Mercy It didn’t happen until late in the summer. July thirtieth, to be exact. Long enough that I’d stopped thinking about it. Stopped wondering if it ever would. We were happy. Complete. With neither of us needing to teach during June or July, we spent the long Michigan-summer days together. We visited Traverse City for a weekend, then on a whim decided to drive into the Upper Peninsula for another week. We spent a couple days in Marquette during the Blueberry Festival and visited the clear, fluorescent teal waters of Kitch-iti-kipi. Kayaked Pictured Rocks and spent lazy mornings in bed, working on crossword puzzles until one of us got distracted by a flash of skin or decided that an argument over a word was best decided with a kiss that always led to more. We came home and helped Bernice organize her garage, and I only had to scold her once for grabbing Grant’s ass. We babysat Katya’s daughter when her day care worker got sick, and the sight of Grant holding a baby was more than my poor ovaries could handle. After Katya picked up little Daisy, I dragged my husband into our bedroom and fucked him stupid. We argued about silly things, and I genuinely hated when he drove because I never saw that needle go over the speed limit once. Not one single time. He only tried to make the bed with me in it once. A solidly placed kick only a couple inches clear of his groin, and Grant decided it was best he just wait until I woke. We planned a visit to London for the first week of August, before I’d need to start pr epping my classroom. The day before we left, I finished setting aside the shoes I was going to pack and told Grant I was going to take a nap. “Shall I join you?” he asked from the kitchen. “If you join me, I won’t get any sle ep.” “Spoilsport.” I was still smiling when I pulled a blanket over my lap and curled up in the chair in my office. I was staring at the leaves and flowers on the ceiling, thinking about my roses in the backyard and whether I’d trust Bernice to water them while we were gone. The Mona Lisa was my favorite, a pale-pink bloom with a sweet, peachy scent. I’d be devastated to lose them from lack of care. It was amazing how something with such humble, rather ugly beginnings could bloom into something so beautiful. I was glad I hadn’t given up on them. I fell asle ep to that thought.
Two hours later, I woke to Grant sliding his hands over my arms to wake me. “It’s dinnertime, love.” I hummed, burrowing de eper into the pillow underneath my head. “Still tired.” “You won’t sle ep tonight.” “Yes, I will.” “Aren’t you hungry?” “No.” My stomach growled. The sound of his laugh made me smile. “Maybe a little.” “What sounds good?” I was still so groggy it was hard to think clearly. I took a few de ep breaths and finally pried my eyes open. “Remember those enchiladas you made once? With the p epper jack cheese? Those sound delicious.” It wasn’t until Grant’s sharp intake of breath that I even realized what I’d said. “Mercy?” I sat up. “Oh my God.” His eyes frantically searched mine, even as they welled with tears. “Do you . . . do you remember?” My mind raced, tripping over itself as I tried to filter through the staggering, overwhelming number of memories that were just there. “Oh my God,” I sobbed, pressing my hands to my face. I flung the blanket off and climbed into his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. “We went to the Michigan game and I made you paint your face and I used the wrong thing and it didn’t come off for days. You were so mad at me.” Grant pressed his forehead into the crook of my neck, crying openly. I thought of all the things he’d tried to tell me at the hospital, the ones that were too much for me then. That had sent me spiraling with hardly any information given. “We made cookies at Christmas, and we burned them because we were too busy arguing about the ornaments.” Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I grabbed his cheeks with both hands so I could see his face. His handsome, tearstained face. “And I didn’t break three! I broke two—you grabbed my ass when I wasn’t expecting it, so the third is really your fault.” He laughed through his tears, cupping his hands around the back of my neck and pulling me in for a damp, soggy, utterly perfect kiss. My heart expanded on a painful beat, but the good kind of pain. The kind that comes from growth. From change. From perspective. I didn’t suddenly love him more because I remembered. Our life wasn’t magically better. But as we sat there and dried each other’s tears and talked until our throats were dry and our stomachs empty to the point of pain, I felt complete. We ordered pizza and talked
