Falling to Pieces

by Swank, Denise Grover

  I sucked several deep breaths to try and clear my fuzzy head. I could see Joe pretending to be engaged to her, but they’d been affectionate. My heart was breaking all over again. “They were worried about him running against the other candidate as a single man. I guess they didn’t waste any time.”

  He leaned toward, me, taking my hand. “I’m so sorry. I wish I hadn’t told you.”

  “No.” I shook my head, my voice firm as I looked into his eyes. “We’re not together. He can do what he wants. I’m glad I know.”

  “Do you want to go home?”

  Home to my empty house? Where memories of Joe permeated everything? “No, there’s no reason to.” I forced a smile. “I’ve got plenty to do here.”

  “Rose.”

  My jaw clenched. “Jonah, really. I need to work.”

  “Okay.”

  I spent the rest of the afternoon concentrating on nothing but the dirt and the plants. I knew that the fact I could block everything out so effectively wasn’t normal, but it was a coping mechanism I’d learned early in life. It had helped me through more heartache than I thought I could endure, and I was especially thankful for the life skill now.

  The overcast sky had threatened rain all day and by early afternoon it finally broke loose. Bruce Wayne and I waited in my truck for half an hour before we gave up and called it a day.

  “The forecast is better for tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll just meet at eight again. With any luck at all, the rain will make it easier to dig out those overgrown shrubs.”

  “Sounds good, Miss Rose.” Bruce Wayne stared out the front window, his jaw working. “If you need to take some time off, I can do this without you.”

  I knew this was his way of saying he understood what I was going through and wanted to help me. “I’ve taken more time off that I want. I need to work.”

  He nodded and opened the truck door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  As soon as Bruce Wayne climbed into his car and pulled away, I grabbed my cell phone out of my pocket and called Neely Kate.

  “Rose, is everything okay?”

  “He’s engaged to Hilary,” I said in a breathless rush.

  “Oh no.” There was a second pause. “How did you find out?”

  “Jonah. He thought I knew.”

  “How could he get engaged to her so quickly? He just asked you to marry him a couple of weeks ago?” she growled.

  I fought to keep from crying. “It’s not a real engagement.”

  “How can you be sure? You know that witch has been waiting to get her claws back into him.”

  The devastation on Joe’s face when I told him about my vision of him and Hilary still haunted me. “I know.” But Jonah had said they were affectionate. I envisioned Hilary in the red dress she’d worn the night of Joe’s parents’ dinner and Joe in his tux. The image of Joe kissing her filled my head and I released a small gasp of anguish.

  “I’m coming over tonight.”

  I’d been trying to become less dependent on her and everyone else, but I didn’t want to be alone. “Okay.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Rose. I promise.”

  I knew she was right, even if I didn’t believe it right now.

  I went home and took a bath then watched TV with Muffy, listening to the rain in my melancholy. I knew I had to tell Violet about Joe and decided to get it over with.

  She listened then calmly asked, “Do you want to come spend the night with me?”

  “Neely Kate’s coming over.” I paused. “Wait. Why don’t you sound more surprised?”

  When she didn’t respond, the truth hit me. “You knew.”

  Her silence was damning.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to get hurt any more than you already were.”

  “Violet, I had a right to know.”

  “I know you did. I’m sorry.” Her voice softened. “You’ve just been through so much, you needed a break. I wanted to protect you.”

  “I’m not eight years old anymore, Violet. You can’t protect me from life.”

  She was silent for several seconds. “You’ll always be my little sister, Rose. Neither one of us can change that. I love you. I’ll always want to protect you.”

  I knew she meant well, but this was one more sign of her smothering.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come spend the night?”

  “No.” Even if I’d been tempted before—and I wasn’t—I definitely didn’t want to go now.

  “How’d it go at Jonah’s today?”

  I sighed. Back to a somewhat safe topic. “We got a lot of work done today before the rain hit.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready to be doing all the manual labor? You’re still recovering.”

