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Summer 2022
Holly had had no idea that it could be this easy with Marvyn. That they could settle into a rhythm as a couple with almost zero friction.
Besides the friction of how annoying he is. She’s resigned herself to that, mostly. Only curses the universe that she had to fall in love with this one like, three times a week, max.
As the summer gets underway, a way of sharing the same space emerges that is both familiar and brand new.
They wake up most mornings entwined in what is becoming an increasingly comedic tangle, though Holly’s back doesn’t find anything remotely funny about it.
Marvyn agrees to only listen to his World War II podcast one day a week when she is also in the car; she resigns herself to listening to it basically every time they are in the car together. Surely it must eventually end? The podcast can’t be longer than the actual war, right? She really hopes not.
Holly agrees that she will try to put dishes in the dishwasher instead of leaving them in the sink but tells him that until there are more than three dishes in the sink, he isn’t allowed to comment and if he does, she’s allowed to hit him.
She caves and allows him to move things around in what is quickly becoming their house, as long as he restricts himself to decorative items.
(Holly still hasn’t forgiven him for stashing the folder with her tax documents in a random drawer, out of sight, where it took her forever to find, because he didn’t like the way it looked on her desk. Where she had purposefully left it the night before so that she could file her taxes. She might forgive him by next year when it’s time to file her taxes again. She hasn’t decided yet.)
And for every time Marvyn drives her absolutely insane, there’s another time when they watch Sports Center on the couch, her legs draped over his lap, curled up against his side with her head on his shoulder and his arm around her and Holly can’t think of a time she’s been happier.
***
Emma spends the summer in Wisconsin again, with her mom. She leaves almost immediately after the end of the school year.
Holly and Marvyn aren’t intentionally keeping their relationship a secret from her, it’s just that they don’t mention it. At all. For three months. There are just a lot of rooms in her house for them to have sex in, so they’re a little busy. That’s all.
And it's not that they don’t talk to Emma while she’s gone, because they do, texts and phone calls and FaceTime, together and separately. But it’s easy to focus on Emma during those conversations and not on the recent shift between them. They do get pretty good at holding hands outside of the FaceTime view screen though.
Since Emma is gone and school is out for summer, they haven’t had to confess anything to anyone else, either, allowing them to live in a little bubble of smug happiness and perpetual low-grade teasing. Holly knows the bubble is inevitably going to pop, but it makes her all the more resolved to enjoy it while it lasts.
It’s particularly good timing because Holly is aware that if they were cooped up in their office every day, there’s no way Sherilyn wouldn’t realize that Holly was dating Marvyn. Would, if Holly’s being honest, probably walk in on them making out at some point. Probably multiple times.
But Belford is planning to reopen its campus for the fall semester. This way, by the time school starts again, Holly can tell Sherilyn her friend about her new boyfriend Marvyn over margaritas instead of formally disclosing her relationship with fellow member of the Westbrook faculty Marvyn Korn to Sherilyn/HR.
Assuming she can wait that long to have Margarita Monday again. While “revoltingly besotted with Marvyn Korn” isn’t tattooed on her forehead or anything, Holly feels a sense of deep contentment that she suspects her friend would immediately spot and demand to know the cause of. Especially because her perpetual low-level annoyance at Marvyn also feels muted, which Sherilyn would definitely spot.
***
A few days before Emma is scheduled to come home, Holly forces herself to face something that she still feels pangs of guilt about.
She knows she has to do it before Emma is back, because once she is, they will have to cop to the fact that they’ve been together all summer and didn’t tell her, and while that felt like an easy decision to make at the beginning of the summer, as the reckoning approaches, Holly suspects they will probably regret it.
She and Marvyn are sitting on the couch holding hands, some reality show on in the background, when she gathers her courage.
“Marvyn, I know that I hurt you in the spring, when I dismissed what kissing you meant, after that charity game. And I want to apologize. It’s not an excuse, but I was so terrified about my feelings for you and about how much I liked having you and Emma living here and how worried I was about the girls’ reaction and Sherilyn’s –”
She starts to feel short of breath but before she can really begin to spiral, Marvyn wraps his arms around her. Grounds her.
“It’s okay – “
“It’s not!”
Marvyn pulls her closer.
“It’s okay,” he repeats.
Holly lets out a breath that she hopes they can both pretend isn’t a sob and wraps her arms around his neck, grateful for his solid presence, his steadiness. For as frequently as she wants to murder Marvyn, she’s glad she hasn’t yet, because of moments like these.
***
Emma returns to California in August and Holly and Marvyn finally tell her that they’re dating. Well, are more forced to admit it when Emma immediately picks up on the updated sleeping arrangements and calls them out about it. Not a good look, Holly will acknowledge.
In retrospect, Holly knows they should have expected Emma, any teenager, really, to be upset, to test boundaries when she’s forced to fit back into a new household dynamic that she didn’t choose and has no control over. They really should have seen it coming.
And what they didn’t consider was that the teenager in question is still pretty newly used to having her father’s attention at all, and so might not be particularly gracious about splitting it with his new girlfriend, particularly when they all live together, even if said girlfriend is someone she already knows, and at least before she started dating Emma’s father, liked.
What Holly doesn’t think they could have seen coming was Emma lashing out at her, exclusively.
Fall 2022
Except for the tension with Emma, Holly and Marvyn are otherwise great. She thinks at least part of that is because they aren’t sharing a tiny office or a gym anymore, and basically spending every moment of every day together.
Since Belford is newly reopened and mold free, Holly drives to work separately and drives home separately and limits Marvyn to one phone call per day, during lunch, when he can complain about whatever he experienced that morning that he needs to rant about. Sometimes he calls her when he’s driving home in the afternoon, but she almost always ignores those calls, knowing that he just wants to narrate what’s going on in his World War II podcast to her.
Holly thinks of herself as a patient person, but there is a limit.
***
Emma is in her ‘silent-treatment’ mood this week, which is a slight step up from the ‘pointed-criticism-of-everything-Holly-does-or-says’ mood, though not as pleasant as the ‘casually-mean-when-it-occurs-to-her-to-be-but-otherwise-normal’ mood.
The situation is only made worse because Marvyn is in Los Angeles at a conference. So, she and Emma have been existing in a state of unhappy (Holly) and hostile (Emma) silence since Thursday.
The one blessed exception being when Emma spent Saturday night at a friend’s, texting her father that she was going to a girls’ movie night, which he then relayed to Holly, because Emma didn’t bother to tell her.
Holly drinks a bottle of wine, enjoys the non-hostile silence, and tells herself things will get better once Emma settles in more after her summer away. When she accepts that Holly and Marvyn are together and that very little about her day-to-day life has changed. Because the reality is that Holly and Marvyn’s dynamic hasn’t changed much, or really changed at all, except that he sleeps in their bedroom now (with a very loud white noise machine turned on at night for Emma’s benefit), instead of on the couch, or that he kisses her casually when they are both shuffling around the kitchen in the morning. Surely that’s not too much to overcome?
Monday morning, Holly overhears via the Belford gossip grapevine that Saturday night wasn’t the casual girls’ movie night that Emma described, but instead a raucous party that fully half of the Belford senior class also attended, and her hackles are immediately raised.
