Chapter 17 – Home

It was quite possible she had never seen anywhere as beautiful as Laurel, Mississippi – or somewhere as small. They had flown into the airport in Jackson from New York because Lance insisted. It meant renting a car and driving an hour and a half to Laurel, but it had been a wonderful drive, albeit quiet.

They hadn't talked much about the scene at the cemetery a couple days ago – and she preferred it that way.

They eventually passed the “Welcome to Laurel” sign, and he yawned from his place behind the wheel.

“At least twice a year,” he said. “Three hours, both ways. This drive kills me. It's so boring.”

“I think it was a beautiful drive,” she said.

“Drive it a couple more times with me and you won't be saying that,” he said with a grin.

“What kills me is this music,” she said, with the tones of country in the background. “Country is my least favorite music.”

“What?!” he exclaimed with fervor, making her smile. “I'm crushed. This is my roots you're insulting – my childhood.”

“Your childhood must have sucked,” she said, because she knew it would get to him.

“My back,” he said. “I feel like I've been stabbed in it. You're killing me, Adeline.”

She smiled at him.

“Just for that,” he said, “I'm turning it up as loud as I possibly can.”

“Oh no,” she groaned, but his hand was already on the dial turning it. He turned it up to an ear-blasting level as a new song came on the radio. He must have recognized it, because he immediately tapped his fingers against the steering wheel to the beat.

“How can you hate this?” he yelled over the loud music. She giggled as his hands drummed and he started singing. “Right now, he's probably slow dancing with a bleach blonde tramp and she's probably gettin' frisky...right now, he's probably buying her some fruity little drink 'cause she can't shoot whiskey...right now, he's probably up behind her with a pool stick showin' her how to shoot a combo, and he don't know...”

“Welcome to the South, Addy,” she said to herself.

“This should be your song, Adeline!” he yelled. “It's perfect! Carrie knows how to stick it to cheaters! I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all four tires...maybe next time he'll think before he cheats...”

“I prefer payback that won't get me arrested for property damage!” she yelled at him.

“Your loss! I've heard vandalism can be very therapeutic!”

After ten minutes, he turned onto a residential street, after having tortured her with the music enough to satisfy his hurt feelings. He reached for the volume dial a second later and turned it down.

“I think you should know,” he said, “my family knows about us. I told them a couple of days ago.”

Her eyes grew wide.

“No,” she said. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I tell my parents everything, and they want me to be happy, and because honestly they couldn't care less as long as I'm happy. And also...because they only had one other spare bedroom and my mom was concerned that it might be weird for me to sleep in the same bed as my assistant. I sort of had to tell her why it wasn't weird at all.”

She was unamused at his joking.

“You can't do this to me,” she said. “I'm not ready for this.”

“I didn't tell them that I proposed to you, though.”

“Oh, well thank God for that,” she said sarcastically. “What the hell am I supposed to say to them now?”

“Tell them how much of an asshole your husband is,” he said as he turned into a driveway. “They'll be impressed that you had enough restraint to wait five years before you cheated on him.”

He put the car in park and turned off the ignition.

“Lance!” she said.

“Home,” he said, all but ignoring her protests. “Merry Christmas.”

She sighed as he opened his car door, and pressed her hand against her forehead. She couldn't believe he had thrown her under the bus – she knew he didn't do it to put her on the spot, because he had more than proved that he loved her, but he had still done it. When she thought about it, it wasn't as bad as she had imagined a month ago, but she was unprepared for this level of transparency when she was meeting his parents for the first time.

As she unbuckled her seat belt, the brunette woman she recognized from the pictures he had sent over Thanksgiving ran out to them. Lance immediately embraced her in a hug, and Adeline took a deep breath before opening her car door and stepping out.

“I'm so glad you both got here safe,” she said as she continued to hug Lance.

As soon as she let go of Lance, she looked over and saw Adeline, who gave her a small but nervous smile.

“Oh Adeline,” she said as she walked over to her. “It's so nice to finally meet you.”

She took Adeline by surprise when she immediately embraced her in a hug like she had Lance.

“It's nice to finally meet you too, Mrs. Bass,” Adeline said politely, while shooting him a dirty look over his mother's shoulder.

“Please, call me Diane,” his mom said. “I've heard so much about you, I feel like I know you already. It's nice to finally put a face to the name.”

She stood back from Adeline and grabbed her arms, giving her a look.

“You're more beautiful than he described,” she said. “Gorgeous. Did you have a good drive?”

“No,” Lance said before Adeline could speak. “I hate that drive, mom.”

“Well, if you would fly directly into Laurel instead of insisting on flying into Jackson, you wouldn't have that problem, now would you?”

“That's what I said,” Adeline said, laughing slightly.

