Loretta released William’s face and turned to lead the way back into the house. “Where’s your sister?” she asked over her shoulder.
“She and Andrew got their own rental car. She wanted to show him around the area and said she might make a stop on the way. Probably something to do with the wedding.” Andrew and Jennifer had gotten engaged over New Year and were planning an autumn wedding at the family farm.
Loretta nodded and ushered them into the kitchen. She quickly pulled a few glasses down from a cabinet and opened the fridge. “Do you like sweet tea, William?”
“He likes half and half, Mom,” Liz answered for him.
Loretta nodded and filled his glass with half sweet tea and half unsweet.
“What time does the barbecue start?” Liz asked.
“Six, but Ryan will be here a little early. Mary’s coming, too,” Tiffany answered.
“Perfect. That gives us enough time to shower and change. Where do you want us, Mom?”
“You can have the guest room. Jenny and Andrew can have Heather’s room and she can stay at your father’s, or Jenny can stay at Neal’s and Heather can keep her room, or you can all stay here and Heather can bunk in with Tiffany. I’m too busy to worry about the details. I’ll let you kids work it out.” Loretta swished a dish towel for emphasis and turned to stir something on the stove.
Liz quickly grabbed Will’s hand and led him around the corner. “Do you want to stay at Dad’s?” she whispered.
“Why? Do you want to?” he whispered back.
“You’re the one with the fantasy about a girl’s room,” she said with a look he couldn’t possibly mistake the meaning of.
“Ah, yes, I think that could be a good idea. Jamison will be more comfortable in the guest room here.”
Liz smirked. “I’m sure he will.”
William took their bags back out to the car and Liz quickly told Tiffany that they would stay at their father’s and they’d be back by five thirty for the barbecue.
“I probably should have asked this sooner, but you do have a big enough bed at your dad’s, right?” asked Will.
She laughed as they drove over the hill and through a small forest of trees. “Yes, I got a queen when I turned fifteen. It’s not as big as our bed back home, but it’ll do.”
They parked in front of the old white farm house and Liz shook her head at the peeling paint she noticed by the front window. She wasn’t halfway up the porch steps before she heard a swishing in the grass and a few seconds later, she was nearly bowled over by Jake, her father’s dog.
She laughed and cooed at the dog while she scratched his ears and Will waited behind her, tapping his foot on the porch.
“Come on in,” she finally said. She opened the door and called out loudly. “Daddy! It’s Lizzy!” There was no response. “He’s probably in the fields. Come on up.”
She led the way up a narrow staircase into a whitewashed hall with three doors. “That’s Jen’s room,” she pointed to the door on her left, “that’s the bathroom,” she pointed straight ahead, “and this is my room.” She pushed open the door on her right as she hefted her bag in. Jake followed her, nudging William out of the way and lying down on the small braided rug by the bed.
“It’s nice,” Harper said, looking around. The walls were painted a sunny yellow, the floors were a natural wood, and the curtains were white with tiny yellow flowers on them. “So this is where you grew up,” he said speculatively, turning around slowly before focusing on a bulletin board over a small green desk. “Wow. You won a spelling bee.”
“I won on the word ‘expeditious,’” she said proudly, looking at the medal hanging from the corner of the board.
He looked at photos of her with Laura and Jennifer on horseback; standing by a row of trees next to her father; laughing with Josh, his arm around her shoulders.
“You know, we’ve never gone riding together,” he commented.
“You’re right, we haven’t. Do you want to go for a ride while we’re here?”
“Does your father have horses?”
“Not anymore. Jen and I shared a mare that our grandfather bought us when we were kids, but she died a few years ago. The Powells raise horses, though, and they’re just the next farm over. They’d let us borrow for the afternoon. I do it every summer, the Powells don’t mind. Josh is great fun on a ride.”
Will pursed his lips. “Does he run the family farm now?”
“Sort of. He handles all the training and the hands-on stuff, but his dad still takes care of the paperwork and business side of things.”
