Georgie, All Along (107)

This is the best birthday I ever had.

The only birthday party for me I can even remember.

I’m shoving another bite of cake in my mouth when I spot Hank, his tail bobbing through the crowd as he makes his way toward me. He’s got that slobbering grin on, his tongue lolling as he pants happily. It’s been a big day for Hank, this many people in the house, more full than it’s ever been, and he’s been a champ. I pat my thigh and scratch at his ears when he gets to me, praising him, setting my plate on the counter and letting him lick at a stray drop of frosting on my index finger.

“Pretty different around here these days, huh, pal?” I say, and he wags and pants and then turns, tapping his way over to the front door and looking back at me in invitation. I bet him wanting to go out is the same as me coming over to the kitchen to eat my piece of cake kind of quiet-like. I didn’t have to blow out candles or anything, but there was singing, and I’m surprised my beard didn’t melt off my face from all that attention. Georgie had been moonbeaming as bright as I’ve ever seen.

She’s at the table with the cake, sitting with Shyla and Remy, and when I look over at her she seems to sense me immediately, raising her eyes to mine and smiling big. I’m close to crying from all the gratitude I feel for her right now, having this party for me. I fought her on it at first, told her that the house was too small, that the occasion didn’t matter to me, that the quiet celebration we had last year, only the two of us—and mostly in bed—was what I’d want again. But Georgie said I just had to trust her, that this party would be great, and like with most things she was right. It’s made something better inside me, this birthday. Opened up another one of those spaces I didn’t even know I had locked tight away.

Instead of crying in front of her mom at my own dang birthday party, though, I return Georgie’s smile and then nod my head toward the door where Hank stands wagging, letting her know I’m taking him out. She blows me a big, noisy kiss and my face heats up again, hoping we’ll get some of that birthday bed time later once everyone leaves. I don’t even care if the house stays a mess.

I duck away before I get any more emotional or wound up.

I let Hank out the front and follow, getting greeted by a big shout of “There’s the birthday boy!” from Carlos, who showed up as a surprise yesterday. He’s leaning against the railing with Laz having a beer and they both toast me. Carlos and I had a long catch-up last night out on the dock, and I’m still recovering from all the nice things he said about how I’ve been doing with the business. How I’ve been doing with my life.

I make my excuses and take Hank around the house to the back; he’s trotting ahead and happily stretching his legs, taking in the open air. He stops to do a big bark of greeting at my birthday present, the one Georgie and Paul and Shyla presented to me before the party, and I can’t help but chuckle. A big metal rooster, nearly the same as the one on the Mulcahy property. It looks about as silly as anything, especially since unlike the Mulcahys, I don’t have any other lawn ornaments, but even after a few hours it’s my favorite thing in the yard. Georgie says she’s going to give me the wooden sign she had made for around its neck later, but I already know what it’ll say. In the meantime I’ve got to think of a name for him, make him an official part of the family.

Once Hank’s done his business he comes back to me, and we make our way out to the dock. I won’t stay away from the party for too long, but it’s good to have the planks beneath my feet, to get that sturdy sense I still need. In the fourteen or so months since Georgie and I stood out on this dock for that prom I put together, I’ve come out here a lot—sometimes with Hank and Georgie, sometimes by myself. A few months back, I spent almost every night out here for weeks in the dead dark cold of January and February, trying to get my mind right while Georgie was away—a whole month and a half she spent out in California, a favor for one of her PA friends who was going on a temporary family leave and trusted only the famously unflappable Georgie Mulcahy to fill in.

“Jade and I have a similar style,” she’d told me when she’d filled me in about the offer. “And Lark is pretty easy to work for.”

I’d blinked and swallowed and nodded, names like Jade and Lark sounding so far away to me, so separate somehow from Georgie. But after she’d finished telling me, I’d waited until she was on her weekly FaceTime with Bel, and then I’d come out here on this dock and tried to settle myself, to remember everything that I’d said—that I’d meant—on prom night: that I’d love her no matter whether she stayed here or went back to LA or anywhere else. That what I wanted was to figure out life with her.

Still, it was scary to see her go, to wonder—in spite of her assurances that this was all temporary—if she’d get back there and remember a life she was used to once, if she’d eat at restaurants we don’t have around here and like them better, if she’d do work that she wanted more than the shifts she was still taking at The Shoreline.

If she’d get near that big, loud ocean and find this quiet river wanting.

It was scary not to know what might be coming.

But in the end it was good for both of us. Good for Georgie to get some West Coast sunshine and time to catch up with old friends, good for her to do work I could tell she still liked. Good for me, too, to fill my days without her in ways that were different from what I mostly did before I met her—good to help out over at Paul and Shyla’s, to sign up for another class Hedi suggested I try, to help Evan finally move out of my sister’s place and into a rental not that far from me. It was good to text Georgie throughout the day, good to talk to her every night, good to get up the courage to go out there and visit her one long weekend, in case California was about to become a bigger part of our lives.