I didn't want to have this conversation. I wanted the one about our baby and the rest of our fucking lives, but this one had to happen eventually. "I'm showing some potential investors around the site."
She whipped her head toward me. "Why? Is Barry renegotiating the terms?"
"You could say that," I murmured. "Barry decided to step away from this project. I've been reaching out to new funders."
I saw the exact moment she added up the pieces, her expression shifting like an unlocked door blown open by a gust of wind. "Why didn't you tell me? I've told you I am willing to connect you with other investors. Real, serious investors. People who do this every day rather than Barry's weekend hobby approach to business."
A humorless laugh tripped over my lips. "You've had your hands full, don't you think? I wasn't about to bother you with this last week."
"Why don't you trust me enough to let me help you?" she asked, her words losing their edge. "Why is that so terrible? Do you think I'd lead you around by the purse strings? Or that I'd lord it over you? What is so terrible about me? Why can't I help you? You're sitting here, saying you'll support me no matter what but I'm not allowed to do the same. I'm not allowed to help in the one way I'm able to because—because why? I can't be trusted because I ditched you behind a barn a long, long time ago? Because I can't react to death and babies and love the right way? Why am I terrible, Jed?"
"There's nothing terrible about you. Don't think that, please," I replied.
"There's nothing terrible about me but you don't want my money when you actually need it. When I could make a difference. Don't you see? You could focus on the things you do best rather than wasting your time on sales pitches and pacifying investors," she said. "Yeah, it makes total sense to keep me out of it."
I wanted to bash my head against the steering wheel. "Can we hold this discussion for later? None of this is about the distillery. Not at all. I want to talk about everything, but the next ten minutes isn't enough time to take it all apart."
She jerked a shoulder up, nodded. "I think it makes sense for me to go home now."
"Not a problem. We can talk more tonight, after I touch base with Nate. I'll drop you at home and then head to my meeting."
"I didn't mean my father's house," she said. "I meant it makes sense for me to go home to New York. I can manage anything that needs to be done from there. There's no reason for me to stay any longer than I already have."
"You're sure about that? Because I can think of several reasons for you to stay," I replied.
"You would say that," she mused. "You believe you belong here. You think this is a fine little pasta salad world. I, on the other hand, am long overdue for my exit. I stayed all these years and I killed myself to keep my father comfortable and honor his wishes, and what am I supposed to do now? Live in the house my family has been in since before electricity and indoor plumbing? Raise a kid with you when you don't trust me around your business? Why would I do that to myself? Why would I keep punishing myself that way? The Cove is a far cry from where I belong. If you can't see that, you haven't been paying attention."
"Brooke, I love you but I think you're angry and overwhelmed about a million other things and I don't know where to start with you when I have minutes to talk."
"And now I'm the irrational, emotional woman," she said. "How charming and predictable. I've always enjoyed being the villain in your story. Please be sure to keep that resentment going when I'm gone. The town needs some drama."
"You're being ridiculous," I said flatly. "You're also discounting all the relationships you've formed in Talbott's Cove. People care about you. I care about you."
"As great as that is, I'm the one who is pregnant and alone and living in a town where I don't belong," she argued. "I can't plan my life around you and a business you're hell-bent on launching in spite of the money I can provide."
I pulled into the driveway, killed the engine. "I don't have the time to explain to you the fifty ways you're wrong about all that, but I'll be back later and we're having this conversation."
She reached for the door handle. "No. We're not."
"Brooke—"
"Do the smart thing, Jed. Go to your meeting. Dazzle them with your ideas and your appropriately edgy vibe. Win them over and gain their trust. Take their money and build an empire on a pile of apple cores. Focus on that and I'll focus on myself, just as I always have. I'm going back to my empire, the one where I'm not your princess."
