about we do this? How about we go ahead and combine our accounts — except for the money that you got from your grandfather — and then each of us has a separate account where we put some set amount in each month.”

  “Your money in case you need to run away from me?” He smiled, but it didn’t meet his eyes.

  “I was thinking more about money so that I could buy you a nice birthday and Christmas present.” I must have looked sad.

  “Baggage. Mine. Sorry. You know how screwed up my parents are. My mother always insisted she would leave one day, and she was always preparing for it.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think about stuff like that. My parents had a deal. The person who left first had to take all the kids. It was motivation to stay, not to go. Not that they really needed any.”

  “I like their way better.”

  “Isn’t it ironic?”

  “What?”

  “Your mother always planned to leave, my mother always planned to stay, and it’s my mother who’s gone.” I took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean…”

  “I know.”

  “You know, my mom told me my whole life that you have to be present today because you’re not promised tomorrow. When people in our lives passed, and someone would lose their damn mind, my mother would always say it was because there were things left unsaid. Undone. She always said if you couldn’t bother calling her while she was alive, don’t cry for her when she was dead.”

  “It’s a good way to look at things.”

  “Then why did I lose my mind? I feel like I was pretty good to my mother.”

  “You didn’t lose your mind, Cara. You were grieving. There’s a difference. You lost your mother. Your anchor. Your reality builder. That’s a traumatic thing. It isn’t because you didn’t say what you needed to say or do what you needed to do. I think your response was perfectly” — he searched for the word
he wanted, found it, and smiled — “Cara.”

  “Wow, that was a great way to say that I’m nuts.” I laughed.

  “I think about it sometimes. What it’ll be like once my parents die. I don’t really have any communication with them anymore.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “It’s too awkward.”

  “If you don’t want to see them, if they’re too toxic or it would bring too much negativity into your world, then I can understand that. But if you stay away from them just because it’s too awkward? I don’t understand that. Awkward doesn’t last long. Then what happens? Do you want them to be around? Do you want our kids to know them?”

  “I don’t know. Life is just easier when they aren’t a part of it.”

  “Easier isn’t always better. I don’t know your parents. I’ve only met them a couple of times. I always assumed if Suzi didn’t want to have anything to do with them, and your Gran doesn’t want anything to do with them, and you don’t talk about them, that it was just better to stay out of it.”

  “Gran doesn’t have much to do with them because of the way they treated Suzi and me all those years. She blames herself. She says she was distant from them when they were younger, and they were distant from us because of it.”

  “I can’t imagine your grandmother being distant from anyone.”

  “Me, either. She once told me there was a history there she didn’t want to go into. I didn’t push.”

  “Family secrets. I once thought O’Flynns were immune. Turns out, we aren’t.”

  “No family is.”

  After lunch, we tromped back to the bank and changed everything around. Again. By the time the slightly confused bank person had all the paperwork figured out, we had a fistful of accounts. We had the account we’d started earlier this morning for the house. We had an account that was our joint checking account, and we each had a debit card from it. We turned down the credit cards for now. Then there were two more checking accounts, one each, where we will deposit one hundred and twenty-five dollars every month. That’ll be our birthday-emergency-Christmas fund. A.J. still has his account with his inheritance in it. I think it’s a series of CDs, but I’m not sure. All of the new accounts are linked to his inheritance account. The bank person said that way we won’t have to worry about any charges against the different accounts.

  I was carrying multiple folders, each with the paperwork for one account and a business card tucked in a little cutout, when we left the bank. I guess I had a weird look on my face, because A.J. looked at me funny and asked, “Everything okay?”

  “It just feels so grown up. All this bank stuff. We’re buying a house. I can even afford fifteen hundred dollars a year to put in my emergency-slash-Christmas-slash birthday fund. Do you know a couple of weeks before I met you, everybody who knew me was in a panic, thinking that I was going to be eating cat food if something didn’t work out soon?”

  “What did you think?”

  “I didn’t think I’d be able to afford cat food.” I smiled at him, and he took my hand.

  “I can’t guarantee we’ll never have problems, but what I can guarantee is if it gets to the point where I’m standing behind a counter saying, ‘Would you like fries with that?’ you will have half of whatever I make saying it.”

  “Don’t forget to bring me home a bag of fries. I love fries.”

  We wandered back to the studio. I helped Suzi with some filing and computer stuff.

  We talked about the new house and decorating, and in the middle of all the excitement, Suzi got quiet. “Can I ask you something, Cara?”

  “Always.”

  “Are you sure you want me moving into your new home? You’re starting a life with A.J.”

  “I already share my life with A.J., and, yes, I’m sure.”

  “You know what I mean. Sharing an apartment is one thing, but buying a house together is something much bigger, and I don’t want to be in the way. I know that A.J. worries about the baby and me, but he doesn’t have to. I’d be okay. You guys don’t need to take care of me.”