  “My back hurts some, so I’m a lot slower than Bruce Wayne, but I like being there. You know that working in the dirt makes me feel better.”

  “Okay. I just don’t want you to overdo it.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Someone stopped in and asked about another landscaping job. Will you be in the shop tomorrow morning? I’ll give you the address and the phone number so you can set up an appointment.”

  “Wow. Another? That’s great.”

  “We’re really doing well,” she said, breathless with excitement. “We’ve already gotten landscaping jobs and business here at the nursery is picking up now that cooler weather has set in.”

  “Look at the Gardner sisters,” I said. “Lucky in business. Unlucky in love.”

  “Rose,” Violet’s voice was heavy with sorrow.

  “I’m okay,” I said, sorry for my moment of wallowing and sorry for making her remember her own heartache. “This is a good thing. Really. Joe has moved on and so will I. It’ll all work out in the end.”

  “Yes, it will. I have to believe that. For both of us.”

  I knew she wasn’t talking about just me and Joe. Neely Kate walked in the side door carrying a bag. She stopped and put two containers in the freezer.

  “Neely Kate’s here. I have to go. I’m meeting Bruce Wayne at Jonah’s at eight tomorrow. I’ll come by probably mid-morning to pick up the landscaping bricks and get the information about the new landscape job.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She paused. “I love you, Rose.”

  “Love you too.” And I did. In spite of her shortcomings. Lord knew I wasn’t perfect.

  Neely Kate set the bag on my coffee table and shrugged out of her jacket.

  “Is it romantic comedies or action movies tonight?” I asked, leaning over to look in her bag.

  She jerked it away from me with a laugh. “Neither. It’s time to step up your game since you’ve missed most major television events of the past decade.”

  “So what is it?”

  “Grey’s Anatomy. Nothing like Doctors McDreamy and McSteamy to cheer you up.” She set the DVD case on the table, then pulled out a Tupperware container. “And my grandma’s homemade potato soup. She heard about Joe and Hilary and whipped up a batch just for you.”

  “She knows about Joe and Hilary?”

  Neely Kate shrugged. “I was supposed to take her to get hot wings and then to the VFW bingo night.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She rolled her eyes and put a hand on her hip. “Girl. Please. You saved me. Have you ever been to bingo night at the VFW?”

  “No.”

  “Well, don’t do it. Just don’t.” She went into the kitchen. “So when I told her about Joe, she let me off the hook and made you soup.” She had two bowls and spoons when she reemerged. “You obviously did me a huge favor. All the way around. I love her potato soup.”

  “What about Ronnie?”

  She sat down and lifted the lid off the plastic container. “He’s got poker night with the guys at the garage, which is how I got roped into bingo night. I’d much rather be with you eating soup and Ben and Jerry’s.”

  “You brought Ben and Jerry’s?”

  He
r eyes widened in dismay. “What kind of friend do you take me for? Of course there’s Ben and Jerry’s.”

  I leaned over and gave her a sideways hug. “You’re the best friend I could ever have.”

  She hugged me back then pulled away and rolled her eyes. “Well that goes without saying. I’m introducing you to the many hot men of Seattle Grace Hospital.” She tilted her head to the side with a smirk. “You’re welcome.”

  She started the first episode and we snuggled under afghans as the rain pounded the roof. After the second episode, she paused the DVD and grabbed the ice cream from the freezer, holding up two containers. “Here we have Cherry Garcia, my personal favorite, and then Phish Food, because I know how much you like chocolate.” She put the containers on the table, ripped off the lids and handed me the Phish Food container.

  I took it and the clean spoon she offered. “No bowls?”

  She shrugged, leaning back with her own ice cream. “What’s the point of dirtying bowls? Especially when you don’t have a dishwasher.”

  I dug my spoon into the ice cream. “True.”

  “So what do you think?” she asked, studying the ice cream on her spoon.

  “I like it. Momma never let me watch Grey’s Anatomy because she said a show about doctors fornicating in hospital hallways was the devil’s handiwork.”

