Livvy (61 page)

“First of all, some news,” he says. The room gets silent, but he continues before my mind can wander and render a guess. “Livvy and I are moving back to New York!” Everyone erupts in applause as Livvy nods her head in confirmation. Emi starts crying, overjoyed with the news. I hug her, then kiss her, elated myself to have my daughter back at home. “I will be going back to the firm I left four years ago, only they’re making me a partner. And Livvy is going to take some time to settle in, sketch, plan some outdoor projects. In a month, we’ll be packing our things and heading back to the loft.”

A few of the family members look at Clara, who had been living in the loft in their absence. “I know, I know,” she says. “They’re helping me look for a place, don’t worry. I guess I knew this day would come.”

“We can help her find a place, can’t we?” Emi says as she leans over to me.

“Of course. Whatever she needs. Whatever it takes to get Livvy back to the States,” I assure her.

“So that’s good, right?” Jon asks, sounding suddenly nervous.

“The best news ever!” I shout to them both.

“Really?” Jon says, cocking his head. “I don’t know...” He rubs his chin in thought as I glare at him out of the corner of my eyes. “Jack?”

“Yes?”

“Você pode traduzir?”

“Can I translate?” I confirm his question in English.

“
Sim
,” he says, nodding his head.

“
Sim
,” I reply. “Yes,” I say to the audience.

“Eu quero agradecer a você e à Emi por dar uma vida inteira de belas memórias e experiências à sua filha.”

“Thank you and Emi for giving your daughter a lifetime of beautiful memories and experiences,” I announce to the rest of the crowd, most of whom don’t speak a word of Portuguese.

“Vocês fizeram-na a mulher mais preciosa.”

“They have made her into the most precious woman.”

“Ela é mais do que eu jamais poderia ter esperado encontrar em uma mulher.”

“She is more than I ever could have hoped to find in a wife,” I translate. “And you’re welcome,” I respond directly to Jon.

“Eu prometo dá-la em casamento dos seus sonhos, todos os dias.”

“I promise to give her the marriage of her dreams, everyday,” I repeat. “I would expect nothing less from you, son.”

“Este casamento dos nossos sonhos incluirá filhos.”

“This marriage of our dreams will include... children?”

“Sim,”
Jon confirms.

“Very good,” I tell him with a smile. I put my hand on Emi’s shoulder lightly. She clasps her fingers around it.

“Pelo menos um filho, no mínimo.”

“At least one child, anyway,” I say his words, then add, “However many you want to have is fine with us. We’ll babysit anytime.”

“A qualquer momento?”
Jon asks.

“Yes,” I answer him curiously. “Anytime.”

“Que tal daqui a seis meses?”

“Six months from now?” I ask, unsure if I understood him properly.

“Sim. Em seis meses...”

“In six months...”

“...você se tornará um avô.”

“...you will become a... a...
grandfather
?”

Again, a few people gasp. Emi’s sister squeals.

I look at Livvy first, who simply smiles. I glance at Jon, wide-eyed, trying to get confirmation. “A
grandfather
?” Emi stands up and walks directly behind the head table. Livvy greets her with a hug, and the two women start crying together. I, on the other hand, cannot move.

“A grandfather,” Jon finally says. “We’re having a baby in April.”

Two unexpected tears fall when I finally exhale again. “I’m going to be a grandfather,” I say once more. My brothers and Chris are all suddenly at my side, celebrating the news.

“Congrats, old man,” Matty says. Chris makes his way up to his sister, giving her a hug. My eyes finally meet Livvy’s, and she coughs out a few cries. She meets me halfway, and falls into my embrace.

“Are you okay?” she asks me.

“Am I okay?” I clarify. “Am
I
okay? Tessa, it’s you we need to take care of.” I kiss her cheek. “How are you?”

“I’m great, Daddy. I’ve never been happier.” Even through tears, her smile is beaming. More drops fall on her rosy cheeks, but I wipe them away for her.

“Congratulations, Contessa.”

“We were already planning the wedding,” she starts speaking quickly, “and we wanted to start a family right away, so I got off the pill, thinking it would take awhile and...”

“Liv...” I say, stopping her. “It’s okay.”

“We found out last month... I would have told you then, but it was still too soon, and we just wanted to wait a little longer to make sure everything’s okay.”

“Everyone’s healthy?” I ask her.

“Strong heartbeat,” Jon says, joining us. He holds his hand out for me, but I hug him again, proud of the man he’s become and elated that he will be a father to Livvy’s children. I think of how he’s been with his brothers and Jackson. He’ll be a good dad.

“That’s really why we’re coming home, Daddy. I want you and Mom to be with me through this. I don’t want to mess him up,” she says, putting her hand over her belly.

“Or her,” Jon says. “We obviously don’t know the gender yet.”

“Oh,” I laugh. “Jon... let me be the first to say that I hope you get a daughter.”

“Why do you say that?” he asks, already knowing my answer.

“Karma, son.”

“Daddy!” Livvy yells, laughing with them both.

“I deserve it,” Jon says. “But in the end, I did okay, didn’t I?”

“Since those high school days, you’ve been respectful, and caring, and an honorable man... but this is only the beginning.”

“Understood,” Jon says.

“Make this lifetime count. My daughter and grandchild are counting on you.” He smiles at Livvy, and they meet for a kiss.

