Page 41 of Right the Wrongs (Broken Vows #5)

Griffin - Present

The weeks after our honeymoon bring a lot of changes. Wren is a lot more settled. Part of that is knowing she wasn’t going crazy, just pregnant. The other reason is the moving trucks parked next door.

I watch as Wren and Claudia talk in the yard between our houses.

I don’t know what they’re saying, but the talk ends with a hug.

Now that the pretenses have dropped, they are forging a new and more authentic connection.

Gone is the forced togetherness. I see now that Claudia was always held a little bit apart from everyone else.

“Mind giving me a hand, Dad?” Liam shouts from the front of the house.

I run around to see him trying to move a mattress alone. I grab the end of it and walk backwards down the porch.

When we get it on the truck, I grab my back.

“If moving some furniture gets you, how are you going to chase around another kid at your age?” Liam asks.

“I’m doing just fine, thanks,” I grumble. “You should mind your own business and worry about your own family.”

“Isn’t that why we’re packing all my furniture?” he asks.

“Good point.”

Liam has been renting my old house out all these years. He’d bought it from me when Wren and I moved here, and when he and Claudia followed, he couldn’t bring himself to sell it. Turns out to be very lucky.

The other moving truck belongs to Julio and Will.

Since Liam is moving to Harriston, we decided he should take over as manager of that garage.

Will has been wanting to get his degree.

This location is growing by leaps and bounds, so Julio will be taking over as an assistant manager here.

It will actually come with a raise and more responsibility since the Centralia shop has so many more services.

Our little corner of town stays in the family, and Wren and Liam finally get the distance they need to heal apart from each other.

This is how it should have been all along.

I just thought I could impose my will on everything and make them get along.

In a way, I guess I felt like if they were able to get along, then my loving her was never a bad thing.

At least that’s what Dr. Manning has helped me to see. Wren and I are still talking to the counselor, but we’re also both going alone. She’d never really dealt with the grief of losing her parents. Marrying Liam was her way of running from the pain, and now it’s creeping back up on her.

The three of us have lived a very tangled web, but we’re doing the work to untangle it.

I don’t see him as much, and sometimes I worry that he’s going to cut me out, but I’m working on having faith that my family loves me.

That’s been hard for me. Turns out Wren isn’t the only one with parent-related baggage, but I’m working through it.

At least her parents loved her. Mine loved booze more, but I am learning how to let that go so it doesn’t dictate my relationships going forward.

Bess pulls up with Dolores in the passenger seat. She rolls down the window and hollers over at us. “Dolores’s grandson and his wife bought Wren’s old house. They’re having a housewarming barbecue tonight.”

“That’s not a lot of notice,” I say, knowing that we have a lot of furniture to move, contained in two trucks.

Dolores leans out of the window. “Give me a break, I’m old.”

Liam wipes his brow. “Go ahead and go. I hired some of Scott’s players to help with ours and Julio’s stuff. We’ve got this. You should take Uncle Charlie, too.”

“What do you say, want to go crash a party at Wren’s old house?” I ask him.

He bumps Hattie with his shoulder. “Sounds like old times, huh, Doll?”

She gives him a sly smile, and I really wish I could go back to knowing a lot less about how they got together.

“What about all the kids?” I ask. There’s bringing a few kids, then there’s the elementary army that follows us around.

“My grandson, Ben, has a little girl. He knows I’m inviting all of you. He wants me to bring the people who take care of his granny, so you’re not crashing anything,” Dolores insists.

“Let me go tell Wren,” I say. By tell, I mean ask, because I don’t want to risk all the progress she’s been making lately.

“I’m right behind you,” she says. “Bess has been blowing up my phone the whole time she’s been parked in front of the house.”

Bess waves her phone as proof. “To be fair, I’m also texting Donovan, telling him to hurry up. Jack had a birthday party, so I guess he’s going to meet us there.”

“Looks like almost the whole gang is coming,” I say. “Scott and Harlow?”

“Meeting us there after her appointment,” Bess confirms.

This is the new normal. Family events often happen without Liam and Claudia, but they’ve grown closer to her family.

I didn’t know that my pushiness to have everyone together all the time was an issue with them.

Liam recently confessed that she’s felt disconnected from her own family.

They still join us from time to time, but it is more balanced now.

Boundaries aren’t these evil things that keep people apart. Not like how I’d viewed them. Turns out, sometimes they’re the glue that keeps people together.