She slammed the door and I was out of the vehicle, chasing after her. I was going to be late and I didn't give a damn. I caught her elbow, yanked her back toward me. "You were never my princess," I roared. "Never once my princess. That girl belonged to everyone else. You"—I lifted my hands to her face, cupped her jaw—"you belonged to me." Her chin wobbled as her eyes filled. "It doesn't matter where you are. You're always mine."
"You don't even trust me enough to—"
"I trust you with everything, Brooke. Everything. I trust you with my life, my baby, my whole fucking world. Do you want to take over the finance side of my business? It's yours. But you're not giving me a penny. It doesn't matter whether this money is pocket change for you or I'm a fool for refusing it. You're done saving people, sweetheart. You're done sacrificing and stepping aside to make room for everyone else's needs. You're done resenting people for taking and taking and taking from you. So long as I'm in your life, you're done."
Fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at me. "I'm going. I'm leaving."
I pressed my lips to hers in a hard, biting kiss that refused to say goodbye.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Brooke
Bear Market: a steady, self-sustaining reduction in the market value of stocks and other market securities.
Brooke: Who is running the breakup pool?
Annette: What?
Brooke: The pool. I'm sure someone was taking bets on when things would fall apart with me and JJ, and who'd be the one to fuck it all up, and I'd like to congratulate the person who bet on me and today.
Annette: What happened, honey?
Annette: No, forget that. Where are you?
Annette: I'm walking out the door, so tell me where you are unless you want Jackson patrolling the streets for you.
Brooke: I'm at Dad's house. The door is open.
Annette: What can I bring you?
Brooke: Just bring yourself. That's all I need.
* * *
The door banged shut behind Annette as she said, "Tell me everything."
I glanced up at her from my spot on the foyer rug. I'd plopped down here after Jed dropped me off and hadn't found a reason to get up since. I didn't know where to go. Every room of this house was colored with overwhelming memories of the past two weeks, the past two years, and everything before that. The foyer was better.
Annette dropped to her knees, reached for my hands. "Say something, honey."
"I don't want to be here anymore," I said.
She bobbed her head in agreement, her dark curls bouncing with the motion. "Okay, we'll go to my house. There's plenty of room and you can stay as long as you need. I'll get some of your things. Don't move."
When she pulled away from me, I squeezed her hands. Tugged her back. "I meant I don't want to be here. I don't want to be in Talbott's Cove anymore."
Her sympathetic smile fell and that response cracked my heart open. She brushed her hands down my cheeks, wiping away tears. Again, I hadn't realized I was crying. "Here's what we're doing, sweetie. I'm going to pack a bag for you and we're going to head over to my place. Is there anything specific you'd like me to pack?"
"You don't have to do this. I'm fine. You have a bookstore to run. I'm just—" I shook my head, glanced away. "We had an argument. Jed sees things one way. I see them differently. Neither of us are willing to adjust our positions, so it ended. It was always going to end and now it has." I blinked at the wall of floral arrangements and suddenly understood the cloyingly thick scent around me
to be white lilies. Every breath was soaked with lily until I tasted their perfume in the back of my throat. I scrambled to my feet, charged toward the door. "I have to get out of here."
"Wait," Annette called, but it was too late.
I fell to the grass, braced on my hands and knees, and emptied my stomach. She approached, gathered my hair from my face, stroked my back. She didn't say anything while I gagged and sobbed. When it was over, she wrapped an arm around my shoulders and passed me a wad of tissues. "I'm sorry you had to witness that," I said, accepting the tissues.
"What are sisters for if not holding your hair when you vomit?" She brought my head to her shoulder. Goddamn. I had to tell her about the baby. ”Sisters are also good for helping you put your life back together when it shatters."
Knowing she was right, I said, "We'll go to your place, but just for tonight." I took her hand in mine. "Thank you."
"Anytime." She smoothed her hand down my spine. "I'm much shorter and rounder than you are, so while I'm happy to share all of my clothes, that won't work out well. I'm going upstairs to get your things. Stay here. Think easy, non-pukey thoughts."
