“We’re fine,” his mother said reassuringly. “But the house was too big for two of us, really, so I can’t imagine it won’t be too big for one.”
“Jesus,” Liam managed.
“Think of it like a retirement,” his father said. “It’s an ending, yes, but it’s also a new beginning. It’s a good time to look back and celebrate, as well, and we’re planningon doing that. We’ll be sending you an invitation in a couple weeks—we’re hoping you’ll be able to come down for a party we’re planning.”
“You’re having a divorce party? Like, both of you, together?”
“It’s going to be lovely.” His mother sounded just as enthusiastic about this as about any of her other events. “We’ll have the catering set up by the house, but a fire down on the beach, and Ifound some absolutely darling candle holders with little tinted glass globes to go over the flame and keep the wind off, so we can light the path through the dunes with those instead of the floodlights. The floods really aren’t very festive, are they? And not flattering either. I think the candles will be romantic.”
“And we’re thinking of having our favorite foods from all the places we’ve livedtogether. Or at least somethinginspiredby those foods—like on one of the cooking contests on television.”
“We met when we were going to school in Vermont, so we’ll have something with maple syrup. Maybe some variation on kielbasa for our time in North Falls. You know how much we loved Dan Stuart’s kielbasa.”
But Liam really wasn’t ready to help his parents plan the menu for their Happy Divorceparty. “This is—” He stopped himself. These were his parents, and they’d made their decision. Decisions, plural, he supposed, and that was going to take some getting used to. But they both seemed fine with the situation. Pretty damn chipper, really. “Okay. I mean—okay. You’re right. This is your decision. I—okay.” Was there anything more to say? “Let me know if you need anything, I guess?”
“Justyour handsome, smiling face at the party!”
“And maybe some kielbasa,” his father said. “It’d be nicely authentic if we imported the food from the actual places we lived. We can check on the internet first—if Dan Stuart isn’t in business anymore there’s no point, or maybe he has some way to ship food from his shop. But if that didn’t work out, maybe we’d be able to persuade you to take a tripup to North Falls at some point?”
“Maybe,” Liam agreed faintly.
They finished the call with a few of the inane niceties Liam had been expecting in the first place—good to know that the impending dissolution of his forty-year marriage hadn’t affected his father’s golf game at all—and then Liam stood in his apartment, staring at the wall.
His parents weren’t upset. He knew them well enough toknow that neither one was much for putting a false face on; if they felt something, they showed it, and in this case they just weren’t feeling all that much. They were fine.
He certainly had no right to be upset on their behalf, and he didn’t think hewasupset, not really. But he was… unsettled, maybe?
Something that he’d thought was permanent had turned out to be just as temporary as everythingelse in the damn world.
He left the apartment without a real plan for where he was going, but maybe it was time he stopped fooling himself about that. If he was just going for a wander, he’d walk. When he left home and climbed into his car with no real destination in mind? Well, he had a damn destination in mind.
He rolled into North Falls a few hours later, windshield wipers sluicing a gentlerhythm as he drove. He’d blown right past the Welcome To sign without even thinking about turning around. That was either progress or deterioration, he supposed.
And he didn’t mess around with his tour-around-the-town nonsense this time either. He drove straight to Ben’s house, then parked on the street in front of it. He climbed out of the car, made it halfway up the walk, and at that pointhis nerve deserted him.
He stood there in the rain, wondering what the hell he was doing. He wanted to see Ben, yeah. He wanted—he wasn’t even sure he had words for all the things he wanted from Ben. But that was his problem, not Ben’s, and showing up at—he looked down at his watch—a little past midnight on a day when Ben needed to wake up the next morning for work? When Ben had made it crystaldamn clear that he wanted nothing to do with Liam?
There wasn’t a light on in the house and Liam was going to go knock on the door. That was a dick move. He and Ben had made some sort of peace and that needed to be the end of it.
Still—he couldn’t quite make himself turn around and leave.
So he stood there in the rain, staring at the house.
And that was when a voice, unexpected but oh so familiar,reached him from the dark corner of the porch. “You going to stay out there?” Ben asked. “Or do you want to come inside and get warm?”
