The flight departed Milan Malpensa late in the afternoon, sweeping them over the Atlantic on their way west to New York's JFK, where new chapters awaited them all. Maisie would start high school in the fall, and Grant would begin middle school. Patrick and Emory would ease into the fresh challenges of married life. Greg and Livia would plan another wedding, this time including the kids. Even Clara saw a future for herself in dating, although she had left Gustavo behind.
They flew first across France, enjoying a glass of French wine in their first-class seats, and banked toward the ocean just before sunset. Patrick watched the sky turn orange and then pink, reflecting across the vast, flat waters, until they were in near darkness with only thin ribbons of color kissing the horizon. The flight would be nine hours in total, six of which they would gain back crossing time zones.
"You okay?" Emory asked, taking Patrick's hand. Patrick had been staring out the window in uncharacteristic silence for quite some time. "You've hardly touched your wine."
"What? Huh? Oh," Patrick muttered, snapping back to attention. He glanced toward the front of the cabin and saw Greg and Livia. In the window seats on the far side, across from a center row of passengers, sat Maisie and Grant. Clara had her own seat two rows back. "It's just... Flying over the ocean is unnatural. The ocean is unnatural."
"The ocean is not unnatural. It's like seventy percent of the planet."
"Whales can grow to be the size of a bus."
"So can your ego."
Patrick ignored him. "A blue whale's heartbeat can be heard from two miles away." Patrick took a sip of his Sancerre to cover his smirk; it was a nugget Grant had once told him.
"And yet I have to press my head against your chest just to hear yours." Emory placed a hand over Patrick's heart, and Patrick clasped his own on top of it to hold it there. "You just don't trust anything saltier than you are."
Patrick laughed. No wine could mask that.
"Were you having second thoughts?"
"About us?"
Emory nodded.
"No, not at all," Patrick replied firmly. "A prenup, maybe." Patrick elbowed his husband jokingly, and Emory pulled his hand away. But he wasn't offended.
"I'll sign a prenup," Emory offered sincerely.
"It's a little late for that, hence the *pre*. There are no bargaining chips for a postnup."
Emory didn't see the issue. "We still have to make it legal back in the States." A flight attendant appeared at the front of the cabin with a meal cart.
Patrick scrutinized his husband. "What do you know that I don't?"
"You want a list? There are only seven hours until we land." Emory grinned, amused.
"Have you booked something?" Patrick asked, suddenly worried he was prenupping himself out of a windfall.
"The role of your husband. It runs for the rest of my life."
"I'm serious!"
Emory remained noncommittal. "I've had offers."
"So have I." Patrick wondered if he shouldn't use this time to tackle the new batch of scripts Cassie had emailed, but his attention was focused squarely on the meal cart as Livia and Greg were handed their dinners. "Look at us. We're like the Doublemint twins."
Emory whistled, making a gesture to indicate the reference was sailing right over his head.
"It had to do with Wrigley chewing gum. Double the flavor, double the something."
"Double the obscurity." Emory hummed a few bars of Icona Pop's "I Love It." *You're from the seventies, but I'm a nineties bitch.* His face then hardened into an inscrutable expression. "We can make this work, right? I mean, we're good for one another."
Patrick turned to Emory. "Is this a pep talk for you or for me?"
Emory chuckled while Patrick watched the meal cart nudge closer.
"I think I'll get the chicken." Patrick loosened his seat belt. He'd be dancing on Broadway in a matter of weeks; the time for pasta was over. "Of course we can make this work. We're so silly. Overthinking everything. Trying to make the right mark on the world. And yet one day, not that long from now, someone will think of us for the very last time and we will be forgotten from the universe entirely."
Emory tucked his chin into his neck. That was maudlin.
"Not if you eat the Mona Lisa." Patrick turned to see that Grant had materialized next to him in the aisle.
"WHAT?!"
"You said one day you will be forgotten. But not if you eat the Mona Lisa." Grant stood confidently, as if he had done some quick math in his head and the figures had turned out right. "People wouldn't ever forget that."
"So much for the chicken," Patrick muttered.
"The kid has a solid point." Emory didn't see a reason to argue.
"What do you want, Grant?" Patrick asked. "They're about to serve the meal."
