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“You don’t have to do that,” Tim said as he walked through the open sliding glass door with three empty beers in one hand and three dirty plates in the other. Kojo ambled in after him, his nails clicking on the hardwood floor.
“I don’t mind cleaning up,” Lucy said, reaching up to turn the water on so she could rinse out the half-full wine glasses left by one of the party guests. Tim kicked off his sneakers by the door, maintaining his no-shoes rule even when it would have been much more convenient to walk across the kitchen in dirty shoes to put the plates down. Lucy’s sandals looked comically small next to his larger shoes in the corner.
“Seriously, you’ve done enough to help today,” Tim said. Lucy felt a warm surge of happy affection at his words, and smiled.
Lucy had sort of accidentally appointed herself as co-hostess of Tim’s fourth of July party. Genny was in town, and as part of Tim’s promise to be more present in her life, he had offered to host a barbeque for the holiday. While he might have intended it as a small party with just a few friends and family, it had soon grown to include half of mid-Wilshire station and their kids, Ashley and Jerry, a few of Ashley’s friends, four of Tim’s old army buddies, and Genny and her kids.
It was immediately clear that Tim was in over his head as far as party planning. Lucy guessed that he and Isabel hadn’t done much entertaining in their home, considering that they were both so career-driven during their relationship, and they spent most of their holidays with Isabel’s extended family in Napa. Lucy, on the other hand, knew how to throw a party. Her parents had loved to host gatherings for other professors and visiting academics, so she had grown up watching her mother plan, shop and cook for dozens at a time on a budget. With this knowledge in hand, Lucy had spent the better part of the last two weeks in the shop, trying to convince Tim that yes he needed that many burgers and buns, and yes he needed another cooler for ice.
At first, she couldn’t figure out why Tim was resistant to making the necessary plans for the party when he was the one who had suggested it in the first place. By the end of the first week of listening to him grumble about how it was just supposed to be a simple party, nothing fancy, no big deal, she realized that he was completely overwhelmed and more than a little bit afraid that he was going to screw up the holiday for Genny’s kids.
Lucy had tried to broach the subject with Ashley when she spotted her waiting by his truck after work. Party planning seemed like something she might want to help Tim with, especially if she would be meeting his family for the first time, but Ashley had assured Lucy with a slightly forced smile that Tim had told her that he had it all under control, and he didn’t need help.
Tim had definitely needed help. Lucy helped him make a grocery list during downtime in the shop, and then went with him to buy party supplies so he didn’t pick the stupid decorations. He asked for backup when he went to the grocery store because he needed a second cart and a second pair of hands to divide and conquer the list. Lucy discovered that Tim approached grocery shopping like a search and rescue mission, complete with a grid search and contingency plans. She’d ventured into one of ‘Tim’s’ aisles to get something she’d forgotten to put on the list. He spotted her from two aisles away, shot her the ‘hold your position’ hand signal and then called to ask what she needed so he could pick it up himself on his way up the aisle. I just needed mayo, you nerd.
They stayed up late prepping the food in his kitchen the night before with Ashley’s intermittent help. Ashley seemed a bit intimidated by Tim’s carefully planned food prep schedule and seemed to constantly be standing in exactly the wrong place in the kitchen at the wrong time. Lucy, who was used to moving in tandem with Tim at work, had a much easier time anticipating when and how he would move with a hot pot or when he was done with his favorite paring knife so she could use it herself.
The party itself went off without a hitch, if you didn’t count a skinned knee, a bee sting, a shortage of paper plates, Kojo absconding with one of Lucy’s portable speakers in his mouth, and one of Ashley’s friends getting a little too drunk and puking on the lawn. The kids were happy, the adults had plenty of beer and burgers, and Kojo had the time of his life with all the new strangers to meet. When darkness fell and Tim’s neighbors started setting off fireworks that sounded a little too much like an active shooting in progress, all but one of Tim’s army buddies and a few of the cops had said their goodbyes. Kojo added a certain amount of commotion to the farewells, what with all of the barking, growling, and pacing as he defended his home from the loud noises.