  “Your momma sure made the devil out to be one busy guy.”

  I laughed. “Yeah. She did.”

  “But I wasn’t talking about the show. I meant Joe.” She twisted her head to look at me.

  “What’s there to think about?”

  “Do you think he’s really with her or is it a political move? I looked up some articles online and the reporters suspect they’re not really together. They were touchy feeling the first few days, but the articles pointed out that Hilary initiated all of it.”

  I dug my spoon deep into the ice cream with more force than necessary. “What difference does it make? Joe broke up with me. He can marry whoever he likes.”

  “He still loves you, Rose.”

  My gaze rose to her face. “It doesn’t matter, Neely Kate. We are done. We all need to accept that. Even you.”

  “But Rose—”

  “Did you know Jonah used to be a psychologist? He used to counsel people.”

  Her face scrunched in confusion. “I guess that’s not so surprising. He’s a minister. They help people.”

  “I asked him if I could talk to him a couple of times a week.”

  Her spoon lowered over her container as her mouth gaped. “You did?”

  I glanced down at my container. “Before Joe broke up with me, Mason told me that I couldn’t keep shoving everything under the rug. That I have to face my past and everything bad that’s happened.” I looked up at her. “I think he’s right. I’m ready to do it. I need to do it so I can move on too.”

  “You really want to do this?”

  I nodded, tears filling my eyes. “I asked Jonah, before I knew about Joe and Hilary, but hearing the news was the confirmation I needed that it’s time to quit wallowing. It’s time to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep going. I’m tired of being weak. I’m tired of falling to pieces whenever I hear his name.”

  “Rose, it’s okay to wallow a little. That doesn’t make you weak.”

  “But happiness is a choice, Neely Kate. I could get stuck in this pit of feeling sorry for myself, but I don’t want to. I don’t like it here. I want to climb out and I want to live my life.” I leaned closer to her. “I want to be happy. I had a taste of it with Joe and I want to feel it again. Even if it seems impossible to feel it without him.”

  She put her ice cream on the table and took my hand. “No one deserves happiness more than you do. You will be happy. I promise.”

  “And when I sort out the mess of my life, then I’ll be ready to try being with someone else. I need to sort me out first.”

  A soft smile lifted the corners of her mouth but her eyes filled with tears. “You’ve just said the smartest thing I’ve heard in ages.”

  I blinked back tears. “Thanks.”

  “And you do know someone is waiting for you to be ready don’t you?”

  I nodded, a blush rising to my cheeks. “Yeah. I suspect he is.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Not since the day I gave my statement to the police. But he calls every so often and he texts me telling me that he’s there for me if I need him.”

  “I always said Mason Deveraux was a smart man.”

  I laughed and scooped out a spoonful of ice cream. “No, I think you said he had a corn cob stuck up his butt.”

  She giggled and stuck her spoon in my ice cream. “Well, at the time he did.” She winked. “He just needed a woman to soften him up.”

  I shook my head with a grin.

  “But if he’s not interested, Austin Kent, Violet’s friend is still available. The guy she set you up with at her impromptu barbeque, remember him?”

  My brow lowered with a scowl. “How do you know he’s available?”

  She shrugged. “I knew he was interested before and I did some checking. So see? You have options. And the fact you’re considering them is a good thing.”

  She started the next episode and I tried to concentrate on the latest Seattle Grace disaster, but I keep thinking about being with another man. It felt weird and wrong.

  Could I really consider finding love again? Would I ever really be over Joe?

  Chapter Eleven

  Several days later, Bruce Wayne and I finished Jonah’s yard. We stood back at the curb, taking it all in. All the overgrown shrubbery had been removed, and we’d put in new bushes, along with a mix of chrysanthemums and perennials. We’d built a foot-tall retaining wall on the side of the house with landscaping blocks, dug up the crumbling sidewalk from the driveway to the front porch, and laid a brick paver path. We’d worked hard all week and it had paid off. The front of the house looked beautiful.