Will nodded.
“Hey, you okay?” she asked, touching his arm lightly.
“Yeah, fine.”
She looked at him in disbelief.
“Honestly? I’m not too fond of spending a lot of time with Joshua Powell.”
She looked surprised. “Oh. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can ride on our own; Josh won’t mind.”
He frowned. “I’m even less fond of you going riding with him without me.”
She wrinkled her brow in thought for a moment, then it cleared suddenly. “Are you jealous?”
“No! I just don’t like the thought of my wife spending hours alone riding through the picturesque countryside with her first love, that’s all.”
She smiled. “What do you think about you spending hours riding through the picturesque countryside with your wife?”
“Without Mr. Powell?”
“Without Josh.”
He smiled. “I like that idea.”
She gave him a quick peck and turned around to unpack her bag. “You don’t have anything to worry about with Josh, you know. It was all over ages ago, and we weren’t really in love.” She hung a dress in the closet and walked back to the bed where her suitcase sat. “Besides, I’m not his type.”
“What do you mean? You’re every man’s type.”
She grinned. “While I appreciate the compliment, that is not true.” She put her T-shirts in the drawer. “And what I meant is that Josh prefers his lovers a bit taller and broader, with shorter hair and a flatter chest.”
“What? Josh is gay?”
She nodded.
“But he went out with you!”
“He was a kid. He was figuring everything out. Why do you think we’re still friends now? I’m not friends with any of my other exes.”
William wondered why he had never noticed that before and shook his head. “Is it common knowledge?”
“It’s a bit don’t-ask-don’t-tell. Most people around here aren’t straight-up homophobes, but it isn’t super accepted either. I imagine most people who know him at all suspect it, but no one wants to come right out and ask.”
Will nodded absently, lost in thought.
“Please keep that to yourself. I don’t want Josh to feel uncomfortable or anything,” she added.
“Of course. I won’t say a word.”
***
Friday afternoon, William enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the farm while Liz visited with her sisters and helped Tiffany prepare for her graduation ceremony that evening. Neal’s dog Jake faithfully, and surprisingly, followed Will through the rows of trees as he explored the property.
Tired and thirsty, he headed inside the pink house to get a drink and collect his wife before heading back to Neal’s to dress for the evening. He stepped into the mud room, but before he could slip off his dirty shoes and leave them next to the door, he heard the sound of Liz and Loretta’s raised voices in the kitchen. Stepping into the doorway, he saw Liz standing on one side of the island, Loretta on the other, a wooden spoon in her hand as she stirred something on the stove.
Liz put her hands in the air and said loudly, “Why are you so mad about this? It’s not you who’s doing it!”
“Because I want you to be okay! Because I don’t want you to make bad decisions!” her mother cried.
“I’m not making bad decisions! I chose very carefully! Why can’t you believe
that? Why does everything have to look a certain way in order for you to understand it? Why can’t you see that this is what’s best for me now, at this point in my life?” Liz was gripping the edge of the counter tightly and her body was rigid.
“How do you know that? You’re just a kid! You’re twenty-five! You don’t know what life’s going to throw at you. Security may look boring, but it’s the only thing standing between you and the welfare line. Why can’t you think practically sometimes?” Loretta was shouting, steam from the pot giving her face a red, waxy glow.
“Am I interrupting something?” Will said.
Both women snapped their heads toward him. “No, I was just about to go back to Dad’s and change. Walk me?”
“Of course. Loretta.” He nodded at his mother-in-law and followed a steaming Liz out of the house.
She stomped half the way to her father’s before Will said, “What was that about?”
“I made the mistake of telling my mother that Taggston offered me a full-time position last spring that I turned down in favor of what I’m doing now, what I happen to love, and she didn’t agree with my choice.” She ruthlessly whacked at a branch as she passed.
“Ah.”
