Brydie fell back into the couch and pulled Nathan down on top of her. She could feel his hands exploring her body underneath her T-shirt, and she burned with a need she hadn’t known existed until that very moment.
“Do you want—” Nathan began in between frenzied kisses, but before he could finish, the ringing of his phone in his pocket cut him off.
“Ignore it,” Brydie murmured.
“I can’t,” Nathan said, pulling himself away from her with a groan. “I’m on call at the nursing home tonight.”
Brydie propped herself up on one elbow as Nathan answered the call. He walked back toward the kitchen as he talked, and Brydie hoped that he wouldn’t have to leave for an emergency. It occurred to her that if there was indeed an emergency, it could be Mrs. Neumann. She got up to follow Nathan, straining to hear his conversation. As she stood, her own phone buzzed in her pocket.
Again.
And again.
Annoyed by the interruption to her eavesdropping, she pulled her phone out and looked at it. There were three text messages from her mother. The first one asked Brydie to call her, and so did the second. The third was a screenshot from the Jonesboro Sun. Brydie squinted down at the screen on her phone. It took her a second to recognize the people in the picture—Allan and Cassandra. Brydie read the first line: “Susan and Ira Burr of Jonesboro are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter . . .”
Brydie couldn’t read the rest. She shoved her phone back into her pocket, the butterflies she’d had earlier turned to stone and were now hammering at her stomach with a sickening precision.
At the end of the hallway, she could hear Nathan end his conversation. He walked back into the living room. “I have to go in to the hospital,” he said.
Brydie tried to put the image she’d just seen out of her head. “Does this happen a lot?”
“What?”
“Getting called in to the hospital?”
Nathan shrugged. “I’m pretty much always on call, even when it’s my shift at the nursing home.”
“Seems unfair for you to always be on call.”
“I don’t mind,” Nathan replied. And then, thinking better of it, he said, “I mean, obviously I mind right now, but I don’t generally mind.”
She thought about what Fred had said to her about Nathan being a workaholic. She wondered if it was true. She thought about Allan and Cassandra, and all of Allan’s late nights at work, and despite herself, she couldn’t help but wonder if there were any women like Cassandra whom Nathan worked with. She wondered if Nathan was like Allan. She’d already been fooled once. “I think I would mind,” Brydie said at last.
“What, there aren’t baking emergencies? An all-hands-on-deck situation to finish that wedding cake?” Nathan asked, a grin forming on his face.
Brydie didn’t know why, but his comment made her stiffen. Was he making fun of her? She couldn’t tell. “Well, if I wanted to be a workaholic, I guess I would have become a doctor.”
“Brydie,” Nathan said, “I don’t have a job where I can just choose not to come in. It’s not about wanting to go in or not wanting to go in. It’s about saving lives. Surely you understand that.”
“I understand,” Brydie said, standing up and grabbing Teddy’s collar. “Nobody’s ever saved a life by baking a cake.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Nathan said. “Look, I think there’s been a misunderstanding or something.”
“No misunderstanding,” Brydie replied. She reached down in her pocket and felt for her keys, her fingers grazing against her phone, still warm from the text message she’d gotten. She felt sick. “I’ll get out of here.”
“Hey.” Nathan reached out to touch her, but Brydie pulled away from his grasp.
“I don’t want to hold you up,” Brydie replied. “See you around.”
“Don’t leave like this,” Nathan said. “Honestly, I don’t understand what just happened.”
“It’s fine,” Brydie said. “I should get going. See you around.”
Without another word, Nathan stepped back, allowing Brydie to run out of the house and into the frigid November night.
CHAPTER 15
WHEN BRYDIE AND TEDDY GOT HOME THAT NIGHT, Brydie baked him some treats and then settled herself into a steaming bubble bath. Already she was feeling guilty for her overreaction at dinner, and she was more than a little aware that her behavior probably meant she wouldn’t be seeing any more of Dr. Reid.
She decided she was genuinely terrible with men, and that it was probably a good thing she wouldn’t be seeing him anymore. Maybe she’d saved herself a lot of heartache in the end. Maybe if she had been paying more attention, maybe if she’d spoken up with her ex-husband the way she spoke up with Nathan, she would have noticed that her husband was cheating on her. At least, that’s what her mother said when Brydie came to see her at her office. It was eight o’clock at night, but Brydie knew that her mother would still be there, working.
“I could have told you five months ago that he was cheating,” Ruth Benson said, not looking up from her computer screen.
“Why didn’t you?” Brydie asked between sobs.
“Well, I didn’t have any proof,” her mother replied. “But all the signs were there.”
“What signs?”
Brydie’s mother sighed, finally looking up at her daughter. “Coming home late, breaking plans, taking phone calls in the other room.”
“You do all of those things,” Brydie said. “Those things don’t always mean someone is cheating,”
“But they do in this case.”
Brydie slumped back into her chair. She couldn’t get the image of Allan, her husband, grinding on top of Cassandra, their new and very pretty employee, out of her head. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw them. “I just don’t understand,” she said. “We were trying . . . we were trying to have a baby.”