  “We did a good job, Miss Rose.”

  I grinned, feeling real happiness for the first time in weeks. “Yes, we did. We need to celebrate.”

  He turned to me in surprise.

  “I’m taking you out to lunch.”

  His head ducked and his face reddened. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know, but I want to. I need to celebrate something, Bruce Wayne.”

  His face lifted and he nodded, understanding in his eyes. “Sounds good.”

  We loaded up the remaining tools in the back of my truck and washed our hands in the spigot at the side of Jonah’s house. He was going to be thrilled at the transformation. I was sorry he wasn’t here to see it.

  Bruce Wayne headed for his car.

  “Hold up a minute,” I called after him, pulling my phone out of my pocket. I pulled up Jonah’s number and called him. He needed something happy in his life too even if it was something as simple as his house looking pretty.

  “Hey, Rose.” He greeted me with warmth in his voice. “I was just thinking about you and Bruce Wayne. How’s it coming?”

  I grinned, knowing he couldn’t see it, but I couldn’t keep my joy to myself. “We’re done.”

  “You are?”

  “Want to come see?”

  “Yeah.” He sounded happier than I had ever heard him. “I’ll be right there.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jonah pulled into his driveway. His face lit up with a smile as he got out of his car. “Rose, Bruce Wayne…It’s wonderful!”

  I looped my arm through his right arm. “It looks a lot more welcoming now.”

  He shook his head in amazement. “I’m glad I tried not to look at it the last couple of days. It looks so much more impressive this way.” He glanced down at me. “I know it must look silly to be so excited over something like landscaping…” His voice trailed off. “It feels like home now. Like I belong here.”

  “Jonah,” I leaned close and lowered my voice. “You know that I, of all people, get it. That’s why I call
ed you.”

  His eyes softened. “Thanks.”

  “We’re both making progress, a few steps at a time.”

  He nodded. “I just wish everyone was as forgiving as you are.”

  “Maybe they’ll get there, but until then, you’ve got me. And Bruce Wayne.” I gasped. “Hey! We were just going to go eat lunch and celebrate. Why don’t you come with us?”

  “Oh.” Some of his excitement faded. “I don’t want to encroach.”

  “We’d really like if you came,” I said, tugging on his arm. “Wouldn’t we, Bruce Wayne?”

  He nodded, looking Jonah in the eyes. “Yes, sir. We would.”

  “Besides,” I said, squeezing his arm. “You’re the reason we’re celebrating. We have two landscape jobs lined up after this and possibly a third, and all thanks to you. It was the work on your church and house that got us the new jobs. So you have to come. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  He smiled. “Well, okay then.”

  “Good. It’s settled. Where do you two want to go?”

  Bruce Wayne and Jonah picked Merilee’s café, so I called Neely Kate on the way and invited her to meet us in ten minutes.

  “I love that you’re celebrating something,” she squealed. “I wouldn’t dream of missing it.”

  I parked half-block away. Bruce Wayne and Jonah were waiting at the entrance to the restaurant along with Neely Kate.

  Her face lit up with a smile when I reached her. “Thanks for letting me crash your celebration.”

  I gave her a huge hug. “I wouldn’t dream of celebrating without you.”

  Neely Kate opened the door and held it open. “They’re already setting up a table for us so go on in.”

  Neely Kate patted Bruce Wayne’s arm as he grabbed the door and motioned for us to walk in. A waitress motioned us to the back where she had pushed two tables together.

  “Rose, you sit at the end of the table,” Neely Kate said.

  I counted our group, wondering if I’d gotten the number wrong. “Why do we need two tables? There’s only four of us and we’ll all fit at one.”

  She shrugged with a grin. “I hope you don’t mind if I invited someone to join us.”

  “Of course not.” Had she called Violet? I hoped not. I felt some guilt not including her, but the people at this lunch had done everything in their power to build me up, not tear me down. The fact I couldn’t include Violet in the bunch was telling enough.