She identifies Ethan as the likeliest of her boys to cave to interrogation and pulls him aside after class so she can grill him, feeling a little guilty about intimidating him it but not guilty enough to let it go.
When she finds out that there was underaged drinking at the party, that Emma got in a car driven by a Belford student who had been drinking, she doesn’t know that she’s ever been angrier in her life. She thinks Ethan will probably be scared of her forever after this conversation, but she’s okay with that.
Marvyn is supposed to be home in time for dinner tonight. And she desperately wishes he was already home, so she could hand him this problem instead of dealing with it herself. But it’s too serious to wait, she can’t let the event get any farther away in time before there are consequences, or she thinks Emma won’t learn this lesson.
Plus, she is literally vibrating with rage and after-the-fact fear, and it needs an outlet, and the culprit is right in front of her. Even if those feelings are warring with her overwhelming gratitude that she can yell at Emma about this, because Emma is safe, even if she made a bad decision.
When Holly confronts her after school, Emma at least has the decency not to deny it, though she does roll her eyes dramatically. Holly makes a mental note to roll her eyes around Emma a little less. Be a better role model.
“Holly, he’d had like three beers, and it was fine. No one died or anything.” Her tone is a mix of petulant and dismissive and Holly feels her temper rising, knows she needs to keep this interaction brief if at all possible.
She forces her voice low and even. “It’s not fine. It’s completely unacceptable, Emma. I can’t believe that you made such a stupid, reckless choice. We’re going to talk about what you were thinking later. And you’re grounded. For at least two weeks, but your dad may want to add time to your sentence.”
Emma looks at her, hard, and the scorn in her eyes is enough to nearly break Holly. “You can’t do that. It’s not like you’re my mom or anything.”
Holly closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens them again.
“I know I’m not, honey. But if your father isn’t here, I’m responsible for your safety, and I take that seriously. Even though I’m not your mom.”
The words feel like they lodge in her chest as she says them, a lump encasing her heart. Her mood turns, instantly, all her anger redirected inwards now.
She isn’t Emma’s mom. Emma has a mom. Even if Emma didn’t have a mom, Holly isn’t Emma’s mom. She and Marvyn have only been together for four months and yes, it’s an unorthodox situation, she’s never moved in with a romantic partner before they started dating, let alone with a child in the mix`, but still.
And they’ve had their ups and downs. Yes, recently Emma is sullen or argumentative or silent or miserable more often than Holly has ever seen her. She feels sick to her stomach, forced to confront the idea that her relationship with Marvyn is ruining Emma’s life. She turns away and goes upstairs so she can beat herself up in peace.
Marvyn calls a little later, probably on his way home from Los Angeles, wanting to tell her about the conference and ask if he should pick anything up for dinner, but she hits ignore and returns to wallowing.
Later, she hears Marvyn come in, ask Emma where Holly is, hears Emma’s sullen “Upstairs” in response and the immediate sharpening of Marvyn’s tone when he asks, “What did you do?” and Emma’s defensive “Nothing!” Hears them talking, too low for her to make out the words, then hears Marvyn’s footsteps on the stairs.
She tries to pretend that she’s asleep on their bed at 6:30 in the evening. She feels the bed dip as he sits next to her, not indulging her fake sleep.
“What did Emma do?” Marvyn’s voice is low, concerned.
She opens her eyes. Just seeing him steadies her. “Got in a car driven by a teenager who had been drinking earlier that night.”
“What.” Marvyn’s voice is the low, dangerous tone that she hates hearing. She grabs his wrist, keeping him close to her.
“I grounded her for two weeks. And told her you might want to add some time to that, so feel free.” Marvyn runs a hand through his hair.
“Yeah, she’s looking at a month, minimum. And a serious conversation that will involve some threats.”
He pauses. She can see it on his face when he switches from furious parent to supportive partner.
“But what else? Why are you hiding up here while she sulks downstairs? She should be sulking in her room while you silently fume and pace downstairs.” Holly hates how well he knows her, sometimes. Like, a lot.
“Nothing.” Holly’s self-loathing isn’t Emma’s fault, and she won’t blame it on her.
“Holly.”
“It’s okay, Marvyn, really.”
“I think if it were okay, you wouldn’t be hiding,” he observes.
She has to stifle her laugh at that.
He shifts a little closer to her, covers her hand on his wrist with his own.
She tries to deflect, to give him the slightly lessor concern, because it is still a concern. “I’m worried about how unhappy she’s seemed lately, particularly with me. And that it doesn’t seem to be getting better.”
Marvyn’s eyes on her are serious. “Me too. What else?”
Holly sighs and hates how well he knows her. How he sees through her effortlessly.
“She was angry that I punished her, earlier. She reminded me that I wasn’t her mom. And I know I’m not, I know that, but – “
“It hurts,” Marvyn interjects.
“Yeah.”
“I know.” He sounds very sure that he knows how she’s feeling.
Holly instantly feels sick, remembering the first conflict she ever saw between him and Emma, when Emma first came to live with him, when she accused him of being a dad only when it was convenient for him.
She sits up and tries to swallow the lump in her chest that Emma’s casual dismissal created earlier and backtracks, wrapping her arms around Marvyn.
“Babe, I’m sorry, it’s nothing. It’s fine. Truly.”
Marvyn scoffs, but his hands are soft as they stroke a calming pattern up and down her back.
“It’s not, sweetheart, but it will be, I promise. And I’ll talk to her about the way she’s been treating you. I’m sorry that I haven’t before now. I thought it would fade on its own, but it’s way past time to hash it out.”
He pulls back a little, so she can see his face. His eyes are twinkling, his mouth doing the thing where he’s trying really hard not to grin. Holly hates how much she loves his stupid face. At least he isn’t biting his lip. He knows what that does to her.
“Though you do realize that if she’s grounded for a month, it’s a month of us cooped up here with her and all of her sullen teenaged energy?”
She laughs. “We can go out. And put an alarm on the door or install a nanny cam or something, so we know she’s still here.”
“See, this is why you’re the brains of the operation.”
“Damn straight.”
Marvyn leaves her with a kiss to her forehead and then one on her mouth. She can hear him talking to Emma downstairs, can hear how serious his voice is, though he doesn’t raise it. She thinks she can tell when he switches from reading Emma the riot act about Saturday night to talking about how she’s been treating Holly, because he gets even quieter. Maybe even more serious.
He eventually comes back up and coaxes Holly downstairs, hands her a glass of wine and forces her to sit down on the couch.
“I’m going to go pick something up for dinner. Emma?”
As the front door closes behind him, Emma sits down on the extreme other end of the couch and doesn’t look at Holly.
“I’m really sorry.” Holly reflects that while Marvyn and Emma are so alike in so many ways, the Korn ability to sincerely apologize when it’s called for is maybe the best trait that they share.
“I shouldn’t have let Billy drive me home, I knew it was dumb while I was doing it, even though it was fine. I knew it was a terrible choice to make and I promise that I won’t do it again. And I’m sorry for getting angry when you pointed that out.”
Holly catches Emma sneaking a glance at her.
“And I’ve been treating you terribly and I’m sorry for that, too, it’s just – “
She stutters to a halt.
Holly is patient, lets her find her words. After a moment, Emma continues.
