Page 90 of Mack

“T.J. will be more than fine with it,” she said. “And so will I.”

Something settled in Mack’s face that she’d never seen there before. Not the quiet satisfaction he usually wore. Something deeper than that.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Yes.” She squeezed his hand.

They spent the rest of the day on the sofa with a fire going in the hearth and Finding Nemo on the television for what Mallory had lost count of as the number of times. T.J. sat on the floor with his dinosaurs and said the lines along with the movie, like he always did.

Then Mack started saying them too.

Mallory laughed so hard she had to put her coffee down, and when she joined in T.J. dissolved into giggles and forgot about the dinosaurs entirely.

She’d called her parents that morning and heard her mother cry with relief and her father go very quiet as he did when he was feeling something too big for words. Troy was gone. He was going back to prison and he wasn’t coming back. The long shadow he’d cast over all of them was finally lifting.

She reached for Mack’s hand. He looked at her, leaned over and kissed her lips, then winked. She felt the heat in her cheeks, as he chuckled and pulled her closer.

She put her head on his shoulder, watched the movie, and smiled when she noticed T.J.’s head starting to droop. His dinosaurs forgotten, Blue tucked under his arm, mouth going slack.

He never made it to the end.

Neither did she, as it turned out. She closed her eyes somewhere around the part where Nemo’s father finds the ocean, and the last thing she was aware of was the warmth of the fire and Mack’s arm around her and T.J. breathing softly on the floor.

It was enough. It was everything.

Epilogue

The line for Santa had been forty-five minutes long and worth every second.

Mack stood back and watched T.J. climb down from Santa’s lap with the focused expression of a man who had just concluded important business. He marched over to Mack and Mallory with Rex under one arm and his free hand already reaching for Mack’s.

“I told him everything,” T.J. announced.

“Everything?” Mack asked.

“Yep. The boots and the hat.” He nodded seriously. “And a new dine-sore. A big one.”

“What kind?”

T.J. looked at him like this was obvious. “A big neck one.”

“Brachiosaurus,” Mallory said.

“Yeah, that.” T.J. tugged on Mack’s hand. “Can we get the tree now?”

The Christmas tree farm was twenty minutes outside of Clifton, Richards Christmas Tree Farm, owned by Nick Richards and tucked against the base of the mountains. Rows and rows of pine and fir stretched out across the snow-covered hillside under a wide gray sky, and a hand painted sign at the entrance had been there so long it had weathered into the post it hung from. When Mack pulled into the lot T.J. had his face pressed against the window before the truck had even stopped.

“There’s so many,” he breathed.

Mack got out, opened the back door, and unbuckled T.J. from his car seat. The boy was on the ground and moving between the trees before Mack had straightened up.

“T.J.,” Mallory called.

“‘I won’t go far, Mama!” He slowed to his version of walking, which wasn’t much slower than running.

Mack walked beside Mallory through the rows, their arms touching, her hand finding his without either of them deciding to. The cold had turned her cheeks pink, and she was wearing a red coat he’d never seen her in before, and he thought about the first night he’d seen her at Dewey’s, standing at the mic with dark hair falling around her shoulders, and how far they’d come.

“That one!” T.J. hollered from somewhere ahead.