by Devney Perry
“Fuck.” I punched at the wall, then shuffled backward from the closet until my knees hit the bed and I collapsed on the edge.
I had to find out who was sending these letters and stop them.
Fast.
Six
Molly
“What’s wrong?” Randall asked me as I set down his dessert and a fresh spoon.
“Nothing,” I lied.
He frowned. “That’s my third berry crisp. You normally only let me have two before lunch.”
“Maybe I’m feeling generous today.”
“Maybe. But there’s still something bothering you.”
I leaned against the counter. “Maybe there is.”
This morning had been a roller coaster. First, I’d woken up happy because Finn had been in my bed. He’d hurried out early so the kids wouldn’t see him, like he’d done after all our nights together.
But this morning was different. He’d kissed me before he left. A long, slow kiss that stole my breath and put a dreamy smile on my face. I’d smiled while showering and dressing. I’d smiled while making the kids breakfast. I’d smiled while stopping at the mailbox.
Then I’d found the letter.
Good-bye, smile. Hello, tears.
It was a feat of sheer willpower to dry them up and hold more at bay while I drove the kids to school. If not for their extreme excitement for the last day of school, they would have noticed my red-rimmed eyes and splotchy cheeks.
It wasn’t just the words or the sudden appearance of his letter that had rocked me. It was reading the words and being thrown backward in time.
Finn had been so nervous that night. Once we’d discovered we shared a birthday, our celebrations had been spent together. Normally we planned a party with friends or a special dinner at a cool restaurant. We’d been together for two and a half years by that point so I hadn’t expected our birthday celebration to be any different.
But Finn insisted we spend the evening alone. He cooked dinner, though I suspected Poppy had a hand in it. He fully admitted she was responsible for the birthday cake.
After we ate our lasagna, he brought out the double-layer, double-chocolate creation. Instead of a heap of candles for us both to blow out, there was only one. It was white. At its base sat a diamond ring.
Finn got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I immediately said yes. He was so excited to see the ring on my finger, he slid it down, chocolate frosting and all.
We were married two months later.
We didn’t live together before the ceremony because I wanted to save the shared bathroom, the shared closet and the shared space with my husband, so our engagement was short. I still had a month left of my senior year when we married in April in a small, simple ceremony—much to my mother’s dismay. Poppy was my maid of honor. Jamie was Finn’s best man.
I moved into his apartment, spent the next month finishing school, then donned my cap and gown for graduation before we took a weekend honeymoon camping. We barely left the tent.
Those had been some of the happiest days of my life. That was why the letter made me cry. Those tears? They were grief. Grief for a life that had long since passed.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or should I guess?” Randall asked.
“Don’t guess.” I walked around the counter and took Jimmy’s empty stool. Jimmy hadn’t come to The Maysen Jar this morning because he had a summer cold. He’d been avoiding everyone for three days, convinced he was contagious.
The restaurant was empty except for two people in opposite corners who had headphones on and were working on laptops. The only one working was me. Poppy was taking a day off to get the kids enrolled in summer swimming lessons and then spend a special day with them. Rayna had opened for us but had left shortly after I’d arrived. So, I was here alone until three, when Dora was coming in for the evening shift.
If I was going to confess, now was the time.
“This stays between us,” I told Randall.
“That goes without saying.”
“I’m sleeping with Finn.” I set those words loose and a huge weight came off my shoulders. It was freeing, even though Randall wasn’t pleased. He couldn’t quite repress the tic in his jaw. “I know you don’t like him much.”
“The man’s a fool for letting you go.”
My heart. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It’s the truth. He’s a fool. And so are you.”
Okay. That wasn’t quite as nice. “There’s the Randall I know and love. I was worried you were going soft on me.”
He didn’t laugh at my joke. “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know that I am,” I admitted. “It just sort of happened and we haven’t talked about it. He’s . . . Finn. He’s the father of my children. I was in love with him for years. Those feelings didn’t simply shut off the day we signed our divorce papers. There’s history there.”
Randall dug his spoon into his berry crisp, taking a large bite. “Did I ever tell you I was divorced?”
“Uh, no.”
Randall didn’t talk much about his life, not even after sitting on that stool for nearly six years. I knew that as a younger man he’d helped build this building. He was from Bozeman and had lived here his entire life, just like me.
He had chosen to sell his home years ago and move into The Rainbow because it was easier. He claimed it was for the food and on-site cleaning crew. I think he’d been lonely—something he’d never admit.
But I’d never known he’d been married.
“I was married for twenty-one years. My wife and I never had children, so it was just the two of us. Twenty-one years, and then one day we realized we were miserable together. But I never stopped loving her.”
“Did she love you?”
“She did. I’d say she doesn’t anymore. I talk to her a couple of times a month. She moved to Arizona because she hates the snow.”
“What’s her name?”
“Mary James.”
James. She’d kept his last name. All I wanted to do was give this wonderful man a hug, but I kept my seat. I listened because there was a reason he was opening up.