“I don’t know! I’m still angry that you guys kept your relationship from me for so long. It feels so unfair. And I think a little part of me felt like it was safer to take that out on you, instead of my dad.”
Holly flinches at that, taken aback.
“What?”
Emma finally looks at her full on. “Because I know you’re not going anywhere. Not that he is either, I know that too. But he could send me to live with my mom if he wanted. And you wouldn’t.”
Holly gapes at her.
“And that’s no excuse!” Emma rushes to say, clearly still feeling guilty.
Holly suspects Emma is misunderstanding her stunned expression, but she’s too busy trying to process this news to set her straight.
From “you’re not my mom” to “it’s safer to be mean to you because I know you won’t leave me,” Emma certainly also has her dad’s gift for keeping Holly off-balance.
“Come here, honey,” she says, shifting so she can reach and pulling Emma out of her perch on the edge of the sofa, wrapping her arms around her.
That’s how Marvyn finds them when he gets home with dinner.
Later that night, curled up together in bed, Marvyn twists a lock of her hair between his thumb and index finger. Holly gets the sense he’s trying to work out how to say something, so she stays quiet, relishes the warmth of him next to her, the beat of his heart against her.
“I really am sorry, you know. That I let Emma treat you the way she has been. I think part of me is used to fighting with her, but that doesn’t mean you should have to get used to it, too.”
“It’s okay.” She says it easily because it is.
“How do you do that?” He sounds baffled.
“Do what?”
“Forgive us Korns all of our sins?”
“Well, for a start, it’s unsurprising that she would be frustrating and annoying at times, Marvyn. She is your daughter, after all.” She can feel his laugh in his chest before she hears it.
“I love you.” He says it on the tail of his laugh, almost like it slips out without thought and then freezes against her
They haven’t said that yet, and maybe it’s technically early in the relationship, but Holly has known how she feels about Marvyn practically since they got together.
“I love you, too,” she says.
Marvyn relaxes, drops her hair to tug her closer. Holly goes willingly.
Things get easier after that. And Emma takes her month of being grounded with relatively good grace, watching movies with them on weekends, running errands with her dad or Holly, even occasionally eating dinner with them without any texting.
Holly thinks the three of them are going to be okay.
Winter 2023
Holly knows she and Marvyn tend to wind each other up. But for all that they fight, there is rarely any real heat to it, it’s often just frustrations finally boiling over, the fact that they both enjoy needling each other.
The worst one she can remember is the fight after she went to Hollywood to get Emma the night of prom last year. The fight that terrified her at the time because she really believed him when he announced that he and Emma would be moving out. That was the worst one.
Until today.
Even though she can remember how it started, with Marvyn angry (irrationally, in her opinion, which didn’t help his mood) at her for encouraging Emma to apply to colleges all over the country, to not limit herself to California schools, where she would be within driving distance of home, she truly doesn’t understand how it escalated so much and so quickly, growing to encompass a whole host of other complaints, both his and hers.
They scream at each other for a while after dinner, getting nowhere in their respective certainties that they are each right, until the fighting spirit collectively drains out of them both and they just stand there, glaring at each other, with arms crossed (Holly) or hands trying to pull hair out of heads (Marvyn).
And then Marvyn stalks downstairs, declaring on his way out the door that he’ll sleep on the couch, and won’t that be a nice bit of nostalgia, before slamming the bedroom door behind him.
Holly sinks onto the bed and puts her face in her hands. She sits like that for a while. She does some breathing exercises that fail to have any noticeable effect.
A tap at the door surprises her. There’s no way Marvyn has cooled off so quickly or that he would knock before entering their bedroom, even if they are fighting.
The door opens to Emma’s tear-streaked face and Holly’s heart breaks for maybe the third time that hour.
And she knows she’s being unfair, but she would just really appreciate it if Korns could stop breaking her heart for five minutes.
Even so, she beckons Emma into the bedroom and pats the bed next to her. Emma rushes over, reminding Holly how young seventeen really is, despite all the teenage bravado and posturing. Emma wraps her arms around her, and Holly presses a kiss to the top of her head.
“What’s wrong, love?”
“Are you and Dad breaking up?”
Holly thinks her full-body flinch was probably noticeable, since Emma is pressed along her side, arms tight around her neck.
“No, honey, of course not. It was just a fight. Your dad and I will sort it out, later tonight or in the morning, and everything will be back to normal by dinner.” And she isn’t lying, wouldn’t lie to Emma about something that serious, but saying it out loud makes the truth of it settle inside her a little bit, too.
For all that she and Marvyn bicker, for all that it sometimes escalates, the idea that they would ever let an argument, or even a series of arguments, come between them permanently is practically laughable.
Not that she thinks Emma should know that, could know that the way Holly does in her bones. Not that she’s laughing now, with Emma trembling and upset in her arms, with Marvyn downstairs, still angry, probably storming around rearranging things in the living room and kitchen, the way he does when he’s agitated.
She really hopes he hasn’t dug the remaining arm of his Wisconsin statue out of the garage to polish, since that’s DefCon 1 in Marvyn Korn-land. (DefCon 2: Marvyn cuts his bonsai until there is no more bonsai left to cut. And then Holly goes out and buys him another bonsai to mutilate when he’s upset. It’s a whole system. It works for them. She would feel sorry for the bonsai if they deserved sympathy at all.)
“It just, it sounded really bad. Like how he and Mom used to fight before they told me they were getting divorced.”
Holly pulls Emma closer, closes her eyes and wills herself to find the right words. “I’m sorry that we scared you. We didn’t mean to. Sometimes I think we can’t stop ourselves from arguing. But we can rein it in. Or at least try. Although, actually, no, I make no promises for your father.”
Emma laughs at that.
Eventually, Emma pulls back, eyes finally dry of tears. She smiles a weak smile at Holly.
Holly tilts her head and smooths a hand down Emma’s hair, trying to lighten the mood a little and shoots her a wink. “Actually, you should probably worry if your dad and I aren’t arguing. That’s the real red flag.”
“Not funny,” Marvyn says dryly from the doorway, as he walks back into the bedroom.
“A little funny,” she counters, shifting and tugging Emma along with her to give him room to join them on the bed. He sits next to Emma, puts his arm around her back alongside Holly’s and with his other hand reaches around her front to clasp Holly’s elbow, thumb stroking the skin there. His eyes meet hers with an apology in them.
“A little funny,” Emma agrees, smiling, safely cocooned in the circle of their embrace.
Spring 2023
Emma tries to make Holly swear on pain of death that her birthday dinner this year is just that, dinner. That Marvyn isn’t somehow being inaugurated into some something or other at the Shot Clock that evening, that it will just be the three of them celebrating her eighteenth birthday with wings and nachos.
Holly can’t blame her for wanting some kind of guarantee, given Marvyn’s track record. But, having helped plan the surprise party scheduled to take place at the Shot Clock in a few hours, she’s torn. Even though she is also confident that Marvyn is not planning any him-centric surprises (she had threatened him on pain of death earlier that month on the subject).
And she’s a little shocked that Samantha or one of the other girls hasn’t already spilled the beans. They are usually way, way worse at secrets. Though on the balance, she appreciates how bad they are at keeping secrets. It makes it much easier to keep tabs on them.