Walking into Wren’s old house feels weird. It’s like someone opened all the windows and let new life breathe into the bones of it. Despite the fact that there have been other people living here in the last fifteen years, it still feels like Martin and Elisa’s house.

If it feels like this to me, I can only wonder how it feels to Wren being here.

“We can leave anytime you want,” I whisper to her.

She smiles. It’s not happy, but not quite sad either. “I’m okay. It’s just a house.”

“No, it’s not,” I say. I don’t want to set her back after all the progress she’s made in healing.

Wren puts her hand on my arm, and her smile turns more appreciative. “When we leave here, it will be.”

Once again, I’m going to force myself to trust and have faith. She’s already shown me that she’s stronger than I’ve ever given her credit for. She can handle this.

Wren

I take a seat on the picnic table and close my eyes. The sound of laughter, conversation, and children playing surrounds me. I can smell hot dogs and hamburgers cooking on the grill. All of it mingles to take me back to the past.

“It’s nice seeing the house so full of life again,” a voice says next to me.

My lips quiver, and I can feel tears filling my eyes. I know that if I open them, no one will be next to me, because that’s my mom’s voice.

“Are you happy, my little songbird?” she asks.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“I like you with Griffin. Your dad struggled with it at first, but he’s good to you.”

A tear slips down my face. I’m pretty sure this is my broken heart giving me what I want the most, but the wind strokes across my face like it’s trying to wipe away the errant tear.

“I miss you,” I say while my imagination is still giving her to me.

“I know my baby, but it’s not forever. I’m always with you anyway, you just can’t see me.”

My breathing turns ragged as I try to fight the tears threatening to fall.

“Open your eyes, baby girl. Let go of the past, but keep the memories in your heart. Look all around you, the future is unfolding now. It keeps coming, no matter how you try to fight it. So stop trying.”

The sun peeks through the clouds, and I see Dolores’ grandson, Ben, his wife, and their daughter. For a moment, I feel like I’m looking at a memory.

Second chances are all around. Life is happening all around. Hell, life is growing inside of me.

I might never figure out why Liam’s relapse made me spiral. It’s likely that even he doesn’t understand why he treated me the way he did. I thought that I needed all the answers lined up in order to be happy, but I don’t. I also don’t need all the answers to let go.

“I love you, Mom,” I whisper.

I know she’s not going to answer back, but I feel her with me.

“Why are you sitting there all by yourself?” Bess says as she flops down next to me. She holds out a beer, but I wave it off.

“It’s a party, Wrenegade. You know what to do at a party, right?”

I roll my head over to look at her. “I’m not really big on partying at the moment.”

“Is this because of Liam? It’s perfectly fine if you don’t want to drink, but he isn’t even here, so I don’t think it would be a problem,” she explains.

“It’s not Liam,” I say. I don’t want to make a big fuss about my pregnancy in front of other people, especially at someone else’s party. You can’t hide secrets from Bess, though.

Her eyes widen, and her mouth falls open to a big O. “You tramp, you’re preggo again?”

I shush her. “Damn, Bess, tell the whole party why don’t you?”

She shrugs. We don’t really have big secrets from each other. Well, we don’t now that Charlie and Hattie spilled how they got together.

“Griffin, you stud!” Bess shouts across the party.

“Are we telling people?” he asks. Griffin is bouncing on the balls of his feet like a little kid.

“Telling people what?” Charlie asks as he gravitates towards us.

Scott and Harlow slip in the back gate just as all the attention is fixating on me instead of the hosts of the party.

Dolores, her grandson Ben, and his wife Heather come over. “Did I hear some tea being spilled?” Dolores asks.

“Granny D, that’s…actually it’s close enough,” Bess critiques.

“Do you mind if Wren tells us some news at your party?” Dolores asks Ben and Heather.

Heather waves the question away. “Please, this is a little barbecue, not a wedding or something. I’d love to hear some news.

Plus, you already gave us a year of oil changes, and Charlie came by this morning and showed us how to change all the filters in the house.

The way you all take care of Grandma Dolores, we already consider you family. ”

“Daddy, why don’t you go ahead and tell them,” I say. I don’t usually use that pet name in front of everyone, but this time I think it fits.

Griffin is practically vibrating with excitement. “We’re having another baby,” he practically shouts.