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She grinned. “Thank you. And thank you for the other present. The one you mailed to me? It feels so good!”
“You’re welcome.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Oh, God.”
“Honey, hand that gift right next to you over to Rodney,” Mrs. Montgomery interrupted. “He hasn’t opened one of his yet.”
Eventually, a small box made its way around to Minty. It was addressed to him from my mother, and I was anxious to see what she’d bought. She’d been fretting about it during a phone call last week, so I knew she’d tried very hard to strike just the right note.
“Open it!” Betsy cried from the floor.
Minty lifted his half-finished second champagne, downed it, and then put the flute aside. “All right. Let’s see. What could this be?” He shook the box and then ripped delicately at the paper.
“Tear it!” Betsy cried.
A chant of “tear it, tear it” rose up, with even Nadine, who’d settled onto the love seat with my mother, shouting along.
Minty tore the paper, popped open the box, and stared inside with wide eyes. “This is…this is for me?”
He lifted out a beautiful necklace, a string of silver butterflies. “It’s…it’s…” I saw tears well in his eyes.
“Betsy picked it out,” my mother said. “A fairy necklace for ourfairy prince.”
He glanced up at me, opened his mouth, and a weird little sob came out. I reached for him, but my mom was just as fast, jumping up from the couch to envelope him in a hug. “Oh, no. Don’t cry. If you don’t like it, we can return it.”
Minty shook his head, clinging to her. “I love it. I just never thought—I never expected—”
“What, honey?” Mom asked.
“I never thought I’d be so accepted.”
The whole room broke into a sweet awwww as I wrapped my arms around both of them. Nadine didn’t want to be left out, and she joined the hug next, followed by Betsy and Rodney, and then even Rodney’s sisters got into the ridiculously big knot of arms. Their husbands and parents stayed back, but the expressions on their faces showed that it wasn’t because they didn’t accept Minty—or me—but because they were reasonable humans with appropriate ideas of boundaries and personal space.
“I love it,” Minty said again when he was finally free of arms except for mine. I helped him put it on. Once it was clasped, he lifted it up and ducked his chin to peer at it again. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Butterflies are my favorite,” Betsy said. “And they didn’t have a necklace with salamanders.”
Minty croaked a laugh, and said, “I love butterflies too. They transform, you know. They start out ugly and then turn into something beautiful.” He kissed one of the butterflies and looked to me. “They give me hope.”
The moment passed, and more presents were opened. Nadine was given a scarf my mother had picked up from an arts and crafts sale the weekend before, and Rodney got another set of train tracks to add to the one he already liked to race his turtle on. His parents had brought us all bottles of white wine from the oldest winery inSouth Carolina. Nadine gave out homemade candy she’d bundled into pretty little fabric squares from her new sewing room. And Minty’s handmade glitter pinecone ornaments were a messy hit.
Once all the torn wrapping paper was crumpled on the floor, it was time for dinner, which was served in both the kitchen and the dining room since there were so many of us. We drifted between rooms, trading seats and talking. The food was delicious and accompanied by a lot of love and laughter.
It was a surprisingly perfect day. Even with Nadine there.
In my childhood bedroom that night, I curled around Minty and watched him study the butterflies on his necklace. “My mom said the guest room bed is really comfortable,” he said after a few quiet minutes. He’d gone in to give her a goodnight hug and kiss before coming to get into bed with me.
“That’s good.”
“I’m happy for Rodney and Betsy. His parents are so nice to offer to pay for her to stay with him at Riverwoods. I didn’t even know they had bigger rooms for couples, but it makes sense that they would. It’ll be perfect for them.”
“I hope so.”
He placed the necklace on my bedside table and rolled over, facing me. “Hey, what about your dad? How are you feeling?” His fingers stroked through my chest hair. “It’s okay to be sad.”
“I’m all right. I’ve grieved him for years now. It’s not like it’ll ever be okay. It sucks that I lost him even though he’s still living, but I’m learning to deal with it.”
Minty’s lips twisted up at the edges with a hint of pain. “Yeah. I get that.”
