“Ahh . . . so you’re the one that got your dad’s cooking gene I see. Should I be expecting home-cooked meals then?” Growing up as part of his family, all of us kids would count down to Sundays. Sundays were Mr. Jones’s day in the kitchen. Mrs. Jones would get the day off from having to deal with us so Mr. Jones would make us breakfast, then divide us into cleaning teams before making us the most delicious meal. They painted the picture of the perfect family. The type of family I always thought I’d have one day. Unlike my lonely house. My parents were always so busy with work, I swear they didn’t even notice that I spent more time at the Jones family home than ours.
“Whenever I’m home and not on the road you sure can. Nothing relaxes me more than cooking,” he answers as he grabs take-out containers from the oven, along with some plates from the cupboard, and some utensils from the drawer in the kitchen island, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts.
“I knew you’d probably be hungry once you got off the plane. Travelling always makes me hungry, so I ordered supper to be delivered before I had to go pick you up,” he explains. “If you want to grab the bottle of wine by the fridge, glasses are in the cupboard just beside the sink,” he says, bringing everything into the living room. “I’ll show you to your room once you’ve eaten, unless you want me to give you a tour before we eat so you can shower?”
“If I take a shower I’m going right to bed.”
“Perfect. Food first, then bed.”
Two bites in, the inevitable happens—he asks about Lucas. I knew it was going to happen, but it doesn’t make it easy to talk about. I didn’t tell any of the boys what really happened between Lucas and I. Not even Mr. Jones. I had a three-way Zoom call with Summer and Mrs. Jones to go over all the gory details of my failed marriage and for moral support. Both of them have been a godsend in the last year, keeping me sane as I navigate the realities of divorce. It was Mrs. Jones that suggested I move in with Levi to get a fresh start. My mother, on the other hand, suggested I move past Lucas’s transgressions, stating “men in his position will do what they do,” making me question her entire relationship with my father.
“All right, so are you gonna tell me if I still need to hire a hitman for this ex-husband of yours?”
“No hitman needed,” I answer with a stiff laugh. I knew he was going to ask. He didn’t ask any questions when I announced I was getting divorced, or when I asked whether his offer to let me come visit was still on the table. He didn’t even press me for answers when I asked whether the offer to visit extended to letting me stay for a bit while I figured out my life.
Other than asking if I was okay, or if he needed to come get me, and the date I wanted to move, he didn’t ask anything, which I appreciated at the time. I don’t think I could have handledhim, or any of the boys, knowing all the gory details that was the dumpster fire of my life, but he is housing me for free, which I need to talk to him about again. I might not be working at the moment, but I did get a good settlement in the divorce, and my finance degree did come in handy for my personal finances. I could easily afford to pay rent, even though I’m on leave. I guess I do owe him some form of explanation though. Taking a deep breath I go to start . . .
“You don’t have to tell me what happened. I can see your brain trying to work out what to tell me. Summer told me the gist of it. If I remember correctly, she said that your ex-husband was a ‘son-of-a-bitch-good-for-nothing-asshole-who-I-hope-gets-syphilis.’” To which I burst out laughing until I have tears running down my face.
“God, I miss your sister, she always knows exactly what to say,” I tell him, once I’ve stopped laughing. “How about you open that bottle of wine and I tell you what happened? Get it out of the way, then I can go to sleep, wake up. and never have to think about him again. But if I tell you, you have to promise not to tell your brothers. We can’t have Lincoln going back to jail.”
Laughing, Levi says, “Oh god! I forgot he spent a night in jail for sneaking into the chief of police’s house to see his girlfriend! I’ll never say no to a bottle of wine in the off-season, but we don’t have to talk about it.”
“Open the wine and I’ll tell you. It might be cathartic, plus you’re a man, maybe you’ll be able to tell me where I went wrong,” I say, stealing the last pakora.
“As a man, and someone who’s known you for as long as I can remember, I can promise you that you did nothing wrong. But you do have me worried, why wouldn’t you want any of us boys to know what happened?” Levi asks, handing me a glass of wine.
Draining half of my glass and refilling it, I look up, begging the tears to stay put. I take deep breaths, wondering what happenedto that wild child who said she would never let a man make her cry. Shaking my head with one more deep breath, I tighten my grip on my wine glass.