So, although there is a surprise element to the evening, Holly is confident that this year won’t repeat the mistakes of last year. Emma already warned her about the meatloaf, so Holly could avert a repeat of that … experience, if she needed to.
And the warning was necessary, because a few days ago she caught Marvyn writing a grocery list that included three pounds of ground beef and three pounds of ground pork and an onion and breadcrumbs and told him ‘Absolutely not’ in the tone of voice she knows he simultaneously respects and finds sexy and proceeded to distract him from making Emma a birthday meatloaf that no one wants.
(Even before they started dating, Holly used to complain to her therapist about what a lunatic Marvyn Korn was. She only stopped when she realized how unconvincing she was. Mostly because her therapist repeatedly told her how unconvincing she was, how much her overwhelming affection for the man shone through her every anecdote.
Holly hates him so much sometimes. It is so like him to get her called out in therapy without even trying. She still stands by her assessment that he is a lunatic. She has just finally resigned herself to the fact that she loves a lunatic.)
Holly tries to find a middle ground, to reassure Emma without outright lying to her. “It will not be a repeat of La Jolla Adventure Park, I can promise you that. Your dad is not being inducted into anything or celebrated or recognized in any way.”
Emma’s eyes narrow on her.
Holly raises both hands and says, “It’s going to be a lovely evening, Emma, I promise.” And then she runs away, before she spoils the surprise.
It is a lovely evening.
They do have nachos and wings, just lots more of them than perhaps anticipated, and the girls are all there, with Louise making a surprise guest appearance.
The girls toast with Coca-Cola to Emma becoming an adult, and Holly and Marvyn and Sherilyn join in with their actual adult beverages.
They all eat cake and Holly takes what feels like hundreds of photos commemorating the event, constantly struck by the happiness on Emma’s face, as she sits surrounded by her friends.
When they arrive home after the party, Emma announces that it was the best birthday she’s ever had in California, even if only because there was no six-pound meatloaf at four o’clock in the morning, and nods at her. “And I know who I have to thank for that.”
“What are you talking about, that meatloaf last year was great!” Marvyn sounds so outraged and defensive that Holly can’t help her bark of laughter.
“And no Marvyn Korn-beef sandwiches probably didn’t hurt either,” Holly adds.
“Yeah, it was a pretty low bar to clear, to be fair,” Emma says, thoughtfully.
“Well, at least no one got inducted into anything. That’s the main thing to be thankful for.”
Marvyn turns aggrieved eyes on Holly while Emma laughs. “What is happening right now?”
Holly shrugs. “It’s not my fault teasing you is so easy.”
“I mean, it really is easy, Dad.” Holly reaches over to fist bump Emma. Marvyn sits on the couch and puts his head in his hands.
Emma and Holly just continue laughing at him.
Marvyn shakes his head, still buried in his hands, then looks up at them. “I guess I should be grateful that it took this long for you two to gang up on me.”
Holly nods, winks at Emma and says solemnly, “You really, really should be.”
Summer 2023
Holly and Marvyn have been stretched out on their blanket at the beach for probably too long without reapplying sunscreen when Emma storms up to them – as much as it’s possible to storm on sand – insisting that they “Stop it!”
“Stop what, honey?” Marvyn asks, looking up at her, his face a picture of innocence. Holly buries her face in his shoulder so Emma can’t see her laughing, but figures that her own shoulders shaking is probably giving her away.
“Embarrassing me! I have like 100 texts with pictures of the two of you cuddling or making out or walking hand in hand from the last hour alone.”
“It’s a public beach,” Marvyn says mildly. Holly sinks her teeth into his shoulder gently, in a non-verbal attempt to get him to stop teasing his daughter.
Emma makes a frustrated noise and circles the blanket so she’s next to Holly, before dropping down and leaning against Holly’s back. She holds out her phone and Holly turns, blinks up at it, squinting against the sun. Emma isn’t lying, there are tons of pictures of her and Marvyn from this afternoon, enjoying their day at the beach, in a thread that includes all the Sirens and what looks like most of her Bloodhounds. And quite a large number of the photos are of them kissing. None of the captions are crude, which she appreciates, but most incorporate some version of “Mom and Dad,” which probably hasn’t improved Emma’s temper.
“Yeah, but you knew we were all here. You literally drove some of us here. Holly, back me up.”
Holly smiles and hands Emma her phone, reaching over her to grab the sunscreen from her bag. She passes it to Marvyn. “Put this on your face and then my back, please.”
“Yes, dear.” He immediately takes it and does as instructed.
Emma laughs.
“You guys realize you are so codependent that it’s sickening, right? Like, you get that?”
Holly glances at Marvyn and then they both turn to look at Emma in perfect unison – which Holly knows Emma thinks is creepy, which is why she loves doing it – and roll their eyes at the same time.
Emma flinches automatically but then rolls her eyes back at them. “Fine, sorry for stating the obvious.”
Holly smirks.
“Tell the girls and my boys that if they don’t stop sending you photos of us, your dad will call up every one of their soon-to-be college coaches and request that they run an extra mile every day of practice for the entire season next year. You know he has favors left he can collect. And tell the ones who aren’t playing college basketball in the fall that we have other ways of creating consequences that they won’t enjoy. And AirDrop those photos to me when we get home, please.”
Emma rolls her eyes again but smacks a kiss on Holly’s forehead and stands, returning to the group of recent Westbrook and Belford graduates Holly and Marvyn brought along to the beach today, who are all now studiously looking anywhere but at the space their former coaches currently occupy.
When Emma rejoins the group, which immediately turns again to stare at where Holly and Marvyn are, Holly waves, making deliberate eye contact with Ava, Destiny, Samantha, and each of her Bloodhounds specifically, threat clearly conveyed, she hopes.
“Finally, some peace from all these teenagers,” Marvyn grumbles, his hands carefully smoothing sunscreen along her neck and back.
“Oh, they are still out there,” Holly says, resigned. At least she’ll get some cute photos out of it.
Summer 2023
Marvyn originally mentioned the news that Caren was moving back to Italy to continue her consulting position early in Emma’s senior year at Westbrook in passing, soon after Emma returned from her summer in Wisconsin. Emma was similarly casual about it whenever it came up in conversation over the year. Holly doesn’t think she’s thought about it in months.
Later, she will be angry at herself when she realizes how long it has been since she thought to ask Emma when she last spoke to her mom.
But at the time, she’s completely baffled by Emma’s response a few weeks into the summer after her senior year, when Marvyn mentions that Caren will be in town the following week for a work event and is coming over for dinner.
“I don’t want to see her,” Emma says immediately, voice flat. She isn’t making eye-contact with either of them.
Holly’s eyes flick to Marvyn’s, sees her own confusion mirrored there.
“Emma, she’s your mom, she’s going to be in town. You haven’t seen her since last summer, why wouldn’t you want to see her?” Marvyn sounds genuinely baffled. He and Holly exchange another glance.
Emma drops her fork onto her plate with a clang, grabs her phone and leaves the table without asking to be excused.
They finish dinner, giving her some time to cool off, and then Marvyn goes up to talk to her while Holly does the dishes.
When he comes back down, he explains that Emma and her mom haven’t talked in over a month, that Caren hasn’t been answering calls or texts, and Emma is hurt. Holly thinks that’s not an unreasonable reaction.