some more. Grant got my laptop, and we started looking at pictures and videos. I curled up between his legs, his chest bracing my back as he let me scroll through at my own pace. It was the same way he’d done everything, I realized now. At my own pace. Never rushing. Never pushing harder than I could handle. He loved me so well. He was careful with his emotions, showing them only where he felt safe. And Grant felt safest with me. The times he did push, the times he did seem to rush, were fleeting moments of that love spilling out because it was so big, so overwhelming, that it was a mighty feat to ke ep it contained. In hindsight, I couldn’t help but wonder whether it had been the same with me, even when I didn’t know what I was remembering. The times I pushed. The times I rushed. The times I seemed determined to upset the proverbial apple cart, it was emotion spilling out that I could hardly understand, let alone name it for what it was. Now I could, of course. Now it was painfully clear. I set the computer down and turned in Grant’s lap, my mouth finding his as his arms wound tight around me. He kissed me with such familiarity. Kissed me exactly the way I wanted. Exactly the way I needed. I tore my mouth away from his. “Holy shit, your sister caught us having sex in the library. And on the pool table. How am I supposed to face her tomorrow?” He smiled, a dimple appearing in his cheek. “Don’t forget the gardens.” I set my forehead on his and whimpered. Not the kind of whimpering I wanted to do when in my husband’s lap either. “The bench. I straddled you on the bench.” I gave him a miserable look. “It skinned my knees.” “I remember. You made me carry you as if your legs were chopped off at the knee.” I rolled my eyes. “Hardly. You offered because if someone saw me limping, they’d ask too many questions.” “We’ll be more careful,” he promised. “We’ll ke ep it confined to the bedroom, buddy.” “Oh, I find that unacc eptable. You’re just as much of an exhibitionist as I am, my dear, and you can no longer say you don’t know what I’m talking about, because you love how close we came to getting caught.” He dipped his head and kissed along my collarbone. I angled my neck, sighing as he gently sucked the skin under my jaw. “Every single time, you loved it.” “Bedroom, or you’re not getting any.” “Of course,” he purred. “You sound very serious.” His hands worked up the back of my shirt, and I arched into his touch. “I . . . I am.” Instead of arguing—I was on very shaky moral ground and we both knew it—Grant kissed me, tilting his head as his tongue brushed lazily over mine.
The kiss ended, and I let my forehead rest against his. “I am sort of serious. I want this trip to be different.” I met his eyes. “With your family.” Grant gripped the back of my neck, his fingers digging in to the tense muscles he found there. “In what way?” “The last time we went, it wasn’t real yet. For us,” I clarified. “We were sle eping together, but we weren’t this.” The movements of Grant’s hands gentled. Soothing now, instead of trying to incite. “No, we weren’t.” “I viewed them as your family.” I shrugged. “This last visit, too, they were . . . s eparate.” “But now?” “Now it’s different,” I whispered, eyes darting up to his. Even with the memories, this didn’t feel any less vulnerable. “Now they’re my family too.” He dragged his knuckles over the line of my jaw. “And they love you.” “I want to know them better. See them more.” “We can do that.” He smiled gently. “That would make them happy.” “And you?” “And me.” Grant kissed me. “I love my family. I just wanted a chance to create my own, without anyone else’s rules and expectations.” “That’s why I want this visit to be different. Your dad can’t hide in meetings. I won’t tolerate it this time. He has to come and sit and talk. Play cards. Walk in the gardens.” “He doesn’t often stop to do those things,” he warned. “Oh, he will for this trip.” Grant raised a brow, clearly amused by my fierce tone. “You don’t think I can do it?” I asked. “Oh, on the contrary. I’m thrilled at the prospect of having a front-row seat.” He lowered his voice. “I’d put my money on you every single time, love.” The praise went straight to my head. “I want to know him better. Someday he’ll be the only grandfather our kids have, and so help me, our children will not—” Grant stole my mouth with a fierce kiss, groaning as he tightened his grip with an arm banded around my lower back. My head was fuzzy when he pulled away. “Wha-what was that for?” His eyes were a bright silver when his gaze locked onto mine. “You cannot talk about carrying my children without turning me into an absolute brute. I’d think that memory should be rather clear now too.” “Oh yes. I suppose I do recall a slight breeding kink.” I fiddled with the top button of his shirt, heart thundering at the way he was looking at me. I lifted my eyes to his. “And I fully intend to ask for a refresher.”