“Not five minutes and you're already taking her side,” Lance said to his mom.

“Let's get you both inside,” she responded. “It's cold out here.”

“Mom, we live in New York. This is tropical compared to that.”

“Hush,” Diane said, and Adeline laughed. “You're not even wearing a coat. Get inside.”

She gave Lance a gentle push towards the house, scooting him along, and as Adeline walked a few steps behind them, she decided that she definitely already loved his family.

Inside his house was loud and chaotic, nothing like she had expected. Two younger children, a boy and a girl that she assumed from seeing his pictures were his niece and nephew, were running around the Christmas tree in the living room loudly yelling at each other.

“Hey! Knock it off, you two!”

A dirty blonde-haired woman about Lance's age walked in from another room to yell at them, and looked over to see Lance.

“Hey!” she said excitedly, and ran straight over to him, wrapping him in a hug. “You made it.”

“Of course I did,” he said. “Should I give the kids the lifetime supply of sugar I bought them for Christmas now or wait until later?”

“Shut up,” she said with a laugh. She turned to see Adeline. “You must be Addy.”

“Yeah,” she said uncomfortably.

“I'm Lance's sister, Stacy. It's nice to meet you.” The same as his mother did, she grabbed Adeline for a hug.

“Oh by the way – my family likes to hug people, even ones they don't know,” Lance said with a smile.

Lance's father and brother-in-law eventually made their way to her to introduce themselves. There were so many new, friendly faces who were happy to see her even though they didn't know her, and she quickly became overwhelmed. She hadn't been to a family gathering like this in years, since she essentially didn't have much of a family anymore. She was used to socializing at public events, but most of the people she met gave her no more than a glance or a handshake before they became disinterested in her.

“Stacy, come help me in the kitchen,” Lance's mom said after they had been there a few moments. “Adeline, would you like to join us?”

“Lance hasn't told us a lot about you,” Stacy said to her. “You can catch us up.”

“In Southern-woman speak, that means they want to grill you for details,” Lance said, smiling at her.

“I don't know,” Adeline said to him, trying to whisper.

“Go ahead,” he said in a more comforting tone. “They don't bite. At least not hard.”

The way he put his hand on her back and used his finger to gently rub down her spine and the way his sister smiled at her, made her feel comforted. He had said back at the cemetery that she was going home – to a family, where she was loved and welcome – and she was starting to believe him.

She walked off to the kitchen with his sister following closely behind her.

“Would you like some coffee or tea, Addy?” his mother asked.

“Tea would be great,” Adeline said. “Thank you.”

“You must be exhausted after your flight and the drive,” she said as she grabbed a mug and set to work pouring the water from a still-warm kettle.

“I'm a little tired.”

“Dinner will be ready in about an hour and your bed is all ready for you.” Diane handed her the mug. “I'm sure you've had enough excitement for one day.”

Diane went back to working at the counters, but Stacy watched Adeline as she let the tea steep for a moment before she took a drink.

“You're a quiet one, aren't you?” she finally said.

“I'm sorry,” Adeline said, afraid of offending either woman. “I'm a little nervous around new people.”

“Well,” Stacy said, “we'll have to do something about that, now won't we?”

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The sun had gone down hours ago. It was nearing eleven, and she sat on the bed with her head leaning against the glass of the window, staring outside at the stars in the sky. She was amazed that even at night when all she could see was black it was still so clear. After living in the city for so long, she had become accustomed to smog-covered skies and had forgotten what a brilliant night sky looked like.

His family had been great to her. She had expected an unfriendly welcome after finding out that they knew she was married, but they hadn't even approached the subject so far. His mother and sister had asked her about her job and how she had come to work for Lance, how she liked New York, and what she did in her spare time – 'when Lance wasn't giving her a hard time' Stacy said. By the time dinner was ready, she felt more comfortable, and it was nice to sit down at a real table, to a real family dinner, with conversation. That was something she hadn't done in years, because Marc was almost always gone for dinner.

She sipped on the second mug of tea that Lance's mom had made her – she really did love his mother's tea – and pressed the earbuds into her ears. She couldn't admit it to him outright, because he would probably never let her hear the end of it, but she had found a song that brought her comfort.

“I don't know when we fell apart, the love that we had was like a work of art...”

It made her think of Marc, as much as she didn't want to. He would be in Paris by now, and she wondered whether he was on set, or if he was back in his hotel by now – and she wondered if he was with anyone. She should have seen it from the beginning. Her friends had tried to warn her. Stephanie had tried to get through to her for a couple years before now. She hadn't listened because she loved him; that was the only explanation she could come up with.

“I used to see heaven in your eyes; now angels are falling from your skies...”

