Page 71 of Silver Fox's Secret Triplets
The room fell silent. I could hear the grandfather clock in the hallway ticking, marking the passage of time we'd all lost. If anyone had a hold on Bill's conscience it was this woman whom he loved so much. And with her diagnosis and the fear of losing her so fresh in everyone's mind, I could see Bill's wheel's turning. Pushing Ivy away, hating me—those were only keeping this family broken. And how would Bill feel if Barbara's final days were memorialized by arguments and strife?
"I'll think about it," Bill said finally.
It wasn't forgiveness, but it was something.
I left them to discuss it privately and drove home rather than to work, my mind churning with everything that had been said and everything that remained unspoken. When I pulled up I noticed Ivy's car still parked out front. She hadn't mentioned needing the day off, but at this point I just wanted everything to be calm without drama.
I found the triplets in the living room, building an elaborate tower out of colorful blocks. They worked with intense concentration, Elena directing while Sammy and Chrissy followed her instructions. The tower was already taller than they were, swaying slightly but holding together.
"Mr. Duncan!" Chrissy spotted me first and ran over, pressing a small plastic hammer into my hand. "We need help. The tower keeps falling."
I looked at the toy hammer, then at the expectant faces surrounding me. Ivy stood in the doorway, watching with an expression I couldn't read. I smiled sadly at her, not sure how to tell her what happened at her parents' house, and followed Chrissy to the pile of blocks.
"What kind of help do you need?" I asked.
"You can be the fixer," Elena explained. "When it falls down, you put it back together."
I knelt on the floor beside them, my suit pants wrinkling as I became a child at heart again. "Show me how."
For the next hour, I learned the intricacies of block tower construction. I discovered that Elena preferred patterns, that Sammy had an instinct for structural integrity, and that Chrissy liked to test the limits of how much weight the tower could bear. When it inevitably collapsed, we built it again, each iteration more ambitious than the last.
"You're good at this," Elena said approvingly as I steadied a particularly precarious section.
"I'm learning."
Ivy had moved to the kitchen, but I caught her watching us several times. Finally, she approached and sat on the couch nearby.
"Careful," she said when Chrissy reached for another block. "That one's wobbly."
"All towers are wobbly," Elena said with three-year-old wisdom.
I caught Ivy's eye and saw her smile, the first real smile I'd seen from her all day. But when the children became absorbed in their building again, her expression grew serious.
"What's wrong?" I asked quietly, moving away from the kids to kneel in front of her.
She shook her head. "Nothing. Just thinking." Taking her hands I brought them to my lips and pressed a kiss to them.
"Ivy—"
"I see the way you look at them," she said. "The way you want to be their father."
"I do want that, more than anything." My crisis of conscience must've shown on my face because she frowned at me. "But notif it costs you your family." I set down the block I'd been holding and turned to face her fully.
"I'm scared," she mumbled… and I frowned at her.
"Of what?" I asked, still holding her trembling hands.
"Of just being some obligation to you."
"Never," I promised with another kiss on her knuckles. "Can I tell you something?" I asked and she nodded solemnly. "I'm scared too. Of standing in the way of your relationship with your parents. Of forcing you into a position where you have to walk away from the people who raised you."
She was quiet for a long moment. "What if I want to choose you?"
"Then I need to know it's really your choice, not just the only option you have left." Like her, I didn’t want to be chosen out of something other than love. "I love you, Ivy."
The honesty felt raw between us. I watched her face, looking for some sign of what she was thinking. I wanted to tell her everything—about the papers, about the board meeting, about the choice I had to make. But the words stuck in my throat. How could I ask her to build a life with me when I wasn't even sure what that life would look like?
The tower fell again, and the children cheered, already planning their next construction project. I watched them, these small people who were mine but didn't know it yet, and felt the weight of everything I stood to gain and lose.