She feels her heart clenching in her chest. Rationally, she knows this has nothing to do with her, that there’s probably not anything she could have done to fix the situation, but she still feels guilty.
***
Dinner with Caren Korn is, in a word, awkward. Holly knows she’s not helping by being somehow both weirdly stiff and overly friendly, but she can’t really help herself. If there’s a Miss Manners for ‘how to interact with your boyfriend’s ex-wife who you’ve never met and who lives abroad and wants to see her child who has lived with you for almost 18 months,’ she hasn’t seen it.
If it existed, she hopes Sherilyn would have sent it to her by now, since she spent most of this week’s Taco Tuesday spiraling about this dinner.
Emma is positively radiating tension and Marvyn is trying to smooth over both her and Holly’s unsettling behavior by being so agreeable and cheerful that Holly is mildly tempted to break her ‘friendly Holly meeting Marvyn’s ex-wife/Emma’s mom for the first time” façade to laugh at him for ten minutes straight.
But she thinks if she does that, she’ll need to go breathe into a paper bag for a while afterwards to resettle her nerves, so she just keeps her brittle smile on her face and tries not to vibrate out of her skin, while the four of them eat pizza and the three adults drink two and a half bottles of red wine and Emma looks increasingly miserable.
“Are you so excited to move to New York soon, sweetie?” This is maybe Caren’s fifth attempt to draw Emma into the conversation. Holly suspects it will go as well as the previous four attempts did.
“Like you care!”
“Of course I do.”
“Yeah right. When I asked you to help me decide between Georgetown and NYU, you didn’t even respond!”
“I’m sorry sweetie, it was my busiest season at work. I didn’t have time for anything but that.”
“If that was your busiest time of year, then what’s your excuse for why you didn’t come to my graduation?”
“Honey, I told you that I was sorry, and that the timing was terrible. I had a huge project due the following week and I just couldn’t make it work.”
“Emma, you’re being too hard on your mother. Southern Italy to Southern California is a really long trip. And sometimes adults have commitments that can’t be rescheduled, even if they want to.” Marvyn’s voice is placating but Holly catches a hint of patronizing in his tone and hopes Emma doesn’t.
“She took that same trip for work this week,” Emma says, voice flat.
“With a four day stop in New York to break it up,” Caren corrects, defensive.
Emma’s eyes narrow and Holly slumps a little in her chair, pretty sure they are in for a rant. One she thinks Marvyn and Caren might deserve, a tiny bit. She doesn’t want to be on Emma’s side when that means she’s not on Marvyn’s side, but sometimes she can’t help herself.
“I’m really sorry I wasn’t there, sweetie. I wanted to be.”
“Well, Holly was there, so I guess who needs you, Mom?” Emma’s eyes on her mother are somehow hurt, challenging, and enraged all at the same time. Holly would be impressed if she weren’t so busy wishing she could spontaneously invent teleportation to get out of this conversation.
“Emma don’t take this out on your mother –” Marvyn begins to say, just as Holly tries to defuse the situation as well.
“No, it’s not – ” Holly doesn’t know how this evening could end up any worse than if Caren leaves with the impression that Holly is deliberately trying to replace her in Emma’s life, or worse, push her out of it.
Emma turns her baleful glare on her father. “And stop acting like you’re the good guy here either, Dad.”
“Hey, why am I in trouble?” Marvyn protests. Holly sees Emma’s eyes flash and sighs. She has no idea why Emma might think her dad is to blame for any of this situation, but that doesn’t mean Emma doesn’t have a valid reason. Or at least one that feels valid to her.
Emma stands up from the table, directs very pointed, angry glares at both of her parents, wheels, and stomps up the stairs.
As she goes, Holly takes Marvyn’s hand without looking at him, an instinctive gesture. It’s only when she sees Caren’s eyes glance at their clasped hands that she flinches and looks down. Then she takes a minute to remind herself that she and Marvyn have been together for over a year and he and Caren have been divorced for almost five. She should not feel threatened by this woman.
The adults are silent after Emma is gone, not exchanging glances again until they hear her bedroom door slam.
When Holly looks at them, Marvyn is looking at her and Caren is looking down. She meets his eyes and flicks hers at the stairs, silently asking if she should go after Emma.
He nods and Holly follows Emma upstairs, feeling only a little guilty about leaving him alone with his ex-wife in their kitchen.
When she opens the door, Emma is curled in a tight ball on her bed. She startles violently when Holly touches her shoulder but relaxes when she sees that it’s only Holly.
Holly sits down next to her on the bed, running her hand up and down Emma’s arm. They sit like that silently for a few minutes before Holly asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I just. She’s never here. We never talk.” Emma’s voice breaks on ‘never’ and Holly’s heart breaks simultaneously. “It’s not fair.”
“I know, honey, come here.” She pulls Emma into her arms, leans them both up against the headboard.
“At least with my dad, before I lived with him, eventually we talked almost every day. But Mom’s so busy with work and the time difference makes it so hard.” She trails off, clutching Holly tighter.
Holly continues stroking Emma’s arm and idly wonders who she can sell her soul to, to ensure that there are never tears on this child’s face again. Her heart can’t take it.
Emma is hiccupping now, her tears soaking into Holly’s shirt. Holly hates Caren Korn and feels tremendously sorry for her at the same time, for losing this time with Emma, for choosing anything over Emma.
When Emma eventually calms, Holly says, voice as even and calm as she can force it to be, though she can tell it’s rougher than usual, “We can figure this out, honey. Your dad and I will work out a plan with your mom for how you can see each other more. And when you’re in New York, the time difference won’t be as extreme. That will help. It’s going to be okay; I promise.”
She feels Emma nodding her head against her shoulder.
***
When Holly returns downstairs, she’s surprised to see Caren sitting alone on the couch, kitchen table cleared and no Marvyn.
“Is Marvyn…?” She asks, trailing off, feeling incredibly awkward, hovering around this stranger who was once married to the man Holly loves, who is Emma’s mother, who has every right and also no right to be here, in their home.
“Upstairs,” Caren replies, not looking at Holly. “I was hoping we could talk.”
“Okay.” Holly feels faint, absently wonders how difficult it would be for Sherilyn to concoct a believable 9:00 PM school emergency on a Wednesday night during the summer break and how she can activate that emergency protocol when she can’t even remember where her phone is.
She sits on the arm of the sofa and braces herself.
“Is Emma okay?”
“I think so. She was much calmer when I left her.”
Caren exhales a long breath and ducks her chin and Holly is stunned at how much she resembles Emma in that gesture.
“I just – when she first moved out here, I worried so endlessly, but it all was fine, was great, even. She seemed so happy to be reconnecting with Marvyn and then I moved back to Italy, and it was too easy to get out of sync.”
“And since things seemed to be going well here, it was easier to tell myself that she didn’t need to rearrange her schedule to talk to me at odd hours of the day, or that I should wake her with texts just because it was noon in Italy. But that seems to have been the wrong choice.”
Holly takes a breath and deeply hopes she doesn’t eventually regret what she’s about to say. Deeply hopes she isn’t again overstepping her role in Emma’s life, with Emma’s other actual parent, because it almost wrecked her the first time she did, with the first of Emma’s actual parents that she knew.