“As always, your wish is my command.” I ducked my head, cheeks warm and smile wide. “But . . .” “But what?” “There’s something else I’d like to do while we’re there.” I licked my lips. “Just one thing.” His expression was almost unbearably fond. “Anything.” “Will you marry me again?” Grant’s eyes widened, his mouth falling open. “What?” “I don’t regret our courthouse wedding, but . . . it might be nice to do it again. In front of our family.” I cupped the side of his face, my thumb dragging gently over the warm skin of his cheek. “Say our vows and mean every fucking word.” I brought him closer and spoke against his lips. “For richer or poorer. In sickness and health. All of it. Until my last breath.” Grant k ept his gaze on mine as he kissed me lightly enough to tease. “Longer than that, darling. I’ve already told you.” I smiled. “In every universe.” “In every lifetime.”
Epilogue Grant Six years later “No, you don’t do it like that.” Grandmother froze, the small pitcher of milk hovering over her bowl. “I beg your pardon?” Posie leaned forward, tongue tucked between her teeth when she couldn’t quite reach. She’d refused a brush that morning, so her hair was everywhere. Grandmother sighed, handing her the milk. My father lowered the newspaper in front of his face, eyebrow raised at the sight of his granddaughter practically climbing up onto the table. His bowl of Frosties remained untouched. “Why did we give the kitchen staff the morning off, again?” he asked in a droll tone. Mercy and I traded a look. She ducked her head, hiding her smile behind the dark, fuzzy hair of our son. I took a sip of my tea. “Posie wanted to make breakfast, Father.” When my daughter aimed her smile at me, crooked and determined and perfect, I winked. “Yes, I see that,” he answered, gaze lingering on the carpet underneath her chair. The floor was covered with the remains of what hadn’t ended up in our bowls. Her pouring skills were a work in progress. One of Grandmother’s little terriers was snuffling up each individual piece. “Grandpa, you haven’t started yet.” At five years old, Posie Hastings was on a very clear path to world domination. She was ambitious. Straightforward. Stubborn to a bloody fault (her mother’s trait, of course). Shockingly good at getting her way, with a riot of white-blond curls—I’m told she favored both Connor and Mercy when they were young—and her heavily lashed grayish-blue eyes, there were very few people who could resist her. “And I can’t add milk,” he clarified. “No.” Posie leaned closer, her hands on the arm of her chair, which was dragged closer to his. “It’s gross when it’s mushy.” My father gave Mercy a dry look. “And this is your doing?” “The girl knows what she likes.” She smiled, lifting CJ to a standing position so she could hand him off to my sister. Grandmother wrinkled her nose, her spoon holding only a few pieces of dry cereal. “This is ridic—” Posie turned her big eyes in her direction, and Granny halted. “This looks delicious, young lady.”
