Miguel feigns annoyance but relents, enveloping his son in a hug. “Good to see you too. How was the drive?”
The five-and-a-half-hour drive that somehow took them almost eight? Exceptional. “Not bad. Stopped at a cute antique store along the way.”
His mother, Dawn, a lover of all things vintage, perks up at that. “You’ll have to give me the name.”
Retirement has easily been his parents’ favorite stage of life. There’s his mother’s in-home yoga studio and growing passion for bird-watching. His father volunteers at an animal shelter and tutors kids in Spanish at the same middle school Nick attended. Miguel’s jet-black hair is now generously streaked with gray, Dawn’s auburn bob maintained by regular salon trips. Nick typically sees them every other month, and they somehow have more energy every time.
Dawn wraps an arm around his shoulder, kisses his cheek. “You look great. Happy,” she says, an undeniable relief in her tone. Then her brows lift up, and it’s obvious the topic on everyone’s mind this morning. “Clearly this girl has been good for you.”
“Your mother and aunt have been playing me songs all morning to get me acquainted,” his father says in his slight accent, only discernible when he says certain words. “I’m not sure it’s my kind of music, but if she’s nice to you and doesn’t complain about our cooking this week, that’s all that matters.”
The tips of Nick’s ears go hot. He expected some of theawkwardness of introducing someone to his family for the first time since Kathryn, but maybe he should have prepared for a full interrogation.
“I know it’s a little unusual,” he says. “But she’s much more normal than any of you are probably imagining. I swear.”
Exceptnormalis too drab a word for Ramona, despite the way she’s latched on to it.
They fell asleep sometime past midnight, then woke in the early hours of the morning and reached for each other again, bodies slipping into familiar places, sighing into the dark. Now Ramona’s in the shower, after having warned him that it might take a while before she’d feel presentable enough to meet his family. He reminded her that he’d already washed her hair before, the memory bringing heat to his cheeks despite the fact that they were already in bed together.
“She doesn’t travel with her own security team, does she?” his father wants to know.
“We’d have to make sure we have enough food for them,” his mother adds.
Nick holds up his hands. “If everyone could just be calm about it—”
“Ramona Wilder? Holy shit, I love you!” Camila’s head whips over to the stairway, her voice pitched in a shriek, a sound he’s never heard her make before. Apparently, Ramona’s music transcends generations. He meets Ramona’s gaze from where she’s coming down the stairs, casual in jeans and red plaid flannel, and tries to give her his most apologetic expression.
“It’s so great to meet you,” Ramona says around a laugh.
The rest of the introductions are easier than he thought they’d be. No one gives her the third degree or asks her what thehell she’s doing with him. And there’s something incredible about seeing her here, asking her father about his crossword puzzles and showing him pictures of Janet, answering his aunt’s questions about whether she thinks pop music has become too overproduced.
When Kathryn first moved out, his parents were devastated. They didn’t blame Nick the way he blamed himself, but she’d been in all their lives for so long, and of course they loved her.
No matter what Ramona is to him, it’s a relief to see that they can open up to someone new.
For the most part, itisnormal, even when Lexi and Audrey show up and Audrey bounds over to Ramona and asks if it’s okay to hug her. Even when Eden and Sierra arrive and everyone coos over how big eight-year-old Charlotte and six-year-old Owen have gotten since last Christmas, and then Eden summons the courage to show Ramona an ankle tattoo she got a few years ago that represents one of her songs.
He had no idea this amount of love for Ramona already existed in his family.
They all settle into the cabin, his parents and Audrey busying themselves in the kitchen while Nick and Lexi and Eden and Sierra haul Christmas decorations and their faux tree out of storage. Dawn sets up a sugar cookie decorating station for the kids, and Nick hooks up his phone to the sound system and hits play onA Charlie Brown Christmas—a family tradition.
“What’s that?” Owen asks, jabbing a finger at the blue icing Ramona’s spreading onto her cookie.
“This,” Ramona says, “is a Hanukkah cookie. Because I celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas.”
Charlotte bobs her head with understanding. “Just like Eva and Jacob in my class,” she says. “How many presents do you get?”
“When I was little, I’d get one for each,” Ramona says. “But some people get eight presents because there are eight nights of Hanukkah.”
“Did Uncle Nick bring youninepresents?” Charlotte asks.
Ramona swivels her head to catch his gaze. “I’ll be very disappointed if he didn’t!”
If he wasn’t already smitten, this would do it: watching her decorate cookies with his cousins, gamely testing Audrey’s sauces every time his niece runs over with a ladle, determined to impress her.
Even though they just got here, suddenly the idea of going home and waking up without her sounds almost unbearable. Because he’s fallen so fucking hard for her, that thing that seemed so improbable after the divorce. And even if he can’t summon those exact words quite yet, by the end of this trip, he vows to find the courage to tell her something else: that he wants this to be real.
—