"Is there going to be ice cream?" The proverbial midnight must be approaching. Gelato was turning back into ice cream.
"Is that really what you came to ask?"
Grant snapped his fingers, recalling his actual reason. "Maisie wants to talk to you."
Patrick looked across the plane to Grant's empty seat and Maisie sitting quietly in hers. He expected her to have her nose in a book, but instead, she fidgeted awkwardly, unsure where to focus her gaze. "Keep Emory company?" Patrick asked Grant, and before he had even stood to his full height in the aisle, the kid had already buckled himself into his uncle's place.
"Want to see a magic trick?" Grant asked his new guncle as Patrick crossed the center row of seats to find Maisie.
"Excited to be going home?" Patrick sat himself in Grant's empty seat, flinched, then produced the kid's game console out from under him. Maisie didn't respond, so he added, "We're both going to high school when we get back." It was true enough, even if he would only be a guest at Rydell High.
"Funny," Maisie said, but not in a way that suggested it actually was. "These seats are a waste of space."
"You'd prefer to stand? This isn't the subway."
"No, first-class seats. You could fit so many more people up here and it would reduce everyone's carbon footprint."
*Then it wouldn't be first class,* Patrick thought, but he knew better than to say so out loud, as he'd risk Maisie's friends canceling him. "I already do plenty for the environment."
"Like what?" Maisie asked, but it was more accusation than genuine question.
"I recycle a lot of my jokes." Patrick waited for a laugh that never came. "You know, when I said you could be one of those teenagers who did anything, I didn't mean for you to start this week." Patrick noticed she was clutching an envelope in her hands. "What you got there?"
Maisie was the master of the dramatic pause. "It's a letter," she said. "From Mom."
Patrick's heart raced. "Did you say from your mom?"
She pulled her mouth to one side as if reluctant to confirm, but eventually, she did.
"Where did it come from?" The postal service got a lot of fair knocks, but if they could deliver a letter from heaven to a moving airplane, then they were a lot better than people thought.
"Dad."
Oh. That made much more sense. "Did Grant get one, too?" Patrick looked over his shoulder. He'd made no mention of such a thing.
"It's not to me, it's to Livia."
"Livia?" Patrick exclaimed. How could Sara possibly have written a letter to Livia?
Maisie studied the envelope, turning it from front to back. "Not Livia, exactly. But to the woman who marries Dad. He was supposed to give it to her on their wedding day, but he gave it to me to read instead."
Patrick's eyes welled with tears. Dammit. Sometimes he missed the days when his heart was made of stone. "What does it say?"
Maisie handed him the letter without tearing her eyes from the window. Patrick subtly ran the envelope under his nose, wondering if it might still smell of Sara, but of course, it didn't, having spent years tucked away in Greg's sock drawer or some other hidden place. He carefully opened the envelope, and then the letter, which was folded in thirds.
It was written on hospital stationery.
The first thing Patrick noticed was Sara's loopy handwriting. Whereas he wrote everything in block letters, she much preferred script. He instantly flashed back to the series of birthday and holiday cards that came like clockwork, even during his darkest years when he couldn't be bothered to send cards in return.
"Well?" Maisie asked.
Patrick realized he'd been staring without yet reading a word. "Sorry," he said. "Hold on." And slowly, he began to read.
*To the woman who marries my Gregory,*
*Please know I like you already, as my husband has excellent taste in women. I imagine you're different than me, but not in the important ways. I imagine you're kind. I imagine you have a big heart. You'd have to, to get Greg to fall in love. I'm in no position to ask you a favor, but ask you a favor I must. Please use part of that big heart to be patient with Maisie and Grant. Maisie especially, as she's so loyal and brave. But if her dad loves you, she will one day, too. And I promise it will very much be worth the wait.*
*I spent my life loving those three, and what an incredible life it was. Just as I know it will be for you. You'll see. I'm envious. Because if I could have one wish, I would live this life over, just so I could love them all again.*
*With love and gratitude, Sara*
Patrick wiped the tear on his cheek with his sleeve while handing Maisie the letter back. "That's your mom," he said with great pride, putting his arm around his niece and letting her nuzzle into his chest the way she would when she was smaller.