A little while later, Genny took her kids off to bed with a hug and a kiss on the cheek for Tim and a hug for Lucy. Genny had whispered a fierce, “Thank you,” into Lucy’s ear as she gave Lucy a tight squeeze. It had been Tim and Genny’s first holiday together in years, and it had clearly meant a lot to her and the kids. “Anytime,” Lucy had whispered back, and she’d meant it. Tim and Genny hadn’t had it easy when they were younger, and anything Lucy could do to help them find their way back to each other was more than worth the trouble.
The only guests that were left were Ashley and three of her friends, and Tim’s old Army buddy, Scott. The five of them had made a circle of Tim’s porch chairs on the lawn, and they were chatting and watching the neighbor’s fireworks whistle and pop above them.
Fatigue started setting in sometime around 11pm. Lucy had been on her feet and socializing for most of the day, and her favorite sundress was clinging to her body like a second skin in the LA heat, so she slipped away from the circle of chairs and started collecting plates, serving dishes, and glasses so she’d have an excuse to escape to the air-conditioned sanctuary that was Tim’s kitchen and put on her favorite mellow evening playlist while she cleaned up. Now Tim and Kojo were here with her, which made it close to perfect.
“I can clean up this mess tomorrow,” Tim said as Lucy gestured for him to put the plates on top of the dirty serving dish beside the sink. He did so, and then he opened the recycling bin to drop in the empty beer bottles.
“We both know that you won’t go to bed until this kitchen is spotless.” Lucy set the now sparkling-clean wine glass next to the others she had hand washed. “I might as well help—Kojo, no.”
Kojo looked balefully up at her with his big brown eyes, clearly offended that he wasn’t allowed to lick the perfectly good food remnants off of the plates that were so cruelly placed in the bottom rack at his eye level. Lucy might have given in and let him do it, but he’d had more than enough people food today. She bent down to drop a kiss on his head to soften the admonishment.
Tim shook his head as he watched her, but he was fighting a smile. “I can wash for a while, if you load the dishes.”
“You trust me to put dishes in your dishwasher?” Lucy said, with mock surprise. She had learned last night that Tim had a very specific way that he liked to load his dishwasher.
“Yes,” he said, with a touch of long-suffering patience. “I do.”
“I’m honored,” Lucy said solemnly, and he snorted.
They fell into an easy rhythm of washing, drying, and loading in comfortable silence. The window above the sink looked out onto the dark backyard, where fireworks were still wheeling and bursting above. The cracks and pops were a little quieter with a pane of glass between them and the sky. Kojo was exhausted from his zoomies and barking and carrying on, and once he tired of trying to help his humans do the dishes, he trundled off to his favorite corner of the kitchen and fell asleep. The opening chords of Etta James’s “At Last” floated from Tim’s Bluetooth speakers, and Lucy paused in the process of loading the plates to listen and smile, despite the piercing ache of loneliness that washed over her at the sound of the strings. “I love this song.”
Tim looked over at her with amused affection, and placed a clean plate carefully beside her left hand. “It’s the song you want for the first dance at your wedding, isn’t it?”
“I told you that?” she asked, feeling her cheeks heat. And you remembered?
“Sure,” he said, as if it was obvious.
Etta James’s smooth contralto poured over them like red wine. At last, my love has come along….
“Genny’s kids seemed like they had fun today,” Lucy said, sliding the last rinsed plate into its place in the lower rack of the dishwasher. “They really love you.”
“They really love Kojo and playing touch football,” Tim corrected her dryly. He passed her a handful of wet silverware to sort into the cutlery basket. My lonely days are over….
“James couldn’t get enough of Uncle Tim’s piggyback rides,” Lucy said. “The car noises were a nice touch.” Though Tim hadn’t spent much time with the kids in the last few years, and he’d been a bit nervous to do so, he’d fallen into the role of cool uncle with an ease that hadn’t surprised Lucy in the slightest. She knew he wanted kids of his own one day.
“Ella told me she wants to be you when she grows up,” Tim said.
“She wants to be a cop?”