She had to give Marc credit – their marriage had been good once. In the beginning, they were in love. He had never been an overly romantic husband. He was more of a rugged, rough around the edges sort of man. He was a hard worker and a good provider, and he had never once laid a hand on her or abused her physically or verbally.

But over the years, her emotions had taken a pretty good beating. Not all of it was his fault.

“And I haven't held you for so long...”

She wished she didn't have the most vivid memories. The death of her parents and her grandmother were still so fresh in her mind, and it hadn't been long since April died. She only got to hold her once in the hospital. All she expected as a new mother was to hear her daughter cry, and instead she heard silence. She remembered there was a soft, pink blanket and she could feel every fiber against her skin. And she could remember how Marc stood in the corner of the room, stone-faced.

“Outside the wind it seems so cold, your heart is frozen like the snow...”

He had changed from the person he was before since that night at the hospital. He threw himself into his work, because apparently that helped him. She had taken six months off to see a therapist and try to cope with the grief of all the losses that life had thrown her way, and she had tried to get him to see one, too – but he refused. After a while, he pushed her so far away that seeing the therapist had stopped working for her altogether. After so long, she started to believe that he didn't want anything to get better.

“Your eyes are red because you've cried, you fell asleep by the fireside...but there's one thing you should know, on this Christmas baby, you don't have to be alone...”

“Addy?”

She had the volume down low, so she heard him speak as he came into the room, and she took the buds out of her ears and put the MP3 player to her side.

“Everyone's gone to bed,” he said as he walked over and sat next to her on the bed. “My mom wanted to know if you're comfortable – if you have enough pillows and blankets and everything.”

“I'm fine,” she said with a tiny smile.

“You don't look fine,” he said. “You look upset.”

“It's Christmas,” she said quietly.

Somehow, he knew exactly what she meant from the tone in her voice.

“It's different this year,” he said.

She swallowed back a few tears.

“It would have been her first Christmas.”

He reached over to her and put an arm around her shoulder.

“It's so unfair, Lance,” she said as she started crying. “It hurts so much. It hurts all the time. And he acts as if it doesn't hurt him at all.”

He stayed silent, because he couldn't say anything positive to her about her husband.

“He went right back to working after it happened, when the very next day I quit my job. He pretends like it never even happened, and I made a promise that I would never forget. And I actually feel guilty for that – like maybe I should forget, because then I could function like he does.”

“Don't let him make you feel guilty for grieving,” he said. “Just because he's grieving in a different way than you, or not at all – don't let him make you feel bad for that.”

“I let him get into my head – tell me how to feel about things – and I'm done with that. Tell me it's better this way,” she said. “Tell me it's better that I move on with my life and forget that he ever existed.”

“Addy, I can't tell you that,” he said. “I love you and I want to be with you, but more than anything I want you to be happy. If that means going back to your husband, I accept that. I don't like it and I don't think you should, but I don't have a choice.”

She inhaled a deep, calming breath.

“But I do think you should know that if you leave, you'll leave behind someone who will never be the same without you.”

She sniffled. “This isn't where you break into a verse of 'This I Promise You', is it?”

He chuckled. “Been studying up? You don't exactly look like the type that was a fan.”

“YouTube is useful for so many things,” she said.

“Gotta love YouTube,” he said. “No, I don't do renditions of 'This I Promise You' anymore, but I do think you should listen to the second verse of 'You Don't Have To Be Alone' a little more closely.”

She looked up at him and narrowed her eyebrows.

“Next time you think you're hiding it from me, remember...I sang that shit for eight plus years. I can spot an 'NSYNC song from ten paces,” he said with a smile. He kissed her forehead. “I'm going to sleep, the kids wore me out, and since tomorrow's Christmas they'll be up at the crack of dawn. I think you need to get some sleep, too.”

He laid down in bed and she followed quickly after him. She let him wrap his arm around her and tried to fall asleep herself, but it didn't come to her easily. After she had laid there half an hour, she heard his breathing fall into a rhythm that let her know he was finally asleep.

She sat up in bed gently, as far as she could without moving his arm so she wouldn't disturb him, and reached for the MP3 player on the bedside table, where she had placed it before she laid down. She turned it back on and watched the screen light up, scrolling back to the song and putting a single bud in her ear.

She let the first verse and chorus play, until finally the second verse came on.

“And I had only one wish on my list...for me you would be the perfect gift...”

Even though it was not Lance who sang the verse, she could see him saying it to her.

“The smiles we gave when our hearts were saved, by each other's love and warmth...that's subsided now, no happiness around, if I could only find the way to your heart...”

As she shut off the player and coiled the headphones around it, placing it on the table again, she contemplated a good night's sleep – and how to tell him that he didn't have to look any further. He had already found it.