Without looking away from her, he answers me. “Yes, sir.”

“It’s Dad now.” Livvy releases Jon and holds my hand, grinning.

“Yes, Dad.”

_____

* Walter de la Mare. “Silver.”
Collected Poems 1901-1918, Vol II: Songs of Childhood
, 1902.

LIVVY EXTRAS

Jack’s Terms
- Jack and Jon’s conversation after Livvy’s birthday dinner (Jon’s point of view)

Curitiba
- Jon has a question for Jack and Emi (Jon’s point of view)

JON - “JACK’S TERMS”

“You make her very happy,” Jack says to me as we cross the street. “But you are also capable of making her very sad.”

I’d expected him to put me on the spot, but I’m still not fully prepared for this conversation. “I know,” I tell him.

“Was it your intention to do that? To hurt her like that?”

Honestly, it was, but I don’t know if I should admit that to him. I stay silent, plotting my response.

“Jon, you were two years younger when you came to me and tried to convince me that you were old enough to make adult decisions. Do you remember those conversations?”

“Of course I do.”

“My daughter is not one to be ignored. Ever. And an adult finds ways to confront problems. He doesn’t avoid them and hope they’ll go away.”

“I know this, Jack.”

“Then why did you do that to her? Why did you let her suffer like that?”

“Because she hurt me. I felt betrayed. I had to walk away. I had to have some time to think about what she’d done, and what she meant to me.”

“What she meant, or what she means?”

“What she means,” I correct my statement as we wait for the signal to cross.

“Care to elaborate?” her father asks.

“She’s my world. I don’t have a choice but to forgive her.”

“Can you?”

“I have.”

“For good?”

“Yes, sir, I have.”

“Because I don’t want her having to relive your anger weeks, months, years from now because you don’t feel you can trust her. She loves you with all of her heart, and there should be no resentment or reservations in your affections for her.”

“There aren’t.”

“You saying that leads me to think I have to accept that you’ve done a lot of maturing over the summer. Because, son, I honestly think what you did was selfish and immature. I don’t know if Livvy would ever say that. Livvy would probably defend your actions, but I can’t believe you let her go on like that. Painting after painting, letter after letter, day after day, week after week, her mother and I listened to her cry herself to sleep. Her pain was ours, and it was unendurable. Many mornings, I’d wake up ready to tell my daughter it was time to move on... that it was time to leave you behind.”

“She wouldn’t listen?” I ask.

“I never came out and told her until she’d finished the last letter. And Emi never wanted me to tell her that. She said she believed that you were as devoted to my Contessa as I’d been to my wife all of my adult life. And if that was true, I didn’t want to be what kept her from the person she was meant to be with. Just as Emi had difficult decisions to make when we were younger, I wanted Livvy to make her own choices. I thought if I had helped her make the wrong decision, she’d never forgive me.”

“Thank you,” I say to him quietly. “And I’m sorry I kept her waiting. But I had to be sure of some things myself before I took her back.”

“Like?”

“I wanted to be sure I’d never walk away again, no matter what. I know she wasn’t unfaithful to me. I accept that’s not what happened, nor do I think she ever would cheat on me.”

“You have to be willing to talk to her,” he says. “As much as she’s put into that relationship, she deserves that. She deserves the opportunity to talk and to hear you out.”

“I agree. Had I been in Manhattan, I think I would have come back around much sooner. It was easy to ignore what was happening back here. It was easy to focus on my family for a change.”

“Relationships aren’t easy.”

“I know they aren’t, Jack. And I’m not saying I want them to be. I will work hard at ours, for as long as she’ll have me.”

It’s his turn to be quiet for a few minutes as we continue our walk toward campus. “Jon, I don’t want to put pressure on either of you. I don’t expect nor want the two of you to get married any time soon. I’m realistic, though, about your relationship. Even though I still think you’re too young to make lifelong commitments to one another, I understand you both have the desire to do that. But let me be clear. If you leave her again, Jon, I will not stand by and encourage her to wait for you. One more time, and that will be it for me. I’ll have lost all faith in you. Whether or not my daughter can forgive that is one thing. But I won’t be able to. And I suspect my opinion will always matter to her, to some degree.”

“Your opinion matters to me, as well. I don’t like that I’ve disappointed you. But I swear it will never happen again. I swear she will always be heard. I swear I will never leave her–not by my choosing, anyway. I want to marry her someday. When that day comes, I want to have your blessing.”

“You don’t have it today,” he says somberly. “She’s too young today.”

“I understand.”

“But you have my blessing to try to make this right. I want her to be happy. She insists that you are the person that makes her happy.”

“I feel the same about her. There’s no one else.”

“Just remember how she had the power to hurt you. Remember that each time you argue or fight or disagree. Remember that and do whatever you can to avoid hurting her like that again.”

“I will.”

“If you do, you’ll have my blessing.”

“Thank you, Jack. And I’m sorry for letting you down.”

“Knowing you, son, I don’t think it will become a habit.”

“It won’t.”

JON - “CURITIBA”

After attempting to straighten out my jacket that had gotten wrinkled after a full day of school and work, I run my fingers through my windswept hair, knocking on the Hollands’ door and waiting nervously on the porch.

“Jon,” Jack says as he opens the door for me. “Come on in.”

“Thanks,” I return, surprised by how hard my heart is pounding. “Thanks for letting me come over on such short notice.”