“It’s going to be okay. This is a moment in time that will pass. You did a really great job raising her, Caren, for sixteen years. It’s obvious. She’s a wonderful kid. She’s smart and funny and empathetic. She works hard. She knows right from wrong. And when she makes mistakes, she acknowledges it and apologizes. She’s funny and smart and a joy to be around.”
Holly’s mind flashes back to Emma singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in Westbrook’s gym to calm a single little girl during an emergency and ending up calming a crowd. “And she always helps when she can. And is endlessly generous.”
She shakes her head then, smiling, thinking of some other experiences from around that time. “And is a whiny brat sometimes, but she’s eighteen, so we let her off the hook, mostly.”
Caren laughs at that, even if it is a little shaky. Holly is again struck by her resemblance to Emma.
Holly feels herself start to tremble as she continues to speak and hopes it isn’t noticeable.
“And she needs you in her life. Marvyn and I can help to figure out what that looks like, going forward. But I hope you realize that Marvyn is a really great dad. He supports Emma no matter what. She is far and away the most important thing in the world to him and she knows it. She needs you, of course she does, but she’s not out here alone.”
Holly feels a brief pang of hurt in her chest for Louise and hopes it doesn’t show on her face.
Caren looks at her then, eyes considering. “You know, I’m amazed at how different he is here. I hardly recognize him. He seems so much more grounded, settled. Less obsessively focused only on winning basketball games, more of an actual person who doesn’t only live for one thing.”
Holly nods, even though she never knew the pre-Westbrook Marvyn Korn. She’s seen enough sports news coverage of him to know she wouldn’t have really wanted to know him then, much as she admired his success as a coach. She’s definitely seen enough to know how different the man she wakes up next to every day is from the Marvyn Korn that Caren was married to.
Holly smiles. “It’s having Emma here. She keeps him on the straight and narrow. We’ll be in trouble soon when she goes off to college.”
Caren eyes her. “I’m sure Emma is a big part of it. But I think it’s you, too. You balance him.”
For the first time that night, Holly takes a second to really contemplate that Caren was married to Marvyn for fourteen years, and almost certainly knows him better than Holly herself does. Even if Holly knows this version better, Caren has a legitimate claim on any observations about Marvyn that she wants to make.
Holly flushes. “Well, you haven’t seen us have a screaming argument, so – “
Caren cuts her off. “Marvyn has never met a screaming argument that he didn’t enjoy. But I stand by my point.”
Holly doesn’t know what to say to that, and she feels wrung out like a dishrag by the emotional rollercoaster of the evening, so instead of responding, she invites Caren to come over to breakfast in the morning, by which point Emma will have cooled off and Caren agrees, looking grateful for the invitation.
Holly walks her out and is surprised but pleased when Caren hugs her at the door, easily affectionate in the way that Holly has become used to from Emma.
“Thank you,” Caren says, voice muffled against her. “For being here for her when I couldn’t be. For everything you do for her, for them.”
Holly gently pulls away so she can look Caren in the eye, so Caren can see how serious she is. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them.”
She closes the door behind Caren and breathes in for what feels like the first time in hours, taking a minute, leaning with her back against the front door, before she goes upstairs.
“I love you,” Marvyn says, when she gets to the top of the stairs, where he has clearly been shamelessly eavesdropping on her conversation with his ex-wife about their daughter.
She isn’t even a little bit surprised, lets him tug her into his arms, exhausted, feels him drop a kiss in her hair.
“I love you, too.” She lets the warmth of his body seep into her.
“Thank you. I don’t deserve you.” His arms are tight around her, grounding her.
She smiles against his shoulder. “Never have, Korn, never will.”
Winter 2024
Holly walks downstairs to the sound of Marvyn and Emma arguing about Emma’s attendance at that night’s Sirens/Bloodhounds game.
“But you’ll have so much fun! You love watching basketball. And you still know basically the whole team. Mouse and Kate will be thrilled to see you. And you can sit with Sherilyn while Holly and I coach.”
Emma rolls her eyes at her father and acknowledges Holly with a nod as she walks into the kitchen.
“I just want to go to the beach with the girls. You guys get that there are no beaches in New York City, right? That I have to get all of my beach-related time during this two-week break? That is ending very soon? Not to mention my time with my friends, none of whom go to school within 1,000 miles of me anymore?”
“So, bring ‘em.” Marvyn’s voice cuts in.
“What?”
“Tell Louise, Destiny, Samantha and Ava that Coach Korn said they had to be at the game tonight, and then you can all go to the beach tomorrow for as long as you want.”
He pauses, then takes out his phone. “Actually, you know what, I’ve still got their numbers, I’ll tell them myself. An alumni reunion at the annual January Sirens-Bloodhound charity game is now required in perpetuity.”
Holly wraps her arm around his waist and peers over his shoulder at his phone, smiling. “I’ll text Nick and the rest of the boys who are home from college for winter break and tell them that it’s a mandatory reunion former Bloodhounds, too.”
Marvyn hits send on the text and grins at her. “And that is how you build a dynasty. A multi-school dynasty, even. Maybe it doesn’t take forever. Watch out, La Jolla. Actually, watch out all of Southern California.”
She grins back at him, stretches up to drop a chaste kiss on his lips.
“What?” Emma is clearly baffled. Marvyn refocuses. Clears his throat.
“That’s how you earn beach time, daughter.”
“Fine. As long as you guys don’t kiss on the court right after the game again. Once was more than enough.”
“I make no promises,” Holly says, just as Marvyn says, “Oh, we’re definitely kissing on the court after the game.”
Emma groans.
Holly and Marvyn high-five.
After the game ends, Holly is glad she didn’t make any promises.
Winter 2029
They’re eating breakfast on a Thursday when Emma calls, which is not unheard of but not the usual routine, especially because Holly is pretty sure she has a standing Thursday morning meeting with her thesis adviser right now, given the time difference.
And normally Emma talks to her dad on Monday afternoons as she walks home from her composition class and to Holly on Friday at lunch, after she finishes teaching her freshman writing seminar, often so she can get Holly to commiserate about teaching and also so Holly can continue to validate her decision to get a PhD.
Holly answers immediately. “Hi Love, what’s up? You’re on speaker.”
“So, I don’t want you to worry – hi, Dad –”
“Hi Honey.”
“But there was a little incident, and I’m fine, I’m totally fine, they think the cast can come off in three to six weeks, and they let me leave the hospital this morning – “
Holly can’t hear the rest of Emma’s explanation because the ringing in her ears is drowning everything else out.
She finally comes back to herself with Marvyn’s arms around her, realizes he’s standing up and she’s clinging to him like a koala, that even without his arms holding her, she’d be attached to him like a barnacle.
Marvyn is whispering in her ear, over and over, “It’s okay, sweetheart. She’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Holly hates herself that it’s his child who is hurt and he has to comfort her, but she can’t bring herself to unwrap her arms from around his neck or her legs from around his waist because her heart is still pounding so loudly it blocks everything out but his voice in her ear, and because matching her breathing with his is the only thing keeping her breathing at all.
It isn’t until hours later, when they are seated on the plane to La Guardia, waiting to take off, that Holly can force the question out past the lump in her throat.
“Is it always this terrifying?” She can’t bring herself to elaborate, trusts the fact that they have developed a little bit of telepathy in the years they’ve been together.