I wanted to laugh at the idea of easy thoughts, but my stomach wasn't having it. "I'm not going anywhere," I promised. "Could you pick up my laptop too? I need to handle a few things in the morning and I don't want to come back here to do it."
She pushed to her feet and brushed blades of grass from her knees. "Of course. I'll be right back."
I stood and wandered down the walkway, away from the house—and the mess I left on the grass. Turning my gaze to the bright sky, I wondered whether I was supposed to know what I was doing yet. If I was supposed to know what to do now.
Annette chattered all the way to her house, recounting some incredible news hitting the book world today. She parked me in the living room while she put together some little nibbles, as she called them. I sat there, my hands flat on the cushions beside me while my head and belly swirled. The only solution that made sense to me was returning to New York.
It was what I'd wanted all along. It was the reason I kept my townhouse in Brooklyn and refused to apply for a Maine driver's license. Why I hadn't changed a single thing in my childhood bedroom, even after more than two years of hating all the mint green and pink. Talbott's Cove wasn't home anymore. Loving a grouchy barkeep couldn't erase that truth.
"We have a bit of brie, some sharp cheddar, those great herby raisin crackers you turned me on to, and some dark chocolate because it's necessary for my health and well-being." She set the tray down on the coffee table along with two wineglasses, and retrieved a bottle and corkscrew from her apron pocket. "But first, wine."
I stared at the glasses as she treated them to generous pours. "So, I'm pregnant."
She clutched the bottle by the neck. "What did you say?"
I scooped a handful of crackers off the tray and sagged into the sofa. "Yeah, that was my reaction too."
"Okay." She sat cross-legged on the floor, tucked into the coffee table. "Are you exercising your rights or investing in stretchy pants with a belly pouch?"
"No one boils it down quite like you, my dear," I said, laughing. "I don't know what I'm doing. I haven't decided anything." The video montage in my head played a constant loop of my father's house, Jed, New York, the obstetrician's office. Decisions waited for me at every turn. "I haven't decided anything, but you need to hold off on getting married this year. I love you to pieces, but I doubt my ability to host your bridal shower and bachelorette party without the aid of alcohol. And you know none of the male strippers will give a pregnant woman a lap dance."
She selected a chunk of cheddar from the tray. "How do you know this?"
I held up a hand. "Trust me. I know how it is with male strippers." I ate one cracker and immediately felt better. "And there shall not be a single photograph of me helping you into a dress or fixing your train while pregnant. I was angling for a Pippa Middleton-level maid of honor showing, but that's out of the question now." I rested my hand on my belly, even though I was annoyed at myself for doing it. There was nothing there yet. No kicking, no bump. Just an accident, a souvenir from the night Dad bashed his forehead on the nightstand and Jed threw me into his car like he was kidnapping me. "Assuming that, you know, I do this."
Annette poked at the dark chocolate, taking her time to find the perfect piece. "And JJ? What are his thoughts on this?"
I popped another cracker in my mouth. "He did everything right."
She nodded slowly. "But you had a big fight?"
"I don't know what comes next for me, now that I'm not taking care of Dad anymore." I motioned toward the windows looking out onto the village of Talbott's Cove. "When I first came home, I thought it was for a short time. I remember telling the partners in my firm that I'd be gone for three months. Six at the most. I thought I'd be able to handle everything in that time. It made perfect sense to me that I'd merely 'handle' dementia in a quarter or two." I ate another cracker. "It's a couple months shy of three years."
"Aaaaaaand you live here now. You have people here. People who consider themselves your family. In case I'm not being clear, I count JJ among those people."
"Yeah? Maybe?" I shrugged, shook my head. "We've yelled at each other while naked for months. What does that amount to? It's not a solid relationship. It's not the kind of family you bring a kid into and hope everything falls into place. The best thing for me is to go back to New York."
Annette's eyebrow arched up as she sipped her wine. "Brooke, you'd rather leave someone before they have a chance to leave you."
