Our Finest Hour (The Time #1)(45)

“I think everyone should garden. It’s good for the soul.” Paul stops and steps aside.

The entire side yard, at least ten feet across and fifteen feet long, is filled with plants.

I walk around the raised beds, peering into them, as Paul talks about what fills each one.

I listen, watching his excitement as he regales me with the garden’s history, how it almost wouldn’t grow. He also tells me all the plants he cannot get to grow for the life of him.

His glasses slowly descend the slope of his nose because he talks with such animation. So different from my own father. My dad’s words slide out of his mouth like they’re facing resistance.

“Paul,” Lucia’s voice rings out.

“Better get going.” He pulls his hands from the mint, a few stems in his grasp. “The boss is calling.” He winks at me.

All afternoon I keep waiting for the questions to come. They must want to know the sordid details of how they have a family member they knew nothing about. At some point, will one of them demand a paternity test?

The questions never come. Not when we’re eating lunch or enjoying the cupcakes. Not when we play catch with a football, or when Lauren tells me about her job. When Lucia asks me to help her in the kitchen, I think, this is it, but it doesn’t happen. She hands me soapy dish after soapy dish, and I rinse and dry them, waiting for the accusations and questions to leave her lips. But they never come. Instead she talks about Isaac’s job, how fortuitous it was that we ran into each other again, how happy they all are to have me and Claire in their lives now.

I knew it the moment I saw their smiling faces lying on top of the contents of a moving box. This family is perfect.





Everything changed after the day at Isaac’s parents’ house. When Isaac walked us to my car that afternoon, I said what I’d been thinking. Instead of thinking about it one more time, I blurted out my decision.

And made Isaac the happiest man in the world. The consequences of my words are almost worth the joy of seeing him that happy. Almost.

Isaac doesn’t waste time. That’s one more thing I can say I’ve learned about him.

One week after telling him we’d move in, we’re doing just that. I started packing two days ago. Claire’s room first, and now mine.

Isaac’s been busy this week, getting ready for us. Claire called him every night at bedtime to say good-night, placated only by the fact that we’d be moving in with him and soon she’ll see him every night at bedtime and when she wakes in the morning. After Claire and Isaac finished their conversation each night, he waited on the line for me to finish my good-night with her. Every night, when I got back on the phone, he talked about what he’d accomplished that day. Aside from fixing broken bones, he also buys princess beds with canopies and constructs them. Because I guess he’s not busy enough. Apparently, when Isaac puts his mind to something, there’s no stopping him.

And now it’s moving day.

“How’s it coming along?”

My dad leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. He eyes the piles of clothing, the boxes, the stacks of books. I’ve never considered myself a packrat, but I’m starting to think maybe I have a tendency to hoard. A little less than five years ago, I moved back into the room that had been mine all my life, and in that time, I’ve managed to amass enough stuff to furnish a small village. The donate-pile is large. I stare at the item on top—my breast pump. It was a big purchase for me. Claire was an infant, and I had to work. If I wanted her exclusively breastfed, I was going to have to shell out for it. Setting the pump in the giveaway pile was hard, but what am I supposed to do with it now?

I swing my arm out to the room. “It’s coming, I suppose.”

Dad nods. He doesn’t say anything, but he stays in his spot. He hasn’t offered to help since I started packing, and I haven’t asked for it.

I start loading all my books in a box.

“Aubs, that’s going to be too heavy. Distribute the weight between a few boxes. Books first, maybe a quarter of the way up, then clothes on top. Something like that.” Dad comes in my room, snatching an empty box as he walks by it. Together we pull the books out of the box they’re in and re-pack them as he instructed.

“Thanks.” I pick up stacks of clothes and place them on top.

“Anytime. Need help with anything else?”

I look around the room. “I think I’ve got it.”

He heads for the door but pauses in the threshold. He keeps his back to me. “Now that you’re moving out, I don’t know if I want you to.” His voice is reluctant, the words stuck in molasses.

The tears I’ve been holding back prickle my eyes. A few roll down my face. I clear my throat, as if somehow that will stop the tears. “I know, Dad. I’m scared too.”

“It’s all going to work out, Aubs.” He disappears down the hall.

I want to yell after him, ask him how he can be so sure.

“Wow, Aubrey, I have to say it. I’m hurt.” Britt stands in the front yard, one hand on her hip, the other lost in the bowels of a maroon foam finger. She pumps her arm like she’s at a game and cheers silently.

“You can have it.” I know perfectly well she threw hers away years ago. Britt doesn’t keep things.

She playfully narrows her eyes at me and drops the giant hand. The pointed foam finger nearly touches the ground. “Can I please?”