Maisie's voice was very frail. "I should have spent more time with her, at the very end."
"With your mom?"
"I was just so scared."
Patrick couldn't think of anything meaningful to say, so he just squeezed her tighter. "You were only nine." He closed his eyes and wondered for the first time if it wasn't some strange blessing that Joe's family kept him from Joe's side at the end.
"I was just so scared all the time."
"And yet you read what your mother said. You put on such a brave face for your brother." He stroked Maisie's hair, which no longer smelled of lemons, and they sat there quietly for a moment until the meal cart came to them. Patrick quietly asked the flight attendant if she could give them a moment and come back.
"A brave face is not the same thing as being brave."
Patrick watched his niece's head move with the rise and fall of his chest. He sat with his own regret, wishing he had spent more time with the kids when they were young, had been more a part of their family. "Oh, I very much think it is."
"Anyway," Maisie whispered. "I wish I could go back and change that."
"I don't know," he finally said when they had been quiet long enough. "I think anyone who wants to time travel is unhinged. But you could try spending some time with Livia."
Maisie groaned and buried her face deeper in his chest. "What would that do?"
"I don't know, exactly." And that much was true. Maybe he was high as a kite on newlywed bliss, but Patrick desperately wanted something happy to come from something sad. He wanted Maisie to see that was possible. "You can't change the past. But some people come into our lives to give us a second chance and set some wrong things right." Patrick glanced back at Emory, who had done just that for him. Grant was in the midst of performing his magic trick.
Magic. Isn't that what life was?
Maisie emerged from her uncle's embrace and fidgeted with her seat until she reclined as far as she could and crossed her hands on her chest like she was on a therapist's couch. "What, now?"
Patrick shrugged so subtly it would be easy for one to think that he hadn't.
Maisie knew when she was defeated. "Fine. Send her over."
Patrick looked at her askance. "What, are you holding office hours from here?"
"Just do it," Maisie croaked. Patrick had cut the kids plenty of slack on this trip, and was desperately hoping for a return to normal when they got back stateside. But for now he obeyed, standing to stretch his quads in the aisle. He then walked around to Greg and Livia's row. They were happily ensconced in their meal and, reluctant to intrude on this happy tableau, Patrick cleared his throat gently to announce his presence. "Maisie would like a word."
Greg glanced over at his daughter and moved to unbuckle his seat belt before Patrick placed a hand on his shoulder to keep his brother from rising.
"With Livia."
Livia's eyes brightened and she and Greg exchanged glances. She pushed her meal tray to the side, unbuckled her seat belt, and squeezed past Greg to join Patrick in the aisle.
"Thank you, Patrick," she said, resting her hand on his arm. Patrick then told her he had asked the flight attendant to circle back and that Maisie might need help choosing something to eat. Livia was grateful for the motherly task. Patrick then assumed her seat next to Greg.
"Is she walking into a trap?" Greg asked.
"She's not, but you could have warned me about Sara's letter."
Greg placed his silverware down on his meal tray. "For real, though. They'll be okay?"
Before they boarded the plane, Maisie had deleted SayHi from her phone and Patrick had helped her replace it with Duolingo. The best way to avoid future misunderstandings was to learn the language for herself. "More than okay. How are you holding up?" Patrick asked gently. Greg had imagined himself returning from Italy married.
"I'm good," Greg assured him. "Truly. I am. We did the right thing."
"That doesn't mean it didn't come at a cost." Patrick absentmindedly buttered Livia's dinner roll and lifted it to his mouth.
"What are you doing?" Greg pointed to the roll.
"Oh, right. I'm supposed to be off carbs." He set the roll down, as if that had been Greg's concern. "But one day I will be best man at your wedding. And I can't wait."
Greg crossed his fingers hopefully.
"Kids. The gift that keeps on taking."
It was a funny line, but Patrick had it all wrong. "You get so much more in return," Greg insisted. He looked first at Maisie, deep in conversation with Livia, and then back at Grant still trying to dazzle Emory with magic. "Should we rescue your husband?"
Husband. It took some getting used to. "Soon," Patrick said. If they waited much longer and Emory continued to pretend to be impressed with Grant's magic it would be Emory's dignity in danger of disappearing.