He followed her the rest of the way in silence, then started a pot of tea when they got to Neal’s. Liz stomped straight up to their room. Ten minutes later, he took two steaming cups up the stairs and nudged her door open.
Liz sat on the bed, a large teddy bear in her lap and her chin resting between its ears. He placed her tea on the side table and sat at the foot of the bed silently until he couldn’t stand it anymore and spoke up.
“So what are you going to do?” he asked.
“About what?” she asked.
“You know what. About your mother.”
“Nothing. What can I do? It’s always been this way, it probably always will be. Talking about it will just start another argument. It will all blow over, just like it always does.”
“Lizzy,” he said gently but with a slightly reproachful tone.
She continued to look at the quilt on her bed, tracing the pattern with her eyes. “My grandmother made this quilt, you know. When I moved over here, dad took me shopping for paint colors. He wanted me to make it my own space. He thinks it’s important to have a place in the world. Gran said something similar. When she found out I’d painted it yellow, she bought all this different fabric and I picked out the quilt pattern myself. She let me help cut out some of the pieces. It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
He looked at her, at the way her shoulders were slumped and how she wouldn’t look up at him. He scooted beside her and touched her arm.
“Liz, I know it’s difficult, but you should talk to your mother. This happens every time you come for a visit. It’s not getting any better. If you have something you want to say, or questions you want to ask, now’s the time.”
She huffed. “You say that like it will make everything better.”
“I don’t know if it will be better, but I do know that not knowing can eat you up inside. That you’ll lie awake nights wondering if it all could have been better if you’d just had the courage to speak up. I don’t want you to live with that.”
She looked up at him with red rimmed eyes. “Is that how you felt about your mom?”
“Yes. For years. Until last summer. I don’t want you to feel that way, Liz, not ever. Life is fragile. You never know how much time you have with someone. One day my mother was perfectly fine, the next she bent over to tie her shoe and she collapsed on the tennis court. She was forty-five. I’m not saying your mother will have an aneurysm like mine did, but that you never know what tomorrow will bring, and if you have something to say to your mother, you should say it.”
“What would you have said to your mother?” she asked quietly.
He scuffled his feet for a minute and leaned back on his hands. “I would have asked her why. Why she was so distant, why she was so silent. I could have; I was twenty when she died. I’d had plenty of time; I was an adult. I was just too afraid of the answer and I kept thinking it would get better on its own.” He huffed. “Like that’s ever happened.”
“So you think I should ask her why she always blows up at me?” she asked uncertainly.
“If that’s the big question for you, yes. But I think you might have a bigger question.” He smiled at her gently. “I’ll go with you if you want. Or be here when you get back, whatever you need.”
“Thanks, Will. You’re probably right.” She took a deep breath. “It’s time to bite the bullet.”
“Okay.”
**
After dinner that night, Liz knocked on her mother’s bedroom door. Will had wished her luck and sent her up the stairs, saying he would wait in the living room with Andrew and Jennifer. She waited in the hall for a minute until her mother’s voice called for her to come in.
Liz looked around the room decorated in purple flowers and lace and sat gingerly on the bench at the end of the bed. She hadn’t been in there in over two years and it felt a little foreign, but also a little too intimate a place to be having this very intimate conversation.
Loretta came swishing out of the bathroom in a long cream robe over a pair of pink silky pajamas. She was patting wrinkle cream onto her face, her blonde hair pulled back.
“What is it, Ellie? Sorry, Lizzy,” she corrected when Liz gave her a look.
“Mom, I wanted to talk to you about something. Something serious.”
Loretta looked at her expectantly. “You’re pregnant! I knew it!”
“No! I’m not pregnant! Why do you always think that? I want to talk to you about something else. Are you up for that right now?”
“I suppose. What do you want to talk about?”
Liz took a deep breath. Say it quick, Lizzy. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. “Why haven’t you ever liked me?” she said in a rush. Her hands gripped her knees and her eyes focused on a framed needlepoint bouquet on the wall.