“The thing about divorce is, there isn’t always one mistake. One nuclear bomb dropped on a couple that destroys their marriage. Sometimes, it creeps up on you slowly. And one day, realization hits and all you know is that you don’t want to be married anymore. Maybe a nuclear bomb would have been better than slowly burning to death. Maybe that wouldn’t make you feel like such a failure. It kills you to give up, but you know it’s the right decision. Because if you keep going, you’ll hate each other. That’s why Mary and I stopped. Because I didn’t want to hate her. I didn’t want her to hate me.”
The air left my lungs. Randall sat here nearly every day and I hadn’t known how close his story was to my own. Someone who really understood.
“I don’t know what I’m doing with Finn,” I whispered.
“If I had to guess, I’d say you two have more love than me and Mary ever did. You might even have some passion left in you. That’s all good. But you got divorced for a reason. Probably more than one. Have those reasons gone away?”
“No.” Those reasons were still there, floating under the surface. “He’s been sending me letters.” Well, someone was sending me his letters.
“What kind of letters?”
“There’s only been two, but they’re both from ages ago. The first one he wrote after our first date. The second was written the night before he proposed.”
“And they’re bringing up feelings,” he guessed.
I nodded. “I was happy. We were happy.”
“And you’re not now.”
“No, I’m happy. But it’s not the same. It doesn’t run as deep.”
Randall took another bite, chewing as slowly as humanly possible. Then he did it again. I was sure there was a point to his silence, and he’d deliver it eventually, so I sat and waited.
Finally, he spoke. “That boy was terrible to you when I first started coming here.”
“I know. But he was hurt.”
“You always defend him,” he grumbled. “The man was an asshole and you didn’t deserve that.”
No, I did deserve it. But I wasn’t going to expand on the dirty details for Randall. Finn had been acting out of pain. The cold shoulders, the blank stares. I’d earned every single one.
“He hasn’t acted like that in a long time,” I said.
“He’s still a fool.”
“Thank you.” I bumped his shoulder with mine. “I’m sorry about your wife.”
He shrugged. “It’s been a long time. And don’t go gossiping about this. I don’t need everyone putting their noses into my business. It’s ancient history.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“It’s not a secret,” he muttered. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“Got it. Not a secret. But keep my mouth shut.”
“Right.”
Randall finished his dessert while I sat by his side. When he was done, he pulled on his driving cap and picked up his cane. “I’d better get home. Check on Jimmy. The big baby thinks he’s got the damn plague instead of just a runny nose.”
“Let me send some stuff with you.” I hopped off my stool and hurried around the counter to fill a paper bag full of chicken noodle soup and some apple pies. “This is for Jimmy. You get one of these pies. He gets two. And I’m going to check that he receives them both.”
“Fine.” He scowled. Without another word, he took the bag and turned, shuffling his way to the door.
“Randall?” I called before he could leave. He paused but didn’t turn back. “Thank you.”
He lifted the cane in acknowledgement as he continued out the door.
I made a quick round of the restaurant, checking on the other two customers and making coffee for a woman who came in for a to-go order. Then I settled in at the counter, my purse beneath my feet.
Normally, I kept my purse in the office, but today I’d brought it out front because of the letter. Carefully, I fished it out to read again.
There were no tears this time. I felt more numb than sad. It was the same feeling I’d had walking into Alcott Landscaping. I hadn’t set foot there in years, not since that night. It was eerie, like returning to the scene of a crime.
But I’d had to confront Finn. I’d worked up the courage because I needed to know why he’d sent the letters. One I could ignore. But two? Impossible.
Hope was a funny thing. I’d spent six years dousing it. Stomping it out so it was well and dead. But that second letter had flared my hopes to life.
Did he think there was a chance for us again? Did he want to try?
Randall was right. I was a fool.
Finn hadn’t sent those letters. He’d hidden them away. He’d put his feelings down on paper not to share, but to live in a box or a folder or wherever the hell he’d kept them all these years.
I was mad at Finn for hiding them. More so, I was mad at myself for believing he wanted me again for more than a romp in his former bed.
I folded up the letter and tucked it away. The trash can next to my feet was tempting, but I couldn’t throw it out. In those pages, written in blue ink, was happiness. Maybe one day Kali would want to read it. Maybe Max would want to know the kinds of things his father had felt about his mother. I’d save them, for the kids. I’d put the letters in a safe place and cross my fingers that these were the only two.
If Finn wasn’t sending them, then who was putting them in my mailbox? My money was on Poppy. Maybe she thought it would bring us back together. Or Rayna. Tomorrow when we were all together, I’d ask. I’d make sure their hopes were as crushed as my own.
A customer came through the door, followed by another. The lunch rush was starting, saving me from my thoughts, and I worked with a smile, replaying Randall’s story in my head one hundred times.
He’d given me a different perspective on the divorce. Finn and I had called it quits at the right time, before our anger and frustration with one another had turned to hate.
The last six years had been good for me. I’d found the me I’d lost when I’d given everything to Finn.