  “I don’t see it as taking care of you, Suzi. I really don’t think A.J. does either. I think he’s beginning to understand I’m not the only family person in this relationship. With everything that’s happened — me losing my mom, us losing the baby — I think it is just really clear to us right now how much family means, and we want to have family around. Having you and Evelyn share the house is perfect. There’s more than enough room so that we can have privacy when we want it and togetherness when we want it.”

  “Okay, but I want you guys to be really clear I know it’s your house, and all you have to do is say the word, and I’ll make myself scarce.”

  “Make yourself scarce? Really? What is this, nineteen seventy-two?”

  “Yeah, not sure why I said that. My mother used to say it to us all the time. Guess my brother isn’t the only one who has a couple of things to work out when it comes to my parents.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that myself. All the things I need to work on with my family.”

  “Your family? You guys are like the poster children for functional, and my family is the opposite. We are like the poster children for dysfunction. What do you guys have to work on?”

  “My mother used to tell me there are always things to work on, no matter where you found yourself. Everyone has the same problems. They just have them from a different perspective. Poor people and rich people still have money problems. They are just different money problems.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’m not sure I agree with that. Poor people have to worry about where their next meal is coming from.”

  “Rich people have to worry that someone is going to mess with them to get their money. Worse, they have to worry about some whacko going after their children. If I have to decide between cat food and somebody kidnapping my kids, I’ll go with cat food.”

  “Yeah, but how much of that is real? When’s the last time you heard about somebody trying to kidnap a rich person’s kid?”

  “It’s been a while, but it’s like terrorism. Is it that no one has tried? That no one has succeeded? Are people paranoid, or are they just proactive?”

  “Don’t know the answer to that one.”

  “Me, either. I’ve done a lot of work for Adeline. I’ve had to make all kinds of arrangements with her security people and stuff. Before I met her, I never even knew people needed security. I figured the bodyguards you see with celebrities were more for ego than safety. Turns out that when you have something, somebody is always trying to figure out how to take it away from you. I think it’s sad.”

  “We could go back and forth on this one all day long. Most days, I’m content. Once in a while, I worry. As long as I have a job with A.J., I have all kinds of flexibility, and it’s a good job and everything. If it were to go away, I’m not sure what I’d do. Now, I can bring Evelyn to work with me. I can work from home. I can put her in daycare if we have a shoot and she won’t be happy here. I can’t even imagine how hard it is to be a single mother without all of that in place. Doing it all alone.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “And you will never know how much that means to me, Cara. You and A.J. have made all of this so much easier.” She gave me a hug. “I appreciate you guys. I hope you know how much.”

  “Paybacks. Think of all the free babysitting you will owe us.”

  A.J. came down from the office in time to hear us laughing. I love the look he gets on his face when Suzi and I are, well, being Suzi and I.

  “We have a meeting at two this afternoon, if that’s okay. About the house. You want to come, Suze?”

  “No, thanks, you guys should do this together. It’s your house. I’m just the friendly family interloper.”

  “As long as you stay friendly.” I gave her another quick hug, and A.J. walked me out to my car.

  “Thank you.”

  I was confused. “For what?”

  “For bein
g so good to my sister.”

  “You put up with the Teagan-meister. Having Suzi around is hardly much effort by comparison.”

  “I love you, Cara.” There was something in his tone that spoke to every cell in my body.

  “You know, every once in a while, when I’m living my life and minding my own business, it hits me really, really hard just how much you mean to me A.J. You mean everything to me. Everything. Dear God, never let it be so, but if I had to make a choice, one person in the whole world to be beside me for the rest of my days, that person would be you.”

  Probably no other person on earth knew what that meant as well as A.J. knew. I knew he fully understood. To choose him ahead of Teagan? Ahead of my father? I never in a million years would have believed I would ever feel that way about anybody.

  I guess Mrs. O’Flynn’s little girl is finally growing up.

  When I got back to the apartment, I felt so good I allowed myself a long cry.

  Somewhere in my brain, I felt like it was time.

  To let go.

  Of my mom.

  Of the baby.

  Not that I was letting go, really. More like the acceptance that I could live with the reality of what has happened, and although I’ll never be okay with it, I can live with it.

  I kind of feel like I’ve been holding my breath, waiting for the next tragedy. I lost my mother. I lost my baby. What was number three? If there was another loss that big, I would never recover, but for the first time, I was able to take a deep breath and let it go. Somewhere along the line in the past few weeks, very slowly and subtly, I think maybe I’ve come to a place of truly believing that A.J. and I — together — can handle anything life has to throw at us.

  It’s not a challenge to the universe. I’d like to make that clear. It’s just a statement of fact.

  NINE

  YOU KNOW HOW sometimes things go in slow motion and then speed up and move so quickly you aren’t sure you can keep up? That’s what the last few weeks have been like.

  We got the house.

  I can’t wipe the smile off my face.