“Dad?” Helen asked like she was doing her very best to tread lightly.
“Not one worth mentioning.” She ran her thumb over the mug’s handle. “They weren’t married, and he was too busy with dental school to bother with a kid. I’ve never met him, but I’ve never missed him. My mom did the work of two parents and four grandparents.”
Helen’s eyes glistened with emotion she thankfully left unspoken. Grace never understood being pitied for not having a bigger nuclear family. She’d always been a quality over quantity person.
“Alexandra and I were close when she was little,” Helen said after a long silence. “She’d run full speed toward the car when I picked her up from school and couldn’t wait to tell me about her day. We’d spend all summer with the horses.” By the distant tone of Helen’s voice and the expression on her face, it was obvious that she’d traveled back in time. That she could still see that long-haired kid grinning wide. Could still see Alexandra before she was Alix. “And one day, I don’t know, she just stopped telling me things. She just went away and never came back.”
Grace felt Helen’s heartbreak like paper-thin ice cracking in her own chest. It was devastatingly easy to see both sides. To understand Alix’s claustrophobic response to a town that didn’t fit, with a mom’s simple but all-consuming love for her kid. Helen longed for Alexandra not because she didn’t love Alix, but because she didn’t know her. Didn’t know how to relate to her.
“I’ve been having these weekly chats with a friend down at the church.” Helen’s gaze narrowed, and she added, “It’s not therapy or anything,” as if Grace might think she’d admitted to a first-degree felony. “But she’s helped mezoom out,as she calls it.”
“Sometimes the strongest tool I have in my job is being able to see the other side of the argument,” Grace said. “Once we seesomething one way, it’s so hard to reframe. It’s a really limiting view.”
Helen nodded without hiding her surprise that Grace was listening rather than judging. “I’m sure Alexandra has told you that I did not handle things well before she moved away,” she said, capturing a decade of heartache.
Grace looked down at her coffee. Helen’s shame was pouring from her in suffocating waves, and it was all Grace could do to not jump off her stool and crush her with a hug.
“I said so many things I wish I could take back. So many things that are so unimportant now. That weren’t worth losing so much time over.”
Reaching over, Grace clasped her hand over Helen’s. “In my work, I’ve realized just how critical someone’s upbringing is to who they become as adults.” She squeezed her hand and waited for Helen to look at her with regret-filled eyes before continuing. “And I can tell you that who Alix is right now wouldn’t be possible without you. You can love both Alexandra and Alix. That kid is still there. She’s just more of herself. She is incredibly kind and generous and loving.” Grace’s voice thinned until it cracked. “I’ve never met anyone like her, but after a few days here, she makes perfect sense.”
“Is she happy, Grace?” Helen asked after wiping her eyes. “Likereallyhappy?”
Grace considered the question. “I think so,” she replied. “She is incredibly successful, and she finds a lot of meaning in her work.” Grace couldn’t help a little lopsided smile. “Even though I know she could be huge if she wanted to. Her talent is really something.” She touched the ends of her own hair with the hand that wasn’t holding Helen’s. “She has fierce friends who love her like family. What more could she ask for?”
“And she has you.” Helen said it as a statement rather than posing a question.
Grace flushed with heat, and the nervous gurgle that bubbled up in her throat did nothing to dissipate it. “We really aren’t… I mean, I’m not really sure…”
It was Helen’s turn to pat Grace’s arm in comfort. “Aren’t lawyers supposed to be excellent liars?”
“Not unless they want to get disbarred,” Grace joked.
“Honey, it’s very clear that you and my daughter are very fond of each other.” She relaxed like she’d taken her first full exhale in years.
“Alix is an incredible person,” Grace admitted without hesitation. “But I don’t want you to think we lied about our relationship status. We were only friends when?—”
“Were, huh?” Helen brightened into a supernova of love and delight. “Well, don’t redefine anything now, because I’m out of beds.” She chuckled. “I’m so happy you’re here, Grace.” She slid off the stool. “I’m not sure I’d be getting to know Alix without a little moral support.” She pulled Grace into a tight hug.
Grace squeezed her back, accepting all the things Helen wasn’t saying. The way Helen had called herAlixwithout skipping a beat.
“And just what is going on here?” Alix said when she walked in through the back door. She pulled off her snow-dusted hat and walked in wearing socks, her boots presumably in the mudroom. “Is this why you suddenly needed more firewood?”
Grace tried and failed not to picture Alix chopping wood. Not to imagine her like the star of a surprisingly horny Diet Coke ad from the late nineties.
“Oh, nothing.” Helen released Grace from their hug but left her hands on Grace’s upper arms. “We’re just talking about how I hope you’re married the next time you come to visit. It will really solve a lot of problems for me,” she joked before turning to the sink with her empty mug.
Alix stood frozen, gawking at her mother like she couldn’t believe what she’d just said. Like Helen couldn’t possibly have meant that she’d not just tolerate her kid’s gayness, but that she’d support a wedding.
When Alix looked at Grace, all wide eyes and shock, she posed a wordless question:What did you do?
Grace didn’t know what her expression said to Alix in return, but she hoped it said:Nothing.She really, really hoped it didn’t add:Except maybe I’m falling in love with you.
Chapter Twenty-Six
ALIX
Alix hatedairports on a good day, but Denver’s weird-ass airport really took the cake in terms of inconvenience. It was somehow both huge and always crowded, constantly under construction, and covered in strange tent tops, ever persistent in its pursuit of capturing the ambiance of the terrible circus that was airline travel.
