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She gifted him a fatalist shrug, embarrassed by her homely ambitions. “I don’t have any special training or skills, but sometimes I think it would be nice to sell my dips and spreads in stores. You know, like Whole Foods.”
His silence made her as anxious as a kid on Christmas Day morning. God, she was so stupid to think she could be any more than a hobbyist at the food game.
“It’s ridiculous,” she said pitchily, thankful he was behind her and couldn’t see the panic on her face. “Jack and Shane have worked all their lives to get to where they are so it’s stupid to think I can just decide to do this.”
But she had been deciding a lot of things lately. Taking what she needed and fighting for her and Evan’s future.
“You don’t have a clue how special you are, do you?” he rumbled in her ear.
Heat flared her cheeks and spread to her toes, and she tried to laugh it off. “Of course I do. Every day I do the daily affirmation thing in the mirror. I tell my reflection how much I like my nose or my ears today. That kind of thing.”
“Who’s your favorite Beatle, Jules?”
“What?”
“Your favorite Beatle. As in the mop tops from Liverpool, not the multi-legged scurrying kind.”
She gave it more consideration than it deserved. Men seemed to think questions like this were very, very important. “I don’t have one.”
“You have to have one. Everybody has one.”
“Okay, Ringo.”
“Except Ringo. No one picks Ringo.”
She sighed. “I suppose this is where I’m required to ask who your favorite is.”
His smile against the curve of her neck felt knowing. “George.”
She could feel an eye roll coming on but she suppressed it. “I’ll bite. Why?”
“Well, for years he lived in the shadow of arguably the best songwriting duo ever, but when he finally got his chance, he outshone them both. OnAbbey Road, name the two best songs.”
She thought about it for a moment. Jack had played that album constantly when she was pregnant because he wanted to infuse fetal Evan with a musical talent he had no hope of inheriting from his tone-deaf uncle.
“‘Here Comes the Sun?’” she offered, not wanting to disappoint him. She did love that song, though. Its breezy and optimistic feel, the idea of crawling out of a long, cold, lonely winter to embrace spring and rebirth.
“Correct, and the other one is ‘Something.’ Which Frank Sinatra said was the best love song of the twentieth century. Actually he said it was the best McCartney-Lennon song, but he was wrong because it was written by George.” He raised an overly expressive eyebrow. “Frank Sinatra, Jules.”
“Well, if Frank said it…” Sylvia had pictures of the Pope and Frank Sinatra on her living room wall. These crazy Italians…oh, how she loved them all.
“Exactly. Both of those songs were written by George Harrison. Best album by the best band ever, and the best songs were by the quiet Beatle. Sure, he had written songs before that, but withAbbey Road, he came into his own. The late bloomer.”
Dawning realization crept up on her. In this scenario, her brothers were Lennon and McCartney, and she was the quiet Beatle. The one who took a while to find his stride but then went on to outdo them all.
“I’m not that talented,” she mumbled, close to tears. A tremor started up in her hand and she put down the knife she had been about to use to divide the ravioli into little parcels.
“You just don’t know it yet. But I do.”
Her heart exploded into a million fragments of light. Turning fast, she threw her arms around his neck and crushed her body to the chest that had always been there for her. Where she belonged.
Thank God he couldn’t see her lovesick, moony expression, now hidden in the warm crook of his neck. Ducking her head as she turned back to the ravioli, she focused on the backyard with its yellowing turf and unkempt grasses while she desperately tried to keep the tears at bay. Hints of lavender and wild mint wafted through the open window. The things she could do with this space. Tomatoes and peas on the south side, herbs near that back wall, room for a pig.
“Where did Ulysses hang his hat?”
He pointed to the north end near a dilapidated shed. “Over there. We had to keep him separate from the chickens.”
His voice washed over her with stories about Vivi and the errant chickens, half of which she didn’t hear because she was falling into a hole and scrabbling for purchase on the slippery, muddy slope.
