“Nonsense! I do not need a single thing in the world except time with you. Now, go on, open it.”
Sadie carefully eased the paper off the gift to reveal a little blue velvet box. She popped open the lid and saw a golden stud in the shape of a tiny shamrock. “Thank you, Gran,” Sadie said. “It’s perfect.”
“I know it,” Gran said with a grin. “Your mom and granddad have always hated that nose stud of yours. In my day, it was a big deal for women to wear pants, for heaven’s sake. You should be able to express yourself in any way you see fit.” Her expression changed again for a moment, and Sadie thought she saw that shadow of sadness pass over it once more. “Plus, I like the idea of you having something special from me to keep close. A good luck charm for when I can’t be by your side.” Her voice seemed to break. “I’ll always be with you, you know.”
“You’ll just be in Milwaukee,” Sadie said, her throat suddenly tight, too. “I’ll come home to visit again soon. Once the show’s over.”
“Once you’vewon,” Gran said. “And you’re the big star I’ve always known you were going to be.” She reached for hergranddaughter’s hand and squeezed it, and Sadie had to resist the urge to throw herself into her gran’s arms and have a good, pointless cry.
“Gran, what’s wrong with us?” Sadie said, smiling through the tears she felt dampening the corners of her eyes. “We don’t see each other for a few months and we get like this?”
“I know, I know,” Gran said. “Not really the Hunter family style to emote quite this much, but it has been too long since we’ve seen one another. That’s all.” She squeezed Sadie’s hand again. “Now, catch me up. I’m seeing your face in all the newspapers, and you’re always on the evening news. You and that Max Brody.” She cocked her head and raised an eyebrow, inquisitive. “You tend to brush me off when I ask about him on the phone.”
“Right. Me and Max. Gran, the thing about that is—”
But Sadie’s gran spoke over her, her brow now furrowed with concern. “The thing is, I’m worried about you, Sadie. It looks like you two are having a marvelous time—but I’d hate to see anything derail you. I always thought you’d get your career sorted first before you worried too much about romance. I don’t mean to meddle, but the women in this family don’t have the best luck when it comes to love, you know that.”
Thiswastrue. Midway through her second Midwestern tour with her singing group, Elsie Munro had fallen in love at first sight with Herbert Hunter, Sadie’s grandfather, while playing for a group of soldiers who had just returned from Vietnam. When Elsie talked about it—which was rare now, after all that had happened—she said he was simply the handsomest man she had ever seen in a uniform.But, she would add as the years went by, that was not a good reason to marry a man. She evenonce said she couldn’t think ofanygood reason to marry at all. Sadie’s Grandpa Herb was ultimately a good man—but staid, set in his ways, difficult to know.
Elsie and Herb had a whirlwind wedding—hastened, Sadie understood, although it was never openly discussed, by an unplanned pregnancy. Then they settled in Milwaukee and Herb made it clear the only sort of singing acceptable for a wife of his to do was at church, or while doing housework. This was not something Elsie had realized about Herb when she had fallen for him in his uniform. Sadie’s Uncle Blair was born, her mom, Lynn, came along shortly thereafter, and Elsie set about the task of being a mother and a wife. But she never stopped missing her singing days. She once told Sadie her longing to sing was something she kept waiting to get over, only she never did. So, once Lynn and Blair were both finished with school, Elsie dropped a bombshell: she planned to move out and pay the rent on her own apartment by teaching singing lessons to youngsters. Perhaps most scandalous of all—to Herb, at least—she supplemented her income performing jazz standards once a week at a local supper club. She still returned to the family home a few times a week, to put meals in the fridge for the man who was still her husband in name alone. Not exactly a romantic story for the books.
Then Sadie’s mother had her own wrong turn when it came to romance. At nineteen, shortly after Elsie and Herb’s swept-under-the-rug split, Lynn married her high school sweetheart. Sadie only knew her father had been a charming football star named Jamie. He was probably still charming, wherever he was. She had never met him. There was a photo of him in her high school hallway, rakish and grinning, hoisting a trophy—but Sadie had always avoided looking at that photo. What sheknew of her parents’ love story was that Jamie had swept then-cheerleader Lynn off her feet. Then he had taken off when Sadie was two, leaving nothing but a note behind saying marriage and fatherhood just weren’t for him, and he was thinking of becoming a pilot. They never heard from him again. Sadie had no clue whether he became a pilot or not. She told herself she didn’t care about him. But his absence did sting. And these two marital disappointments had tarnished her view of true love. She scoffed at romantic movies and didn’t read love stories. She thought she was more practical than that. She wasn’t going to rule out love and marriage, she just wasn’t going to make it a priority. So, of course, Elsie would be concerned to see her veering off course like this.
But a love affair wasnotin the cards for Sadie and Max.
“Gran, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going to let romance get in the way of my dreams.” She was about to tell her gran the truth, something she had been too nervous to do on the phone or by text lest someone overhear her secret. She had signed a nondisclosure agreement, but she knew Gran was a vault.
Sadie opened her mouth to explain everything—but was interrupted by the trilling of her door buzzer. “Hang on, Gran.”
“Sadie? Hey... it’s Max here.” He sounded uncharacteristically shy. “Patsy’s favorite freeze-dried raw kibble comes from a store in SoBro, meaning I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d check in and see how your ankle is.”
Sadie was surprised by this—and felt a pleasant flush rise to her cheeks. “Come on up, Max,” she said, then went to let in her second guest of the day. She opened the door to Max standing in the hall, holding a small box.
“Hey,” he said, chewing his lip for a second.
“Hey, yourself.”
“So, I noticed you like to drink tea on set for your voice—and we both know the stuff they serve is garbage,” he said, holding his gift out to her. It was a box of A Cup of Christmas tea, from Nashville Tea Co. “This is so much better.”
“Thank you, Max,” she said, touched by his thoughtfulness. She offered to hang up his leather jacket, and felt the warmth of his skin as their hands touched.
“Well, I thought an emergency tea delivery was in order, since you’re injured and all. This was my mom’s favorite. How’s the ankle?”
“Hell-oo-oo?” Gran called out from the living room.
Max stopped talking and looked at her quizzically.
“You have another visitor. I’m interrupting.”
“It’s my gran. She just arrived for a surprise visit.” Sadie leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. “She has no idea. She thinks we’re...”
“Right.” He ducked his head and whispered, too. “We pretend all the time, so what’s the harm in doing it now?”
Sadie looked up at him for a long moment, confused about what she was feeling. Seconds before, she had been ready to tell her gran the truth. But now, she wasn’t sure what the truthwas. “My ankle is starting to feel a lot better,” was all she said, before she turned away and led him into her apartment to make introductions.
“I’m Elsie Hunter, lovely to meet you,” Gran said with a smile. “But Sadie just calls me Gran, of course.”
“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Max said. “Please, don’t stand up. You look so cozy there.” He approached the couch andreached out his hand to shake hers. “I love that blanket. You didn’t knit that yourself, did you? That hurdle stitch isnoteasy to pull off.”
