AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You should be so lucky,” Hannah said.
“Right? So, the problem is, I don’t particularly want to spend my life traveling without my wife. You have a very busy professional life here, and a dislike for leaving the greater Upstate New York area. However, you’ve expressed that you would have liked to come with me, so I don’t want to assume I should turn down all offers of adventure.”
“I do want to travel, with you,” Hannah agreed warily, “but I’m not sure I want to be at the whim of a film crew, again, with no agency over where we go, and for how long. That’s kind of what I hated most about my childhood.”
“Aha! Okay.” He squeezed her hands, and she squeezed back and nodded at him to keep going. “There are several options, again. You could be contracted as a producer, or travel manager, or whatever title makes the most sense, so that you would in fact be the person telling the film crew where to go, rather than the other way around. Or you and I could go on scouting trips and I could do the filming trips separately. Or I could say to hell with filming travel shows, I film in New York, I travel for fun.”
Chapter 22
Hannah
There’s something wrong with this plan,” Hannah said, and Levi froze. She told herself to be as brave as he’d just been.
“I think you’re right to give the shares to your parents. I understand why you wouldn’t want to take something you believe your mom and dad should already have had. Iwantto travel with you. Maybe not right away, but someday, I want to be able to go to the Grand Canyon with my kids and find the best croissants in Paris. The thing is…”She blew out a breath. “We’ve both been trying to figure out how we could make this work at Carrigan’s, because Carrigan’s has been the immovable constant. I couldn’t leave, and you couldn’t stay. I don’t know if wecanmake it work at Carrigan’s. I try to imagine moving into your parents’ rooms after they retire, and you cooking full-time in the kitchen instead of eating every food of the diaspora…”
“I would do it if it meant we got to be together,” he said quietly, hugging her tightly. “I would film here, travel from here, and hire help. Bring in visiting chefs. I like the Adirondacks a hell of a lot more than I expected to.”
“You would wither here. You told me that once, and you were right. You would wither here, and, Blue, so would I.” She knew as she said it that she was right, and her voice got more confident as she went on. “I couldn’t have left when you did. I can’t beat myself up about that, any more than I’ve already done. I don’t think I would go back and make the choice to leave with you, knowing what I know now. But now…I don’t need to be locked in this tower anymore. I’m not a princess to keep safe, and I can’t hold everyone up by my hair anymore. You found out who you are outside of Carrigan’s. I want to find out, too. Who I am. Who we are.”
“What does that mean?” he asked, pushing her hair back. “What does that look like? Hannah, we own Carrigan’s. It’s your life’s dream. I can’t ask you to walk away from it.”
“You’re not asking me to, and I’m not talking about walking away.” She shook her head, thinking out loud. She didn’t, historically, love to think on her feet, but she did love to brainstorm and problem-solve with Levi. “I don’t want to sell or quit working here. I just don’t want tolivehere. I want to, I don’t know, get a place in Lake Placid and commute in. I want to build a little house with you, filled with brand-new IKEA furniture that Cass never owned and we built poorly, and Miriam Blum originals, and kitchen gadgets I think we don’t need. I want to go with you sometimes when you travel, and sometimes not, and go into the city with you to film sometimes, but not all the time, and I want us to have lives that intersect and hold each other up but don’t keep each other in places we can’t thrive.”
She waited for him to say something, but he was just looking at her and crying, so she kept going. She couldn’t stop now.
“I want us to go to shul on Friday nights, and marriage counseling with Rabbi Ruth, and have the next generation of Rosenstein-Matthews babies to ask the four questions and find the afikomen. I don’t know if you ever want to be a part of running Carrigan’s again. It would make me sad to have a Carrigan’s with no Blue, to not get to collaborate with you, but we would make it work.”
He stared at her, his eyeliner smudged under his lashes.
“What are you thinking?” she finally asked.
“I guess that we both must have grown up a hell of a lot in the past few years, if you’re considering moving out of Carrigan’s and I’m considering staying. I don’t want to live here, you’re right. Like I really, deeply don’t,” he admitted. “But I like being involved. I like brainstorming with my mom about the future, and bouncing wild, creative ideas off Miriam, and working side by side with you. Being a part of the inner workings, it’s helping me rewrite the past. I don’t want to cut myself out. I love watching you work too damn much.”
He nestled his face into her hair, and she breathed deeply for the first time that day. “I want to, I don’t know, hire someone to do the day-to-day cooking for the guests, but act as the advisory chef and plan and execute the menus for big events. I know it would help out Carrigan’s All Year if we could advertise that, for a little more money, someone could have TV’s Chef Levi cook for their wedding or whatever.”
“You don’t have to do what might be best for Carrigan’s All Year if it’s not best for you, or us,” Hannah said, her hope soaring.
He nodded into her hair. “I know. But I’ve spent all my life doing what’s good for me at the cost of my family’s feelings and our relationship. This would be a chance for me to see your big, beautiful dreams up close and support them. It doesn’t always have to be a question of me versus the entire world.”
“Gosh, Levi, who could ever have guessed that that was true?” Hannah teased, just a little.
“So how many kitchen gadgets is too many to fit into a little house?” he asked. “Because we might have wildly different ideas about the number.”
She shifted so they were looking at each other. “Do you want to do this? Honestly? After everything, do you still want to try?”
“I told you I do.” He nodded. “More than anything. I mean, it’s going to be a lot of work, and we can’t just put everything we did to each other in a closet, lock the door, and pretend it’s not there. But doyouhonestly want to, Nan? You wanted a life where you could be Hannah, not half of Hannah and Levi. Are you just getting back together because it hurts to be apart, because it’s too hard to fight against us while you’re still so tired from losing Cass and trying to save Carrigan’s?”
She laughed, so relieved and delighted she couldn’t help herself. She threw her arms around his neck.
“I do genuinely want to. I want to grow up with you. I want to get to know everything about the person you’ve become and fall in love with him, too. It’s not easier to give in and be with you, Blue. It’s so much harder. It would be easier to say we’re never going to make it work, sign the papers, let Hannah and Levi be something we used to be. Because if we’re together, I have to grow, and change, and compromise, and be on a team where I don’t get to make all the rules, and things happen that I can’t control. It would be easier to just stay a spinster, growing old as the head of Carrigan’s, picking up lost souls like Cass did, but never letting anyone near mine. That’s not what I want. I want you.”
Mrs. Matthews and Esther cheered. Jason and Elijah applauded. Collin whistled through his fingers.
“I forgot they were here,” Hannah whispered, but the mic picked her words up.
“We know!” Elijah yelled.
Levi turned toward them. “Okay, everyone, since you’re here and you’ve got popcorn, let’s watch this finale!”