“What, when your kid is hurt and there’s nothing you can do?”
She doesn’t think she can open her mouth again without starting to sob, so she just nods.
Marvyn puts his arm around her. “Yeah. It always is.”
***
“I told you, you didn’t both have to come.” Emma’s tone is reproachful, but her expression belies it, shows how happy she is to see them. Even if she is looking pale and worn out, Holly notes.
Holly has no memory of that part of the conversation from earlier that day, but then again, that’s not really a surprise.
Marvyn grabs Emma and holds her close. “Yeah, we did.”
“But it’s the middle of the season, what are your teams going to do without their coaches? Won’t they miss at least one game if you’re both staying until Tuesday?”
Marvyn smiles at her and then at Holly. “We’ve each got assistant coaches. It’ll be fine, honey. There are more important things than basketball. Holly taught me that a long time ago.”
***
They’ve been in New York for a few hours, helping Emma situate herself in her apartment, rearranging things to make it a little easier to manage with one arm while she waits for the cast to come off her broken wrist, when Holly overhears them in the living room as she’s returning from the bathroom.
“Is something going on with Holly? She seems really quiet.”
She hears Marvyn sigh. She freezes in the hallway and closes her eyes.
“Your accident scared her, honey, that’s all. It scared both of us. But you know how much Holly – “
“Worries,” Emma finishes his sentence and Holly flushes, wishes she could erase every memory Emma has of her being overprotective, or overstepping, or worrying about her when she didn’t need to.
“Loves you,” Marvyn corrects, voice gentle.
***
Marvyn doesn’t quite have to wrestle her into the cab to the airport for their flight home on Tuesday, but it’s a near thing.
It’s only on Emma’s third assurance that she will be fine, that she has friends who live nearby who can help her if she needs it, that her new-ish but not that new boyfriend, Jack, has been desperate to come over and check on her for the past few days, but hasn’t wanted to intrude on her time with her Dad and Holly, that Holly can bear it.
Even then she cries the whole way to the airport. Marvyn wraps one arm around her and holds her hand and Holly doesn’t think she has ever loved two people more in her life.
Spring 2033
Emma and Jack are barely in the front door before Marvyn pounces. Holly has only just had time to release Emma from a long hug and give Jack one of his own before Marvyn is laying out a schedule.
“Okay, so the Sirens play tonight at 7:00, and the Bloodhounds are tomorrow night at 7:30. Holly can drive you over tonight before the game and we’ll go together tomorrow to watch the boys.”
Emma groans, dropping her suitcase. “Do we really have to watch high school basketball two days in a row during this very brief trip? I wanted to show Jack more of San Diego than high school gyms and the UCSD campus. And we want to go to the beach tonight.”
“This is how you earn your beach time, daughter, you know that.” Marvyn looks at Holly, obviously expecting her to back him up.
“Dad, I’m twenty-eight years old. I’m getting married in the fall. In a few months, I’ll have a doctoral degree.” Emma rolls her eyes with what looks like her entire body and Holly recognizes herself in the gesture so much that she has to turn away, smiling, as tears prick her eyes.
“And” Emma continues, voice smug. “We rented a car. You don’t get to decide if I can go to the beach anymore.”
The trio moves into the living room, Marvyn and Emma still squabbling.
Holly stands off to the side, silently shaking with laughter at the affronted look on Marvyn’s face when he realizes Emma is right.
He switches the angle of his attack.
“Well in that case, maybe while you and Jack are here, you should take a trip up to Hollywood?” He smirks at Emma, daring her to respond.
Holly feels her mouth drop open at the sheer cheek.
Emma immediately takes the bait. “Dad, that was almost ten years ago, are you seriously still giving me crap about it?”
“Holly can even pick you up, if you want.” Marvyn is grinning now, very clearly pleased with his taunt.
“Seriously?”
“Marvyn!”
She and Emma stand next to each other, arms crossed, and glare at him together. Marvyn just laughs.
***
Holly manages to coax Marvyn out of his sulk about the Sirens game relatively easily, pointing out that if he lets Emma show Jack parts of La Jolla that aren’t two high schools, maybe they’ll be more likely to pick UC San Diego over Northwestern for Emma’s post-doctoral year next fall. And then, Marvyn can make her go to all the Sirens games that he wants.
“Holly, are you really trying to tell me that there is something more important in life than basketball?” He’s pouting up at her, arm around her waist as she lays on her side next to him.
“Of course not. I’m telling you that sacrificing your daughter’s attendance at one basketball game with the likely result that you can bully or bribe her to attend an entire season’s worth of basketball games later, if not more, is a good trade-off.”
“See this, this is why you’re the brains of the operation.”
“Exactly.”
Holly can’t remember the last time she fell asleep so easily, Marvyn’s arms around her, knowing that Emma is right down the hall.
And when Emma picks UC San Diego, Holly makes Marvyn take her to Montagues for steaks and souffle to celebrate.
Fall 2033
Holly is surprised when Mouse comes to find her right before the ceremony is scheduled to begin, looking lovely in her lavender bridesmaid’s gown.
“Emma wants you.” She is laser focused on Holly, barely sparing a glance for her former coach or the mother of the bride, even though they are standing in a little clump, Marvyn’s strategy for avoiding talking to Caren’s family. Holly doesn’t get it, since Caren is with them, but it does seem to be working, and by now she’s well-practiced at rolling her eyes at Marvyn and then going along with his schemes.
And she’s not sorry for a reprieve from Caren’s mother, who made a lot of loud, pointed comments in her direction at the engagement party a few months ago.
But still, Holly shoots a look at Marvyn and Caren, concerned and a little confused. “Is everything okay? Are you sure she wouldn’t rather have her mom or her dad?”
Mouse (Carolyn. She tries to remind herself to think of her as Carolyn. Twenty-seven is old enough to outgrow high school nicknames) is resolute. “She asked for you.”
Marvyn, never one to hesitate to interject, butts in. “Get in there, coach, hustle!” He elbows her and gives her a grin.
Holly allows herself a moment to be proud that she has managed not to murder Marvyn in the last decade, even though he has so often deserved it.
He continues to grin at her, unrepentant. Caren gives her a smile and a nod and Mouse (Carolyn!) is looking at her, expectant. Holly has no choice but to agree, so she follows Mouse (…Carolyn) to the room off of the hall where Emma is getting ready.
Holly’s breath catches at the sight of her, stunning in her wedding gown, sitting alone on a bench in front of the vanity, facing away from the mirror and toward the door, looking unhappy.
She steps into the room, panic starting to well up in her. “Honey, the ceremony is supposed to start soon, what’s wrong?”
Emma won’t look at her, keeps her gaze off to the side and down at the floor. “I just wanted to see you. Mom was here earlier, helping me get dressed, but I wanted you, too. That’s why I asked you to be here, last week.”
She’s twisting Holly’s grandmother’s bracelet, that Holly gave her to be her ‘something old’ around her wrist, agitated.
Holly sighs. “Love, I didn’t want to impose. You were so sweet to ask me, but it’s often a really special time for moms with their daughters. It wouldn’t have been right for me to intrude on that, to take that memory away from you and your mom.”
Emma looks up at her then and Holly is startled by how furious her expression is.