"Vis-à-vis our bachelor party conversation."
"Party," Patrick repeated, making air quotes. A full third of the guest list had been snoozing. Or so he'd thought.
"I want you to know Sara would be proud of you, too."
Patrick placed his hand over his heart, grateful for Greg saying so. He hoped very much that was true. He studied Greg, waiting for him to produce another letter—one this time for him, but alas none came. Then Clara's shadow fell over her brothers, interrupting the moment. "Go ahead. Get it out of the way."
"Get what out of the way?" Greg asked innocently.
"The two of you sitting together? Snickering? I know you have some smart remark to say about my vacation romance. Let's have it."
Patrick looked at Greg. "For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Gustaveo." They both giggled like idiots.
It had been Clara's curse, to live a life with two brothers. "Juliet was Maisie's age, you know."
Greg's laughter dried up instantly and he looked to Patrick for correction. "That can't be true, can it?"
Patrick ignored him and tried to engage earnestly with his sister. "Was it hard to say goodbye?"
Clara bowed her head. "Ultimately? No. It was fun and all, the idea of fantasizing about his money. Italy, the fancy hotel, trying to keep pace with you morons. But I fear we didn't have much in common."
"You'll meet someone. Someone better. Someone just right for you," Patrick assured her.
"I know I will."
"You were married a long time. Who knows? Dating could be fun."
Clara considered that possibility, thinking back on her week. "Oh, it was definitely fun."
Patrick grimaced, thinking of their shared wall. "We don't need the gory details." He grabbed Livia's wine and raised it to his mouth to drink.
Greg stopped him. "Patrick. Honestly." Patrick looked down, surprised. He didn't know why he was so determined to consume Livia's meal.
"With that, I'm going to pop an Ambien and see you two fools in New York. I hope I don't talk in my sleep." Clara winked at her brothers, who were both appalled.
Greg turned to his brother, still aghast, and asked, "Was Juliet really fourteen?"
"Just shy of, I think. Good luck with that," Patrick said, patting his brother on the shoulder and stepping over his legs to get back to the aisle.
"Where are you going?"
Patrick pointed to the food cart, which had just reached his own seat. "Dinner is served."
As soon as the cart had cleared the aisle, Patrick grabbed Grant by the neck of his shirt and gently lifted the boy out of his seat. "Your father wants you. He said he hasn't seen that trick yet."
Grant's eyes lit up. "Oh, cool." He scrambled up the aisle and Patrick finally had his assigned seat back to himself.
"Making the rounds?" Emory asked.
"It's like I'm running for mayor." He would need a campaign manager other than Maisie, as "Squeeze in More Seats" was likely a losing slogan in first class. Patrick eyed the food that was placed on the tray in front of him. "I said I would have the chicken."
"I know, but I got you the pasta. One last supper won't kill you." Patrick frowned. That's usually what last suppers did. "Do you have a pen?"
Patrick produced one from his personal bag and handed it to Emory. "I stole this from the hotel." The room was probably three grand a night, so they owed him at least a pen.
Emory began scribbling on a napkin.
"What are you writing?" Patrick wasn't sure he could take any more correspondence.
Emory kept writing and quickly filled the napkin on one side. He promptly turned it over to continue. "I'm drafting a prenup."
"A prenup," Patrick said skeptically.
Emory placed the pen down when he finished and began reading what he drafted. "I, Emory Reed, of sound mind—"
"You're not of sound mind."
"I'm not?"
"You married me!" Patrick thought that was as clear a definition of insanity as anything. He reached for the napkin and dunked it in the last of the Sancerre in his glass.
"Hey!" Emory protested. "That was a legal document."
"Sure it was."
Emory turned to look at his husband directly. "Patrick, I don't want your money. I never did. All I ever wanted was you."
Patrick wondered how it was possible that someone he'd known for five years could still take his breath away. "And you have me." What a joy it was to belong. Not just to Emory. But to a family.
"I will take this pen, though." Emory gripped it by both ends like an ear of corn.
Patrick was happy to let it go. He raised his hand to get the flight attendant's attention. He was in need of a fresh glass of Sancerre.