"I object to that generalization. Simply because I'm contemplating it now doesn't mean it's my primary mode of handling shit," I replied.
"You know I love you and you know I say this from a place of love. I'm not trying to burn you at the stake."
I pushed to my feet and marched into the kitchen for a glass of water. "No, only men who don't understand the first thing about women and believe the uterus is where we hide our witchcraft burn us at stakes," I called over the sink. "It's always them with the torches."
"But JJ isn't holding a torch, honey," Annette said. "And he doesn't think you have witchcraft in your uterus. If I had to bet, I'd say he thinks there's a baby in there and he's wondering whether it will be born with a full beard or just a goatee."
I returned to the living room but couldn't sit. "He thinks Talbott's Cove is a fantastic place to live. He's traveled the world and he chose to come back here."
"And I'd agree with him," she replied. "The Cove is not without fault, just like New York City and everywhere else in the world isn't without fault. But I'm happy here. If you'd stop resenting this town for a second, you might realize you're happy too. You might realize you resent it for reasons that have nothing to do with the town at all, but everything to do with your roots."
I stopped pacing, met her gaze. "I found you here—"
"I found you," she argued.
"We found each other," I said pointedly. "And I'm so thankful for that. For you. But it doesn't make sense for me to stay here, Annette."
"You'd rather leave than be left," she said. "You push, push, push. You make everyone prove they really want you by pushing so hard that only the most stubborn and defiant of us stick around. You make us prove how much we really want you by forcing us away and waiting to see if we'll return."
I banded an arm across my chest. "You make me sound like a manipulative psycho."
"No, honey. You're just like the rest of us. We're all dented and defective in our own little ways and we hold it together the best we can."
"You say that, but all I hear is 'manipulative psycho.'"
"Because you're not used to anyone wanting to help you hold it together. You don't know what it means to stick around and push through the discomfort of embracing something new and scary. You're not used to anyone seeing past all the barriers you put up and the ends to which you drive people."
"So…I'm just super fucked up. That's
it, I'm super fucked up. Considering that, I should definitely leave. I can't live in a small town where everyone knows I'm super fucked up and watch them tiptoeing around me. That would make me even more fucked up."
"We're all fucked up, Brooke. Sometimes, you lean into it. I'm only pointing it out so you don't walk away from something—and someone—good." She paused, sampled more of the chocolate. "You should know that if you leave, he'll follow. He'll abandon his distillery. He'll go to New York, he'll find a job that isn't the one he's poured his life into, and he'll do it because he adores you. But, honey, that's not what you want. I know it. I know it and I need you to know it too."
I dropped down on the floor beside her. "Okay—yeah—so what? I stay here and have a baby and live in my father's house? And we start a baby buggy power walking club for moms where we compare Kegel routines and bitch about our husbands leaving their dishes in the sink or pissing on the toilet seat?"
Laughing, Annette said, "You just married us off and got me pregnant in one little daydream. And opened us up to new friends. That's how deep you're in this, honey. That's how far you've thought this one out. We're talking to other people."
"But that's where this is going, isn't it? We'll be pregnant and our kids will be best friends and our husbands will learn to tolerate each other and we'll plan our group vacations to Disney World."
"You're absolutely right, my dear." She grabbed hold of my hands. "I'll wear something Snow White-inspired and I'll work on getting you into something Sleeping Beauty-ish. Jackson will scope out the wait time for each ride and formulate a plan around snacks and naps. JJ will wear the diaper backpack and insist on pushing the stroller too. That's his way, even though you won't let your youngest out of the Baby Bjorn."
"I won't let my youngest out of the fucking what?"
"The Bjorn. You know, it's the mommy-and-me equivalent of a wrap dress." Annette motioned as if I should know what she meant. I shook my head. "The fabric thing you use to wear the baby."
Far Cry: A Talbott’s Cove Novel Page 23