“Stop doing that. I hate when you do that.” Her tone is sharper than Holly has heard from her since she was a teenager.
Holly recoils, baffled. “Do what?”
“Underestimate your importance to me. I know I told you once that you weren’t my mom and I’m still sorry that I said it. Because it wasn’t even true then and it certainly isn’t true now.” Emma’s voice is hoarse and she’s clearly trying not to cry.
“Emma, honey, you know I forgave you for that years ago, even though there was nothing to forgive. I love you and your father more than anything in the world, but I’m not your mother.”
“You are.” Emma’s voice is surprisingly steely. Holly flinches. Then remembers that Emma is Marvyn’s daughter and is slightly less surprised at the steel.
“And yes, I have one, and I’m not trying to punish her anymore by claiming you, too, but you are my mom. And I could recite every time that you were there for me when I needed you, big or small, or every time you drove me insane with your over-protectiveness that rivals even my dad’s, but I’m not going to, because I shouldn’t have to, Holly. You were there!”
Holly would appreciate if her lungs would breathe like that was their job, but apparently, they are on strike.
Emma’s lungs seem to be working just fine though because she continues, unrelenting, on her rant.
“So, you don’t get to act like you think you’re some kind of second-class citizen today just because you didn’t meet me until I was sixteen years old. Just because you didn’t give birth to me. Not when you’ve been my mom for so long.” Emma ends this stream of words on a sharp inhale and looks away again, lips trembling.
Holly gapes at her, completely at a loss, feeling light-headed. She tries to borrow some of that Korn steel from the universe, hopes she succeeds.
“Okay,” she says as she sits next to Emma on the vanity’s bench and wraps an arm around her shoulders and feels Emma’s nearly imperceptible tremble all along her side. “Okay, honey. It’s going to be okay. I’m here. I love you and I’m so sorry that I wasn’t here earlier.”
She feels a little click inside her heart as her dad’s words from years and years ago come to her. “You look beautiful, darling. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.” She feels Emma shudder, next to her. “Don’t cry, honey, or you’ll ruin your makeup.”
Emma huffs a wet laugh and Holly hugs her tighter, utterly, staggeringly overcome with love for this child, her child, who is not and has not technically been a child for almost all of the decade that Holly has known her, but who will always be hers. Even if Holly doesn’t always allow herself to admit it.
She runs her hand down Emma’s arm and has a sense memory of doing the same thing years ago in Emma’s bedroom, when Emma was angry at Caren for abandoning her. Holly spares a second to hate herself for abandoning her today but pushes it aside.
She takes a deep breath and clasps Emma’s hand with her free one.
She flashes back to when Emma first moved to California, when Holly smugly told a newly arrived Marvyn Korn that he was terrified to be a parent and scoffed when his immediate response was that she didn’t know him. How she hadn’t even met Emma before she was calling Emma’s father out about his parenting.
Holly feels a rush of longing that she could remember Emma as an infant, recall watching her take her first steps, to have watched her go off to her first day of kindergarten and seen her in her gawky pre-teen phase. To have been there when Marvyn was coaching her too hard, to be a counterbalance. But mostly just to have been there.
She holds Emma tighter, exhales and lets those longing feelings go, and instead lets gratitude for everything that she has had rush in to fill that space.
She remembers meeting Emma, watching Emma and Marvyn get closer, the day Emma and Marvyn moved in with her, driving to Hollywood to pick Emma up when she needed rescuing, coaching Emma, watching Emma stand proudly next to her dad as all the people whose lives he impacted stood up at Westbrook’s graduation.
She remembers watching Emma’s own graduation from Westbrook, and how excited and hopeful and bereft she felt when she and Marvyn sent her off to the east coast to college. And her college graduation, and the trip to New York where Emma introduced her and Marvyn to Jack, and the day she called to tell them she and Jack were engaged. And every time Emma texted or called her to complain about wedding planning or her dissertation, and the day she called, triumphant, to recount her successful dissertation defense.
She tries to channel Marvyn, who despite being endlessly capable of putting his foot in his mouth, or saying the wrong thing, almost always offers the best apologies that she has ever heard. Infuriating man.
“It has been the privilege of my life to watch you grow into the remarkable woman that you are for the last ten years. I couldn’t be prouder of you today or on any other day and I love you more than anything. And I’m sorry that I let my own insecurities get in the way of being here for you the way you wanted. I won’t do that again.”
Emma’s hand tightens around hers and her response is almost a whisper. “Thanks, mom.”
The tears that have been threatening since Holly entered the room finally spill out of her.
Emma says, her normal teasing tone returned to her voice, though she’s still a little hoarse, “Don’t cry, Holly, you’ll ruin your makeup.”
It’s only then, hearing Emma say her name, that Holly realizes that even though Emma might not have actually called her ‘mom’ before, until just a moment ago, it’s in the subtext of the way she always says “Holly.” In the way she’s said Holly’s name since she was seventeen years old.
The realization makes her cry harder. Screw the makeup.
***
When Holly makes it back into the hall, after a hasty stop in a bathroom to do what she can to repair her tear-stained face, Marvyn is instantly worried.
“Is this a run-away bride situation? Do we need a getaway car?” He’s already scanning the room, deadly serious, ready to act if need be.
Despite the fact that the music is swelling, and the groom is at the altar, and that Holly had to skirt the flower girls to get back into their row without causing too much of a commotion and that he needs to be at the far end of the hall to walk his daughter down the aisle in roughly 90 seconds.
She puts both hands on his chest, hoping to reassure him and possibly keep him from literally running off on some wild, unnecessary tangent.
“No. Just your daughter being furious at me and also unbearably sweet.”
His eyes narrow on her, switching from serious to playful on a dime, as he so often does. Even if it’s only with her.
“My daughter? So, when she’s having a temper tantrum ten minutes before her wedding and wants you with her, she’s my daughter. I see how it is.” Now he’s smirking at her, his smug, twinkling eyes daring her to disagree with him. (It’s one of her top ten favorite Marvyn expressions. Not that that list exists. She’ll deny it till her dying day.)
Holly huffs a teary laugh. “Fine. Our daughter.”
“Took you long enough.” He is still smugly twinkling at her.
Ugh. She hates him. These Korns. Why didn’t anyone warn her about them and the multitude of ways that they would emotionally wreck her? She should make Sherilyn pay for every Margarita Monday until the end of time for bringing Marvyn and Emma into Holly’s life.
Or the reverse. For these loves of her life.
Marvyn runs a hand along her cheek, eyes soft on hers.
“Okay, I’ve gotta get back there before the wedding planner comes to yell at me about being out of position.” He kisses her quickly and makes his way towards the end of the hall, along the edge, so he can walk Emma down the aisle with Caren in a few moments.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Louise start walking down the aisle, Mouse close behind her, with Jack’s cousin and college roommate respectively, if she’s remembering right.
Then the bridal march sounds out and she stands, along with the rest of the crowd, to see Emma walking arm in arm with her parents, radiant, gaze fixed on the altar and the man she will spend the rest of her life with, Holly is certain of it.
When the trio passes the front row, Emma untangles her arm from her father’s to blow Holly a quick kiss. Holly blows one back and wonders what she could have possibly done to deserve Emma and Marvyn. Whatever it was, she’ll never stop being grateful to the universe for them.
END.