“No,” her mother replied. “You were trying to have a baby.”
“I can’t get pregnant by myself.”
“Allan didn’t want to have a baby, and you know it.”
Brydie stood up on wobbly legs. “I don’t know why I came here,” she said. “I should have known you weren’t going to make me feel any better.”
“It’s not my job to make you feel better,” her mother said. “It’s my job to be honest with you.”
“I wish Dad were here.”
Hurt swept across her mother’s face, and Brydie instantly regretted her words. But it was true, and they were both being truthful, weren’t they? Still, she wished she hadn’t said it. She left her mother’s office and got back in her car. The only thing left to do was to go home and confront her husband.
By the time Brydie got home, Allan was waiting for her. He was sitting outside in one of the rocking chairs, as was their habit at night during the summer months. She contemplated turning around and going to her mother’s house. At least there she wouldn’t have to talk to him. Her mother might not be good at comfort, but she would make sure Allan didn’t come within talking distance.
“I was going to tell you,” Allan said when Brydie reached the first step on the porch.
“That’s comforting,” Brydie replied, trying not to look at him.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he continued, following her inside. “I swear I didn’t.”
“Is that why you’ve been fucking some girl in our bakery?” Brydie demanded. “Because you didn’t want to hurt me?”
“You weren’t supposed to be there.”
“It’s my bakery!”
“It’s our bakery,” Allan reminded her. “But that’s not an excuse for what I did.”
“There isn’t an excuse for what you did,” Brydie replied. She put a hand up to her throbbing temple. “I can’t talk about this right now. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
“I understand.”
“No you don’t,” Brydie said. “But you do know you have to end it, right? It has to end with her.”
&nb
sp; “Brydie,” Allan said. “Brydie, wait.”
Brydie turned around at the foot of the stairs. “What?”
“I’m not going to end it,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Brydie, I love her.”
Brydie felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. She’d expected to come home and have Allan apologize, cry with her, and tell her it would never happen again. She’d expected him to say that it just happened once. She’d expected him to tell her it meant nothing. “How long has it been going on?”
“A few months.”
So her mother had been right. “Why?” she asked.
Allan shrugged. “I don’t know. It just happened.”
“That’s not a reason,” Brydie replied. She kept thinking that if she could just keep him there, if they could just talk about it, then maybe somehow it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe they could work it out. Maybe her marriage wasn’t over.
“It’s not that I don’t love you,” Allan replied. “I do. I’ll always love you. But things have been different these last couple of years since your dad died. You’re different. You’re not the person I married.”
“Oh, so this is my fault?” Brydie asked. “It’s my fault you can’t keep it in your goddamn pants, Allan?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“So what are you saying?”
Allan held up his hands in defeat. “I’m going to go ahead and stay somewhere else for the night. We can talk tomorrow.”
Brydie looked down at the bag in Allan’s hand. He must have been holding on to it all along, but she’d been too distracted to notice. “Are you going to stay with her? With Cassandra?”
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” was all he said.
Brydie thought about that night all the time. She often wondered if she could have said or done something that would have made Allan want to stay. She wondered if it really was her fault, as he often said in the months to follow, that she’d changed, that she wasn’t the woman he’d married. She wondered, too, what her life would be like if she hadn’t walked in on Allan and Cassandra. Would they still be married? Would they have a child? Could she have been happy in her ignorance for the rest of her life?
She didn’t know.
All she knew for sure right now was that Allan and Cassandra were getting married. During her weakest moments, alone in bed and wearing Allan’s shirt, she’d hoped against hope that maybe he’d realize he made a mistake. Maybe he’d call her and say that any version of her was better than no version at all. He’d say he loved her. He’d say there was no one else. He’d say he wanted her to come home.
Home? There wasn’t any home to go back to. The bakery was closed. The house was sold. She had proof right there on her phone that Allan was never going to say any of those things. He was going to be someone else’s husband, and he was going to live a life that she knew nothing about.
Brydie toweled off and climbed into bed. She’d shut her phone off so that she wouldn’t be tempted to look at the photo again. She was sure that by now her mother had called, and maybe even Nathan had called. She was too humiliated to call and apologize. All she wanted to do right now was sink down into the pillow and go to sleep until Christmas.
As she closed her eyes, she felt something wet and rough graze the top of her hand hanging off the side of the bed. She sat up and turned the lamp on to see Teddy sitting there, looking up at her expectantly.
“You want up here?” Brydie asked.
Teddy put his two front paws on the side of the mattress.
“Okay,” Brydie said, getting out of bed and hoisting Teddy up. “But if you drool on me in the middle of the night, you’re going right back down again.”
Teddy pawed at the comforter and turned around a few times before nestling right up to her. In true Teddy fashion, he promptly began to snore.
Brydie looked at him in amazement. She reached out her hand and stroked him along his back until her eyes became heavy and her hand began to burn. Then she turned off the lamp and tried to get some sleep.
