Page 74 of Between Here and the Horizon
Fielding, at least six foot four, refused to sit down and was standing by a bookcase, running his fingers absently over the spines of the books displayed there:Dr. Seussmixed in withFrom Childhood to AdolescenceandThe Cambridge Anthology of Child Psychiatry. “So, Connor. Tell me. Are you happy to be back in the city now?” he asked.
Connor stopped pressing the Legos together and pulling them apart. “Yes. I like it here a lot.”
“And do you like your new place? Were you sad you weren’t moving back into your old apartment? The one you lived in with your mom and dad?”
Connor put down the Legos and raised his head, looking Fielding right in the eye. “No, I’m not sad. I like the new apartment. You can see the park from my bedroom window. And the river, too.”
A lot happened after Sully and I left Camp Haan. The restaurant was safe, and Mom was determined to be independent. I’d been worried about telling her I was going to move permanently to New York, but when I’d plucked up the courage and blurted it out, she’d been absolutely thrilled for me. Aunt Simone was moving into a house a couple of doors down the street, and she was going to run the restaurant with Mom. With the extra money left over from the payout Linneman put into my bank account, there was enough cash to rebrand the place and really give it a fresh start. Umberto’s was now “George’s Place,” and I couldn’t have been happier.
When I’d gotten off the plane at JFK, Sully was by my side, smiling softly. To me, he hadn’t looked anything like his brother in that moment. He was purely Sully—a new man. Tall, dark, devastatingly handsome, and all mine. He’d picked me up and taken me into his arms, holding onto me like he was afraid I was some kind of mirage and I was going to disappear any second, and he’d kissed me hard. The world had stopped. There was no airport. There were no announcers over the tannoy. There were no crowds of people waiting for their loved ones, or hurrying to make their flights. There was only me and him, and our future lying out before us, and it was the most perfect moment.
“Are you ready to go home?” he’d asked.
“God, yes.Soready.”
And so we’d gotten in a cab, and we’d driven through the traffic and the confusion of New York until we’d reached our new apartment building in Lower Manhattan. After he’d bundled me into the elevator, he proceeded to pinch and roll my nipples beneath my sweater and kiss my neck until I had to slap him and make him stop.
Our apartment was pure perfection: high ceilings, and beautiful architraving. Parquet flooring, and south-facing sunshine all afternoon long. We only had two bedrooms, but that was enough for us. More than enough. Unexpectedly, Rose had moved with us. She’d signed onto a night course at Colombia, and was finishing her bachelor’s in English literature, which meant during the day she got the children up and ran them both to school. Later on, I collected them and brought them back to our building, but instead of taking them to the apartment I shared with Sully, I took them up one extra floor to the much larger, more spacious place the Fletcher Corporation had bought for Connor and Amie: four bedrooms, and a view to die for.
Everyone was happy. Everyone loved the arrangement. We still felt like a family, all living together, sharing the responsibilities and day-to-day pleasures of growing together, but Sully and I got our privacy when we needed it, and so did Rose.
“Do you miss being on the island?” Fielding asked, taking down a book from the shelf.
“I do sometimes,” Connor said, which surprised me. He’d been perfectly happy to return to New York—it was all he’d ever known before Ronan had uprooted him and transplanted him to the tiny island off the coast of Maine. “Sometimes I miss the sound of the ocean,” he continued. “And the quiet, too. It can be pretty loud here.”
Fielding smiled. “It can, can’t it? I think you’ll get used to it again, though. Then it will feel like you never left in the first place.”
“Mmm. I suppose so.”
“And what about spending time with Ophelia? And Sully, and Rose? Do you like spending time with all of them at home?”
“Yes. I really like it. I really like them all. Amie does, too.” He spoke quickly, as if he were a little panicked. Child Protection Services had conducted a very thorough, terrifying interview with all of us when we explained what we were planning, and ever since then Connor had been worried he and Amie were going to have to go away. As the days passed, he was more and more confident, showing more personality and more attitude than ever before. Still, he knew Fielding had the power to drag CPS back into our lives, and he really didn’t want that.
Fielding nodded, smiling in a comforting way that seemed to settle Connor. “That’s really wonderful news. I’m so pleased to hear it. Is there anything you’d like to talk to me about today? Are you worried about anything? Is there something maybe you’d like to talk to me about alone?” Fielding shot me a perfunctory glance as he said this, barely acknowledging me, and I wanted to junk punch the man. I got it, though. I understood. Connor’s safety was his main priority. If Connor needed to talk with Fielding alone, then of course he could. The implication that I, or Sully, or Rose might have done something wrong was rather grating, though.
Connor declined his offer. “No, thanks. Tomorrow we’re going to the Natural History Museum to show Amie the dinosaur skeletons. Real ones! And then we’re going to get pancakes for lunch. It’s Amie’s birthday.”
“That sounds like it’s going to be a very special day, Connor. I hope you enjoy it.”
Later, with Connor holding one hand and Amie holding the other, I managed to flag down a cab and get us across to Tribeca, to Sully’s warehouse. He’d set up shop making unique, handcrafted items of furniture for New York’s elite. He could easily have retired on the money Ronan had set aside for him in order for him to take care of the children, but he refused to touch a cent of it. It was all for them, he said. He’d made his way in the world just fine despite his brother, and he didn’t plan on that changing any time soon.
We found Sully covered in sawdust and smelling like fresh cut pine at the back of his studio. Connor and Amie both whooped and hollered, racing to him and throwing their arms around his body. He held up his arms, looking down on the two little people clinging onto him, and he laughed.
“Wow. Anyone would think you were happy to see me,” he said, grinning.
“We are, we are!” Amie told him, giggling. “It’s time to go home for dinner!”
“I see.” Sully looked up at me, and his smile transformed into something softer. His face was filled with light, where there was once such darkness and anger. It was as though he was a different man entirely. He was still as playfully arrogant as ever, and his comebacks were just as sharp and caustic as they had been when I’d first met him. But now there was a quiet calm to him that had made me fall even more impossibly in love with him.
We traveled home, Sully in the front seat with the cab driver and me in the back with the children. The entire six miles from the warehouse back to the apartment, Sully had his hand wedged behind him through the gap between his seat and the door, gently stroking my leg, his fingers curled around my ankle, touching me in one way or another.
We ate dinner with Rose and the children, and then stayed to bathe the kids and put them to bed.
“Will you tell us a story, Uncle Sully?” Amie pleaded. “A story about when you and Daddy were little, like me and Connor?” Sully looked uncomfortable for a second, and then he sat down on the end of Amie’s bed, folding his arms across his chest.
“All right. But your dad and I used to get into all sorts of trouble together, so you have to promise you won’t follow our lead, okay?”
Both Amie and Connor nodded solemnly.
