Page 94 of The New Place

He’s not sad anymore. He left that behind a long time ago, after the anger had faded into grief and he’d emerged from the other side to find Abbot there, and with him an excitement to start life over again.

Slowly, he had thought. In careful, measured steps as he felt his way through a new relationship.

It’s still odd to be here every time he comes to get Peggy, and even more so right now, on the precipice of another fork in the road.

He knocks on the side door before he spends any more time thinking.

“In the kitchen!” Jen calls.

He lets himself in. “Hey,” he says and pretends it comes out completely natural and not at all as strangled as it feels.

“If you take her tonight, can I have her Saturday?” Jen asks. “I know it’s your weekend. Sorry, I should have said when you texted.”

“Sure,” Ned says. Is that alright? He has no idea, but he’s not going to start this conversation off on anything other than a good note.

Jen tosses a coat, Peggy’s lunchbox, and a handful of markers into her small backpack. “I think that’s everything she needs for school tomorrow, and I cleaned out today’s food, so you don’t have to worry about intelligent life growing in there. Peggy!”

“Actually, if you have a minute,” Ned says. “Ah, without her.”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Jen asks. “Is this about Baxter? Is he okay?”

“He has to have more bloodwork.”

Even with that, Baxter is still the easiest topic for them to talk about, though their relationship has eased over the last year. Jen is calmer now, less on edge than she was while they were together or those years Ned lived in Portland, but he knows it’s him, too. He’s changed, for the better, from being with Abbot. His irritation with her is long gone, replaced by a patience he never thought he’d feel, and with it an odd, warm sort of affection that still catches him unaware more often than not.

It does help that she’s not with fucking Jeff anymore. He won’t kid himself about that.

“Is he going to be alright?” Jen asks. “He’s still my best boy.”

“Yeah,” Ned says, which might well be a bald-faced lie. Baxter may not be alright, a thought he dodges each time it crops up. “I haven’t said anything about him to Peggy, other than that he had to go to the vet. I’ll let you know what they say and we can figure it out with her, if it’s serious.”

“Hopefully it won’t be anything,” Jen says.

Ned nods, unable to think of Baxter as anything but happy and healthy. With everything else going on, the reality he might be truly in trouble is all the harder to grasp. “Jen…”

Oh, he can’t do this.

He has to do this. Now, before there are footfalls on the stairs and little ears listening.

He reaches for some of Abbot’s calm, the equanimity he’s taken this with, and in a rush he says, “Abbot and I are getting married.”

“Oh,” Jen says and then she’s hugging him.

He’s still reeling from getting the words out, and it takes a moment to remember to hug her back.

Which he hasn’t done in years now, her shorter height unfamiliar when once it felt so natural. She grips him tight, with a fierceness he was hardly expecting.

“I’m so happy for you two,” she says when she steps away. “That’s amazing.”

“You are?”

“Of course I am. He’s really wonderful. And this was clearly coming, so I, you know.” She lets out a little laugh. “Made my peace with it.”

“You did?”

“Well, I figured you two would stay together, so yeah, you’d get married at some point. You’re going to tell Peggy? Is that what tonight is?”

“Yeah, but I wanted you to know first.”