CHAPTER 16
NOT LONG AFTER BRYDIE DRIFTED TO SLEEP, SHE BOLTED upright in bed when she heard a deafening crash coming from beneath her. Teddy was suddenly pressed up next to her, his breathing rough and ragged. She patted his side, trying to wake herself up enough to figure out what was going on.
“It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.”
She shifted over on her side to look at the clock on the nightstand, but it was off. When she went to turn on her phone, it wouldn’t come on, the low-battery signal mocking her in the middle of the darkened screen.
Brydie lay down, wondering where the crash could have come from. It sounded as if it was below them. In the basement, maybe? She knew she should get up and see to it, but she didn’t want to. It was probably nothing. She doubted there was anything at all in the basement. The crash had been in her head. She just wanted to sleep, but after a few minutes the fog in her brain lifted and she sat up yet again.
The basement?
That’s when Brydie remembered that she had the key that might work on the basement door. She’d forgotten all about it since Halloween. There’s been a crash down there, Brydie thought. I should get up and check it out. I need to get up and check it out.
She pushed aside her covers and switched on the light. She’d hidden the skeleton key in one of the porcelain jewelry boxes Mrs. Neumann kept on her dresser. It was the kind with serrated edges that opened locks of all kinds. Brydie had seen only one before, at her grandparents’ house when she’d been helping her mother move them into the nursing home. But when she’d asked about it, her mother told her to put it away, and reminded her not to take anything that didn’t belong to her. As if I would have taken anything from my own grandparents, Brydie thought, annoyed even now, years later, feeling her cheeks burn.
She turned the key over in her hands. This had to be the key to the basement. It just had to be. Brydie’s heart skipped a beat when she put the key into the lock and it turned with ease. She opened the door and tried to switch on the light, but nothing happened. “Shit,” she said. There was no way she was going to be able to see anything down there in the middle of the night in the dark. Then she remembered that she’d seen a flashlight in the bedroom closet.
She stood up on her tiptoes and felt along the shelf for the flashlight. When she felt it, she grabbed on to the handle but did not get a good grip, causing it to fall from the shelf down onto the top of her head and onto the floor. Ignoring the mess, the key in one hand and the flashlight in the other, she made her way triumphantly back to the now-open basement door. This time Teddy was by her side, his gaze shifting from the open doorway in front of them and back to her.
“This is how horror movies begin,” she whispered to him. She was barefoot, and the dust from each step stirred and became lodged in between her toes. After a few halting seconds, Teddy was at her heels, his hot breath beating against her skin.
Once they got to the bottom of the stairs, the musty smell of the basement invaded Brydie’s nostrils and she coughed to clear her lungs. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected once she got down there, but as she shone the flashlight around the room, she found that the basement looked like, well, a basement. It reminded her of her grandparents’ basement. There were boxes on shelves that were neatly labeled “Christmas supplies” or “tablecloths.” There were canned goods and a hodgepodge of other items that people relegate to basements when they no longer have a place upstairs. Further inspection revealed an old couch and a broken-down table and chairs.
But the site of the crash was obvious—in one corner, an entire shelving unit had imploded, taking years of food-filled mason jars with them. The smell as Brydie got closer to the mess was overwhelming, and she had to cover her nose. There was no way she was going to be able to clean it up tonight—not in the dark and not barefoot. She crept closer, shining the light around the rest of that side of the basement to make sure no other rotting sh
elves had decided to commit suicide and spill their contents on the dirty concrete floor.
Behind her, Teddy jumped up on the couch and nestled down onto one end where the stuffing was coming loose. She turned her attention back to the mess, and as she did, her light caught something in the corner opposite to the shelves. It looked like a trunk, and as she moved closer, she became even more curious. Surely an old trunk in a basement wasn’t a rarity, but this trunk didn’t match the rest of the ratty furniture and rotting food that filled the rest of the space. It was ornate, with metalwork scrolling up and down the wooden flanks. And there was something else, something even more curious—just in front of the trunk was a folding chair, and on top of the seat of the chair was a book lying open. If not for the dust and the cobwebs, Brydie would have guessed that she’d just missed the mysterious person who’d been sitting there, as if they’d just popped out for a moment and would be right back.
Brydie set the flashlight onto the concrete floor so that it shone upward, and gingerly picked up the book. It was damp and stank of mold, and when she held it closer to her face, she realized it was a photo album. The pages inside were yellowed, and so were the photos.
She retrieved the flashlight to get a better look and sat down gingerly in the chair. The first few pages were of people she’d never seen—members of Mrs. Neumann’s family, she assumed, at a wedding. Then there was Mrs. Neumann, a much younger version of her, standing in a wedding dress next to a fair-haired, good-looking man in a suit. Brydie could tell by the cap-sleeved, A-line dress that it must have been sometime in the 1960s. The dress was short, just below the knee, and she was wearing a small white hat that fit close to her bobbed head of hair.
What struck Brydie most was that even with the poor lighting in the basement and the fading quality of the photograph, she could tell that Mrs. Neumann had been beautiful. She practically radiated warmth as she smiled up at the man next to her. Brydie wondered why the photo album was downstairs sitting on top of a folding chair.
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