An Unfinished Story(103)

Claire read out loud the final page of the epilogue of Saving Orlando, savoring each thought and image.

“I spent my thirties wondering if I was worth loving. Until Amy came into my life. She lifted me up and resuscitated my senses, reminding me of what matters—the cosmic sense of what matters. It’s love, of course, and after knowing her only a few minutes, I loved her. She was the one with the courage to walk blindly into the darkness to find Orlando and, like she’d done for me, she brought him back. She was our lighthouse casting hope out into the dreary fog of our lives.

“I suppose I have Orlando to thank for all of it. Only in attempting to save him did I find love, and I will be forever grateful. Before I fell in love with Amy, I fell in love with him. A different kind of love, but just as powerful.

“It was, by the way, never me who was saving Orlando. You probably knew that. How I’d ever been so confused is still a mystery to me. No, I was never saving Orlando. But to name the book Saving Kevin would have given away the ending.

“If you drive south on MLK and work your way toward the Gulf, you’ll find the tiny chapel where I married Amy three months later. Though she could have done much better, something drew her to me. In appreciation to a world that would allow a wreck like me to marry such a fine woman, I will spend the rest of my life trying to be a better man and husband and . . . father.

“A week after marrying Amy, we took Orlando to New York to see a game at Yankee Stadium. During the seventh-inning stretch, we asked Orlando to be our son.”

Claire sniffled and removed her glasses. She read the final two words. “The end.”

She set the last page down on the coffee table and turned to Whitaker, wiping her eyes. “Wait a minute. You can’t go south on MLK in Sarasota. Haven’t we already been through this?”

Whitaker threw up his hands. “Oops. I’ll have to fix that.”

She side-eyed him. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re trying to tell me something.”

“Isn’t it crystal Claire?”

Claire shook her head at the man who’d finished her late husband’s novel. She thought about her journey and the pain of losing a love and how empty she’d once felt inside. And then she saw her possible future, one rich with Oliver and Whitaker, and she knew that no matter how broken the road, there was joy waiting for her at the end.





Epilogue

THE BIG APPLE

Sixteen months later

“Why do they call it the Big Apple, anyway?” Oliver asked, strolling up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the hat Claire had given him slightly tilted on his head, his eyes and ears tuned to the sights and sounds erupting around him.

A chilly fall wind funneled between the tall buildings, and Claire zipped up her down jacket. “That’s a good question. I have no idea.”

“Oh, I do,” Whitaker exclaimed, circling around a man slinging bottled waters. Once he’d caught up with them, he said, “Back in the thirties, this little boy in Queens was bobbing for apples. You know, you have all these apples floating in a giant bucket of water, and somebody has to go in with their teeth and try to grab one.”

“I know what bobbing for apples is,” Oliver said.

A taxi driver slammed his horn.

“Just making sure. You kids and your Fortnite and hovercrafts and virtual reality. Back when I was a . . .”

“Oh God, please don’t go there,” Claire said, walking between them.

They stopped at the end of the block, waiting for the red hand to turn green. “So anyway, the kid from Queens lifts his head from the bucket, water dripping down his face and this huge red apple in his mouth, and his friend yells, ‘Holy smokes, that thing’s the size of Manhattan!’”

Oliver laughed. “You’re so full of it! I know you’re making that up.”

“Hold on,” Claire said. “You made that up?”

A smile rose on Whitaker’s face.

Claire punched him on the arm. “I can’t believe you.”

“It was pretty good, though, right? A kid in Queens.”

“I don’t believe anything you say anymore,” Oliver admitted, putting one foot into the street.

Claire noticed and pulled him back to the sidewalk without a word. He got her message. She put her hands on Oliver’s shoulders. “From now on, Oliver and I will assume everything you say is fiction.”

Whitaker looked back and forth between them. “That takes all the fun out of it!”

“That’s what you get when you cry wolf.” And then, as if testing the waters—almost as if it were a question—he added, “Dad.”

It was the first time Oliver had called Whitaker “Dad.”

Claire wanted to say, “Yes, you can call him ‘Dad’!” But she bit her tongue, not wanting to coddle her son. He’d called her “Mom” a few times, so this was the next step. A very exciting one.

Whitaker obviously heard the tone, too, and jumped in to squash it. Acting like hearing “Dad” was no big deal, he put his arm around Oliver. “Are you really preaching to me about crying wolf, Aesop?”

Claire breathed easier as Oliver smiled at him. There was a time when she could never have imagined marrying again, never imagined being a mother. All that had changed, and seeing her two men love on each other filled her with gratitude.