If I’m actually related if this is real.
Then they’ll have a whole new family.
So many new people to love.
“Here it goes,” Elise said. She puffed out her cheeks as Tracey handed her a letter opener. She slipped the tool between the seal and then swung it across. With a flourish, she gripped the folded-up piece of paper within and pulled it out.
When she unfolded it, she read it three times before she fully comprehended the words that were written on the paper.
Silence filled the dining room. After a long moment, Megan choked on her wine and coughed as Michael swatted her back in an attempt to help her.
“Are you going to tell us?” Michael asked, mid-way through his second smack.
Elise’s eyes filled with tears. She splayed the paper out in front of her, turned up to face Dean, and whispered, “Dean. You’re really my father.”
Chaos broke out after that. Tracey burst up from her chair and howled, “Yes!” Cindy’s chair fell back as she ducked forward and wrapped Elise in the biggest hug. Dean stood, walked slowly around the table, then knelt as Elise jumped into his arms and hugged him. Again, she remembered all those nights when she had craved a father—all those afternoons when she’d watched other girls hold their fathers’ hands and walk and skip alongside them. “We have each other,” Allison had always told her. But now? Now, Elise had been given the great gift of this entire other family Allison had left behind.
Dean leaned back, gripped Elise’s shoulders, and said, “I never had a doubt in my mind. You’re just as stubborn as any Swartz. That’s for sure.”
Elise laughed, dropped her head back, and said, “Gosh, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
That moment, Megan and Emma appeared with one of the cakes. Emma removed the top to reveal a dessert decorated with beautiful purple icing. It read: “WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!”
“It’s beautiful!” Elise cried. “Oh, I can’t believe how perfect it is.”
“What does the other one say?” Michael asked.
“Don’t worry yourself with that, Michael,” Cindy said.
“No, no. I want to know,” Elise said.
Emma disappeared and then returned with the other cake, which was revealed to read: “CAN WE JUST BE FRIENDS?”
This made everyone at the table howl with laughter.
“It sounds like you’re trying to break up with her,” Michael said, full-on cackling.
“That’s the joke, dummy,” Megan said. “But now that we know she’s our Aunt Elise, we can eat the cake for giggles. Right, Aunt Elise?”
**
ELISE HAD NEVER BEENa daddy’s girl. She had never been an aunt, never been a sister, never been anything but a daughter, a mother, and then, a divorcee.
Now, at this dinner, she found herself in the beginning stages of so many different journeys.
The roast chicken, potatoes, broccoli, and rolls were served, and more bottles of wine were dragged out of the wine cellar. At one point during the dinner, Dean stood, raced toward the piano, and played them one of his favorite songs. Despite his drunkenness, his fingers articulated each key perfectly. Elise smacked her palms together excitedly and wolf-whistled as he bowed.
“I think he plays better when he’s tipsy,” Michael said.
“It’s science, Mike,” his grandfather returned as he sat back at the head of the table. “When I’m loose, I can take my fingers wherever I want them to go. It’s a kind of magic. I don’t know why you never let me teach you properly when you were a child. You had a gift.”
“Turns out, I have several other gifts,” Michael said with a wink. “Like, for example, I worked as a scuba instructor for almost three months in Hawaii.”
Dean shook his head as Wayne cackled.
“He keeps coming up with more stories about his three years away,” he said. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Believe what you want to believe, Uncle Wayne,” Michael said as he sipped the last of his wine.
“Uncle Wayne, now?” Wayne lifted his eyebrow.
“If you’re after my Auntie Elise, then I don’t know how else to refer to you,” Michael said. “Just remember. We take care of our own, Uncle Wayne. If you hurt her, it’ll be one of your biggest regrets.”