She took a bite, the crunching of her cereal uncommonly loud. Rose untangled CJ’s hands from her hair. “A revelation, isn’t it, Granny?” “Quite.” Mother watched from the other end of the table, her spoon full of the sugary cereal. Her eyes, locked on her husband, promised retribution if he didn’t do exactly as she asked. My father sighed and ate a rather large spoonful, much to my daughter’s delight. Our summer visits quickly became something we all looked forward to once the school year was done—three full weeks so that the kids could adjust to the time difference—and just as she’d vowed, Mercy instituted strict family time when we were all staying at Blackmoor. My father took occasional meetings while we were there, but my wife had gotten her way. Some things hadn’t changed. And the things that had, at least in this house, were all because of her. The river that cut through the mountain, as it turned out. Posie followed my father everywhere, clambering up into his lap while he worked, and I’d never seen him turn her away. More than once, I caught him explaining stocks and bonds. Savings accounts. How to properly evaluate an investment. “Grandpa, can I work with you when you’re done?” He finished his first bite, then pushed the bowl away. “I’m finished. What would you like to learn today, poppet?” She hopped off her chair and into his lap. “Can you teach me about the bullshit market?” Grandmother dropped her spoon in a noisy clatter. Mother froze with hers halfway to her mouth. I raised my eyebrows as color climbed up my father’s cheeks. Mercy slapped a hand over her mouth to contain her laugh. “It’s a bull market, Posie,” he corrected primly. “Okay! I’m ready.” She turned in his lap and started playing with his tie. “Can we go now?” My father hoisted her in his arms, which was no small feat. My daughter never sat still. She wrapped her arms around his neck and bounced in his grip as she motioned in my direction. He tilted her over so I could receive a sugary kiss on my cheek. Mercy watched them with an amused quirk of her mouth, blowing a kiss to Posie. “Bye, Mommy. Bye, Granny. Bye, Auntie Rose. Bye, Great-Granny.” Posie waved over Father’s shoulder as he strode from the room. “Bye, CJ,” she yelled. “You can come when you’re older and know how to talk and stuff.” Connor James, at all of one year old, shoved a handful of his aunt Rose’s hair in his mouth.
When Posie and my father were clear of the room, Grandmother reached for the milk and poured it over her cereal. “You’re still eating that, Granny?” Rose asked. “As opposed to what? Making my own breakfast?” I shook my head. Mercy stretched, standing from her chair. We hadn’t gotten much sle ep. CJ was cutting a molar, and Posie woke at three a. m. ready to go ride one of the horses. When we told her no, she insisted on sle eping between me and Mercy. I was only kicked in the head twice, which was a fairly successful night when it came to sharing space with my firstborn. “We have a meeting too,” my wife said, sliding her hand over my shoulder. I took her hand in mine and brought her fingers to my mouth. “Do we?” I gave her a curious look. She raised an eyebrow like I should know what she was talking about. “Oh. Right. We do. We, uh, we have a very important meeting we couldn’t reschedule.” “I’ll watch CJ,” Rose stated, blowing a kiss into her n ephew’s neck. He laughed, and everyone in the room smiled at the sound. “It’s quite lovely outside. Would you like to join us for a walk, Granny?” “I suppose. Is that tattooed curmudgeon coming along?” “My husband?” Rose asked dryly. “Yes, I think he might.” Mercy and I shared a look, and she rolled her lips together, trying to hide her smile. Granny never did handle change well. She hummed, eyeing her great-grandson. “He seems like he won’t be too much trouble.” CJ let out a loud shriek, wiggling to get free of Rose’s grasp when Granny’s dog trotted across the room. It jumped, hiding behind a chair. Mercy laughed. “Just ke ep the dogs away, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.” She took my hand and dragged me from the room. As soon as we were out of sight, I gripped her hips, steering her into the nearest wall. A picture frame rattled as I slid my hand up along her waist, palming her backside firmly as my tongue sw ept into her mouth. “We have no children for at least the next hour. Do you know what that means?” Mercy dropped her head against the wall, moaning as I pushed a hand underneath her shirt, working it beneath her bra to find her nipple. “Yes.” I sucked her earlobe into my mouth, dragging my teeth along the soft skin. “We can nap,” I whispered against her mouth. Mercy laughed. Still, so many years later, the sight of her smile almost sent me to my knees. She cupped my face in both hands and kissed me de eply. “We actually do have a meeting, Hastings.” “What?”