“No, she wants to actually be you,” Tim said, grinning at her. “I had to explain that you were already taken.”
Lucy laughed, feeling her heart warm from the inside out. She already adored Genny’s kids, with those Bradford blues and insatiable curiosity. She hoped she’d get to meet Tim’s kids someday, maybe even— Don’t go there, she told herself firmly. Tim was in love with someone else, someone he could see himself marrying. That kiss in her living room may have felt like a spark, like the start of something, but it wasn’t. Going down that road would only lead to heartbreak.
Jackson had once called her a hopeless romantic, but Lucy wasn’t quite sure that was true anymore. The last few years of growth and heartbreak and loss had tempered her reckless optimism. Seeing the good in the world around her had once been instinctive and easy, but it was harder now; more of a deliberate practice, and maybe all the more valuable for it. She had to make a conscious effort to find and cling to the moments where she felt loved and safe and hopeful and to hold them close to carry her through the hard days that she knew would also come.
This moment was one of those that she wanted to hold onto. Washing dishes in Tim’s kitchen in the heavy heat of July, with Tim beside her as Etta James crooned in the background, I found a dream that I could speak to; a dream that I can call my own….
“Thank you,” Tim said, so quietly that Lucy barely heard it over the sound of the running water.
“No problem,” she said quickly, pulling herself back from where her thoughts had taken her. “I can start the dishwasher if you hand me the detergent.”
Tim turned off the tap, but made no move to retrieve the dish detergent from under the sink. “I didn’t mean the dishes. I mean…I didn’t not mean the dishes, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Lucy blinked as she tried and failed to work her way through that forest of double negatives. “What?"
He huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “I just meant—thank you. For today. For—well, for everything.”
A bubbly rush of pleasure flooded up from her toes, the way it always seemed to whenever Tim gave her a compliment. She thought about making a teasing comment about how he definitely would have run out of burgers without her, but his appreciation had been so sincere that she didn’t want to cheapen it with a joke. “You’re welcome,” she said simply instead. “I’m just…I’m really glad you’re happy.”
“Yeah, I…I think I am.” He said it like he couldn’t quite believe it; like he’d once thought it impossible. Lucy’s heart gave a painful squeeze, grateful that got to witness the hard-won victory of Tim Bradford’s happiness.
He smiled as he handed her the box of dish detergent so she could load the dispenser compartment. She did so carefully, then bent to close the compartment and dishwasher door and start the machine. When she straightened, she realized that Tim hadn’t moved, and was watching her thoughtfully. She tipped her head and asked with her eyes, what?
“Are you happy, Lucy?”
It should have been a simple question, but it wasn’t. In many ways, she was happy. She had wonderful friends, a job she loved, and a future she looked forward to. Her parents were healthy and loved her in the best way they knew how. She had a car that actually worked and a nice apartment. She had a boyfriend. The grief was easier to carry now than it had been a year ago, and so was her time in that barrel. She was learning to live with it all, but she wasn’t sure if she could say that she was happy.
“I’m happy to be here with you, tonight,” she answered, over the hum of the dishwasher and the rich, clear crescendo of Etta’s backing violins.
“That’s not the same as being happy.” He was watching her carefully, the disarrayed kitchen completely forgotten, just as invested in her happiness as she was in his.
“Maybe it’s not,” she said quietly, “but moments like this—with you—make me believe that I will be happy again. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it is. To me.” It’s everything.
In those early days of devastation after Caleb, and after Jackson’s death, Lucy had thought she would never be happy again. She’d had to fight to find hope again, harder than she’d fought for anything in her life. At first, it was enough to just stay alive, but now…now she was finally living again. Lucy met Tim’s eyes and saw understanding there. He knew what it was like to fight his way out of the dark.
“Come here,” he said, the same way Lucy had in the hospice hallway all those months ago.
Lucy stepped forward without a second thought because it felt natural now to reach for him, to hold him, and to share in the heartbreak that had brought them to this moment. His body felt warm and solid, like an anchor in a wave, and she closed her eyes to savor the feeling of being held and safe and loved as Etta James finished her song. There was happiness again. At last.