Loretta sunk into the chair in the corner of the room. “Not liked you? What are you talking about?”
“What do you mean what am I talking about? I’m talking about you always acting like I’m in your way, like I’m a huge disappointment, like you wish I was anyone but who I am.” Her voice rose with each word until it cracked, her nerves shot and her legs bouncing rapidly.
Loretta looked confused for a moment, then leaned back in her chair and covered her eyes with her hand. After several minutes of awful silence, she very quietly said, “I’m a terrible mother.”
“What?” Liz asked in disbelief, her feet finally stopping their incessant bouncing.
“I need to tell you something. Will you listen?”
Liz nodded.
Loretta took a deep breath and looked away. “When your father and I first got together, we were full of big ideas and fanciful dreams. He wanted to expand the farm, I wanted to open a restaurant and B&B on the property. We were going to turn it into a tourist destination. We used to sit up in the hayloft talking about all our plans, watching the stars. We’d talk until dawn and then he’d help me sneak back into my parents’ house. It was a magical time.”
Liz watched her mother in fascination. Loretta had a soft look on her face and her eyes had a dreamy quality. In all the years she’d spent with her mother, Liz had never heard her talk about the beginning of her relationship with Neal. She hugged her knees to her chest, listening carefully.
“I wanted to go away to culinary school. I loved cooking and was always trying new recipes. Neal was very supportive. He was older than me and already working on the farm, but he said he’d drive down on weekends and that somehow we’d make it work. He was quite dashing back then.
“Anyway, one night, things in the hayloft went further than either of us planned and we weren’t careful. We did better after that, but once was all it took and Jennifer was on her way. My father threatened to kick me out if I didn’t get married immediately, not that I didn’t want to. Neal offered to do the
right thing and marry me, of course, but it wasn’t a hardship. We were so in love with each other, it was only a matter of time before we decided it for ourselves.
“But getting pregnant changed all my other plans. I couldn’t go near a kitchen—every smell made me queasy. There was a school in Richmond that had an excellent cooking program. I signed up for a two-week course in pastries in my sixth month after my stomach had settled. I stayed with my aunt Betty in town. Every day was spent in the kitchen, rolling out dough and learning and experimenting. I did really well; the teachers thought I showed great promise.” She looked toward the window and out at the inky night sky, lost in thought for several moments.
“Jen was born shortly after that and life was consumed with taking care of an infant for a while. Then one day, one of my teachers called me. One of the scholarship students had dropped out and there was a vacancy in the year-long program. She encouraged me to apply.” She sniffled and touched the corner of her eye. “I got the slot. With my triple chocolate cake, the one I always make for your birthday.” She gave Liz a watery smile.
“I didn’t know you went to proper cooking school,” Liz said.
“That’s because three months into the program, I had to run out of the kitchen to throw up in the bathroom. I was expecting you.” She looked at Liz and smiled sadly. “I tried to muscle through and ignore the nausea and the dizziness. I’ve always found it ironic that Heather and Tiffany’s pregnancies were so easy.” She paused and looked heavenward, then looked back at her daughter. “Your father had rented us a little studio apartment near the school, and my aunt kept Jenny while I was in class. Everyone was doing so much to make this work for me. Neal was stocking shelves at a grocery store, for Pete’s sake! But he’d said it was only for a year and that we should consider it an investment in our future.”
“What happened?”
“One day I fainted. I was standing over a hot stove, had been standing over a hot stove for days on end, it felt like. Anyway, something happened and it got to me. The director sat me down and told me I’d been missing a lot of information with my frequent escapes to the ladies’ room and that as a scholarship student I had to maintain a certain attendance and performance level. I was slipping. She gave me until the end of the week to master the sauces that had been giving me trouble and then she said they would revoke my scholarship. When I told her I was pregnant, that I wasn’t just sickly or worse—on drugs or something—she was very kind about it and suggested that I might want to come back after the birth.
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