“Oh, don’t pout. It’s on your calendar.” “I’m not pouting.” I dragged my fingers over the line of her ribs, pouting only the slightest little bit. “What for?” “One last board spot to fill, and this candidate is perfect. I think it’s mostly a formality.” “Ahh.” I dropped my head into her shoulder. “Fine. If we do it quickly enough, there’s still time to fuck my wife in our very big, very private suite with a lock on the door. Then we can nap.” She smiled. “Deal.” Back in our rooms in the west wing, Mercy adjusted the laptop so that we were both fully visible in the screen. Working on a family vacation wasn’t a rule we broke lightly. Mercy’s school year was still incredibly busy, but since CJ’s birth, we’d discussed one more year of her teaching full-time before she dropped her hours. She missed being home with the kids, and our current project was hopefully going to help with that. As the foundation copresident, she’d still work quite a bit, but she’d be at home, her hours more flexible than they were now. The screen flickered to life, and Dr. Washington’s face filled the other square. Her wide smile hadn’t changed a bit. “Hello, you two,” she said. “How’s London?” “Wonderful,” Mercy answered. “Thank you for meeting with us. I was thrilled to get your email.” I set my hand on Mercy’s thigh, briefly meeting her eyes when she wound her fingers through mine. “Dr. Washington, I’m not sure we should waste time on formalities,” I said. “We’d be ecstatic to have you on the board. You were able to review all the projections?” “It’s ambitious, but I love what you’re doing. It would help so many in this area.” Mercy smiled. “That’s the goal. I’d be working directly with local schools to determine the best fit for the scholarships. Meeting with families and figuring out how we can best support them. Meeting with school boards and teachers to discuss their projects too.” The Kincaid-Hastings Foundation was Mercy’s brainchild. The endowment at Michigan in Connor’s name was just a start, in her eyes. It was good, but not good enough. Not big enough. In her own experience teaching, she saw so many kids who had the drive and the ambition to reach for goals that their circumstances might make difficult to achieve. She saw teachers who wanted to help but lacked the resources to support their students in the ways they needed. We would fund educational programs in the greater Ann Arbor area to middle school and high school teachers. Grants to schools for reading programs. Scholarships for low-income students and financial support for their families. It was countless hours of research. Fundraising. Working ourselves to the bone to get this off the ground. Dozens of times over the last eighteen months, I’d found her sound asle ep on a stack of papers in her office.
She’d had one meeting with my father and grandmother, a meeting that I was quite unfairly barred from. She came out of my father’s study with a check so big it made my eyes water. It was humbling, marrying someone who genuinely wanted to change the world. Often, over the years, I came to realize that my favorite thing to do was sit back and watch her. Rocking our children to sle ep, or reading them a book in the soft light of their bedroom. Teaching Posie how to plant a flower. Singing “Wheels on the Bus” over and over simply because CJ loved it. Taking on a school board meeting when she felt the teachers deserved more than they were getting. I had to drag her away from only one—slung her up over my shoulders and walked her out before she could start a brawl. An octogenarian with nothing better to do than complain told her to ke ep her trap shut and go back home to the kitchen. I caught her around the waist, but not before she called him a misogynistic prick and suggested he come say that to her face. The rest of the audience applauded her on the way out, which she quite loved. The school board, despite the outburst, approved her suggested changes. She was the best woman I’d ever known. The kindest, fiercest mother. A partner I’d never dreamed of having. My best friend. I didn’t say much during the meeting with Dr. Washington, who enthusiastically agreed to become our final board member. Mercy clicked the X on the meeting tab and stood, swinging her legs over mine until she was settled on my lap. Her hair was longer now, and the ends tickled the tops of my hands where I held her waist. “You were quiet.” “Sorry.” “Nothing to be sorry about.” Her eyes searched mine. “Is everything okay?” It hit me unexpectedly sometimes. What we’d been through. How close we’d come to losing it all. I had to remind myself, in those moments, that we hadn’t. We’d come through it. Come through it stronger because we’d chosen each other, again and again. That we made a family that was filled with so much love and care that it didn’t seem possible. We were parenting our children differently from what we’d been taught. Promising them through our actions that they’d always be loved. Always be safe. I nodded, emotion making it hard to swallow. My love for her, for our life, defied all common sense, and somehow, through some miracle, her love for me was the same. “Mercy?” My voice was rough. If I were any more exhausted, I’d probably we ep, simply because it felt so good just to sit and hold my wife, the person who anchored my world. “What?” I kissed her. She smiled. There was nothing more in the world I could ask for than this. “I’m quite glad you’re mine.”
Her smile softened. “So am I, Grant.” She kissed me again. “So am I.”