“Remember you called me two years ago? When you were about to move here and I was at a random bar in Toronto?” I say glancing at him and taking another sip of wine. “And you commented on how Lucas just left me to sit alone at a bar in a strange city? Well, it wasn’t the first time nor was it the last time. I was often left on my own but expected to meet his every demand and need. If I’m being completely honest, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my marriage.” Shaking my head in shame as the first tears start to fall. “I somehow became the woman I never wanted to be, I started living just for him. I thought I was happy; I thought I had a husband who loved and respected me. A husband who saw how I sacrificed myself, my dreams, all to make sure he could reach his. I thought I had a partner, I thought I was on my way to having what your parents have. I guess I’m just ashamed of how my life turned out, of the person I’ve become over the last few years,” I say with a watery smile.
“You’ve always been a nurturer and a giver. I remember as a kid you were the only one who would stay with me, holding my hand until I fell asleep whenever my parents would leave the older kids in charge of me and Lawson. Lucas clearly didn’t respect that and took advantage of it. Don’t beat yourself up because he chose to be an asshole,” Levi starts but I don’t let him finish.
“That’s not the worse part.” I finish my glass of wine, only to fill it back up, earning me a look of concern from Levi. “He wanted a baby; I wasn’t ready. I thought I had more time to accomplish my dreams—I’m only twenty-nine. I was twenty-five when we had the conversation. I wanted to accomplish certain things first. He had let the topic go for a couple of years, buthad ramped up his efforts, if I can call it that, a few months before you moved to Calgary. Again, I told him we could have the conversation in a few years, and finally he said he understood. I should have known something was up when he changed his tune. Other than a few comments here and there, he didn’t push the subject much; then he stopped even bringing up the subject completely. Turns out he will be a dad, or already is at this point, with his twenty-year-old intern.” Wiping at the tears that are freely falling at this point, I continue, “She’s not the only other woman either. Apparently, he had been cheating on me for three years, pretty much since we had gotten married.” I hiccup.
“So, here I am, twenty-nine years old, divorced, jobless, living with and off of a twenty-three-year-old. I wasted my twenties,” I say swiping at my cheeks, feeling the three glasses of wine I just drank.
Continuing on the same tangent of wasted twenties. “When I was going through my stuff, packing, I found an old Bucket List your sister and I made when we were fifteen. I had forgotten all about it. Want to know how many things I’ve crossed off that list?” I ask with a humourless laugh. “None. That’s how many. We were supposed to accomplish the List before we turned thirty. Lucas took the driver’s seat of my own life, and the minute I didn’t want to live his life plan, he found someone who would fulfill his goals. It’s like I was expendable, a means to an end.” Taking a deep breath, I wipe at the snot I can feel running down my face as Levi hands me a tissue. “The List isn’t even filled with crazy things. That’s the worst part. It’s a boring list, juvenile really, and I haven’t crossed anything off it. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic.” I finished refilling my wine glass with the last of the bottle.
Always the fixer out of all seven of us, Levi finds a solution. “You’re twenty-nine, you have a year to get it done. Get it done this year, while you live with me. I make more money than I caneven think of spending; take advantage of it. You know I won’t accept any rent from you, so take some time off and get it done.”
Putting a hand up, I stop him right there. “I told you I was going to pay you rent. I’m not going to live here like a freeloader. Besides, I’ll be thirty at the end of August, so I don’t have a year, I barely have five months.”
“You’re not a freeloader. Because you’ve moved in, I don’t have to pay my neighbor to keep an eye on the house, or to feed my fish, or keep the place clean when I’m gone. Seriously, you’re saving me money by living here. Plus, it gets pretty lonely living here alone. So really, it’s a win-win. I don’t have to live alone, and you get to rediscover the Hannah that would spend all her free time thinking up some weirdo plan in our basement with my sister. You will finally get to finish your Bucket List.”
“I don’t know. I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”
“You’re not. Hannah, come on, you’re family. You would do the same for my sister, and if my mom called you about one of us boys needing help you would drop everything and help. Now enough stalling, let me see this Bucket List.”
Rolling my eyes now that the tears have stopped, I grab the faded blue folded piece of paper from my purse and hand it to him. Scanning the list, he says, “You’re gonna have to explain this list to me. Yoga? Neither of you can walk a straight line without falling. And what in the world is a ‘Princess Diaries Kiss’?”
Taking the list back from him with an eye roll, I start explaining each item to him. “Such a guy.
“Number 1: Start doing yoga. We were in ourBring-It-Onphase, and as you said neither of us are very athletically gifted, so we figured the closest thing we would ever get to cheerleading or gymnastics was yoga.
“Number 2: Go on an overnight hike. I remember this. Some of our friends were going out camping for a weekend, andsomehow your older brothers Liam and Lincoln heard about it and convinced your dad that letting us go would be a terrible idea, so we decided to add it to the List.
“Number 3: Learn to line dance. Before TikTok there were Vines, and they made line dancing look like so much fun.