I’d worked for his business. I’d lived by his schedule. I’d gone on his hikes and mowed his lawn. I hadn’t done enough for myself during our marriage. And at the time of our split, I’d been a stay-at-home mother who’d lost herself in the lives of those she loved.
Spending nights alone while Finn had the kids had given me plenty of hours to think. To reflect. And to change.
I’d worked on me over the last six years. I was a mom. A business manager. A lover of red wine. A hater of rice pilaf. I enjoyed going to movies alone, and I splurged on a pint of Häagen-Dazs cookie dough ice cream once a month. I only went places that made me happy. I stayed away from places that made me sad, like Alcott Landscaping and Finn’s home.
I put up boundaries to keep out the ugly. I embraced the beautiful.
I found the Molly without the Finn.
This time around, I was holding on to her with a death grip. She was too important to lose again.
I worked through the afternoon, and when I left the restaurant in Dora’s capable hands for the evening, I drove to get the kids with a lighter heart.
Max and Kali danced wildly, arms flailing with bright smiles as they ran to the Jeep. Not a second of silence occurred on the drive because both were so excited about their summer plans.
The moment they spotted Finn’s truck, the excitement skyrocketed.
Mine tanked. I was in a better spot than I’d been this morning, but I could still use a break from Finn. I needed a few nights to put some walls up. To steel myself for those jitters that always came with seeing his handsome face.
Damn you, jitters.
“Dad!” Max yelled from the car window. “Are we working tonight?”
“If you’re up for it.”
Max clapped his hands once, then pointed to the garage. “I’ll get my gloves.”
I took it as my command to pull in and park. The kids got out, meeting Finn at the bumper.
“Hi, Dad.” Kali smiled at him then followed Max to collect their gloves from a shelf on the garage wall.
Leaving Finn and me standing alone.
“Could you please text me or something before you come over?” That came out bitchier than I’d planned. Oh, well.
“Sorry.” Finn hung his head. “I don’t want to leave the yard a mess. I started all this. I need to finish it.”
“Fine.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “But a heads-up would be appreciated in case I have plans.”
We both knew I didn’t have plans, but I was scrambling to put him back in his place. We were divorced. Ex-husbands called before coming over. Ex-husbands didn’t share dinners. Ex-husbands didn’t sleep in the same bed as their former wives.
“Molly, we have to talk about the letters.”
“Not right now.”
The kids came running back, their smiles impossible to ignore. They loved having Finn here at night. They loved the attention from both parents.
Were we sending the wrong message? Did they think we were getting back together?
“You guys, you get a couple of hours to work with your dad, then he needs to get going.”
Finn frowned and the smiles on the kids’ faces disappeared.
“You can’t stay for dinner tonight, Dad?” Max asked.
“I, uh . . .” Finn rubbed the back of his neck, stealing a glance my way.
“No, not tonight.”
“Why?” Kali narrowed her gaze on her dad’s face. “Do you have a date or something?”
“No date. I just have some stuff to do at home.”
“What stuff?” The look on Kali’s face was one I’d seen plenty of times before. My girl was stubborn, and until Finn gave her an answer she deemed acceptable, she’d wear him down with questions. She di
dn’t do vague.
“Just stuff, Kali. So let’s get after it.” He turned and took a step but his answer hadn’t passed muster.
Kali crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring my stance. “It’s the last day of school. We’ve had, like, the best day ever. You could hang out with us and not ruin it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Let’s tone down the drama.”
She clenched her jaw and shot me a glare.
“Come on, Dad,” Max begged. “We could order pizza again.”
“It’s your mom—” He stopped himself when my eyes widened. There was no way he was pinning this on me, not when he hadn’t asked to come over in the first place. “Tell you what, guys. We need to haul that bark over in the corner, and then we can level out the ground for sod. How about you two start loading the bark into the wheelbarrow while I talk to your mom?”
Max nodded, immediately going to work. Kali kept her arms crossed over her chest as she walked across the lawn to join her brother.
“I won’t stay for dinner,” he said. “I’ll make sure the kids know it’s my choice, not yours.”
“Thank you.” I let my arms fall. “I need some space.”
“Take it. The kids and I will work out here. You can disappear inside. When we’re done, I’ll go. But, Molly.” Finn stepped closer, his fresh scent filling my nose as he dropped his voice to speak low. “Sooner rather than later, we have to talk about the letters.”
“I agree, but not tonight.”
“It’s my weekend with the kids. What if you came over one night and we talked at my place?”
Not happening. “We can talk one day at the restaurant.”
“Fine. We’ll talk at the restaurant about everything. The letters. The sex. The reason why you won’t set foot in my house.”
I winced.
“Didn’t think I noticed, did you?”
“No,” I muttered. He’d never said anything before about my aversion to crossing his threshold.
“Dad, we’re loaded,” Max yelled.
Finn sighed and locked his eyes with mine. “We’ll talk later.”
By then, I’d better have a grip on my emotions. What Finn and I needed was an adult conversation, and with the way my heart was racing and my temper spiking, there was no way anything rational would come out of my mouth.
