She groans. “I’ve been pretty horrible to you our entire lives. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, I agree. I’ve agreed for the last twenty-seven years.” Bowing my head, the muscles in the back of my neck stretch. It seems to pull up a sickness in my stomach, though, as floods of memories cascade around me. “Why now, Chris? Why all of a sudden are you so sorry? Do I have nothing left you want?”
I don’t mean to spill such nastiness over the line, but it feels like a dam is broken. It’s like I’m stepping out of a shell I’ve worn for so very long and now I’m me, the little girl who has been tempered inside who can now come into the sunshine.
My laughter isn’t from joy or even amusement. It’s more from a disbelief that this conversation is actually happening.
“I mean it,” she insists. “This conversation should’ve happened a long time ago and I was too self-absorbed to see it.”
“So, you woke up this morning and realized what an asshole you’ve been to me? And you grew a conscience? Why is that hard to believe?”
“Because that’s not the way it happened,” she counters. “I’ll be honest, as terrible as this is going to sound, but the day I realized it—got an inkling of it—was the day I got married and you weren’t there.”
“Can you blame me? You were marrying the man I thought I would be marrying.”
“No, I don’t blame you,” she scoffs. “And I’m not sorry I married Eric because I believe he’s my soul mate. But I am sorry it hurt you and I want you to know, as unbelievable as this sounds, we didn’t get together until you were broken up.”
I had an entire little speech planned for this moment, one I didn’t think would ever come to fruition. It consisted of a bunch of name calling and fact pointing and trying to humiliate her to a level from which she would never recover.
Now that the moment is here, none of it will come to mind. All I can think is thank God. Thank God that prayer went unanswered. Praise Jesus that Eric didn’t ask to marry me. Where would that have landed me?
Glancing down at my shirt still wearing the signs of the flour from earlier, I feel a peace settle over me.
“You know what?” I ask, swallowing hard. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter, Mariah.”
“It doesn’t.” I wait for regret to hit me. “It doesn’t. Eric and I not being together was the best thing that ever happened to me in retrospect.”
“You really like Lance, huh?” she asks softly.
“Yeah,” I grin. “I do.”
The line rustles as she moves on the other end. “He seems like a great catch.”
“I haven’t quite caught him yet,” I laugh, the words coming easier now that I’m on my turf. “But I wasn’t really trying either.”
“That’s funny. I want you to catch him if you want to catch him. I want you to be happy.”
“I want to be happy too.”
I look at the tray of empty cupcakes from today. Lance makes me happy and I think I make him happy. But if I do, why does he still have the app updating on his phone?
I didn’t mean to see it and I almost wish I hadn’t. It’s just enough to make my anxiety need a shot of whiskey to settle. It’s probably nothing and he has every right to use the app. I just wish I knew for my own good.
My next statement is on the tip of my tongue and I try to taste it, work it around, before I say it. “I want you to be happy too, Chrissy.”
“I am,” she whispers. “I carry this burden around every day and I don’t expect you to forgive me for being so awful to you. I just hope maybe one day we can start all over or start as the grown-ups we are now.”
“Can I ask you something?” I ask, heading back into the kitchen. “Why were you so awful to me? Why did you always try to trump everything that meant anything to me?”
The line quiets as I get out plates and dip out some stir fry. I think she might’ve hung up when she finally speaks again.
“My room was by Mom and Dad’s,” she says, so softly I almost don’t hear her. “I used to listen to them fight. Dad used to tell her he was leaving and they’d fight about us and he’d always say he was taking you. That you were the only one of us who had any sense.”
My jaw drags the ground at her confession. Is that true?
“I was jealous,” she says crisply. “He wrote off everything I liked as frivolous. He praised your grades. He loved your paintings and thought you were the next Monet and I couldn’t do anything to get his attention.”
“So you were a jerk to me?”
“I’m sorry, Mariah.” She hesitates. “When I had Betsy, one of the first things I noticed about her was her birthmark. It felt like the universe was mocking me, that I was so horrible my sister wouldn’t even be there with me. And then I imagined having another daughter and having one of them treat the other the way I treated you and I think I cried for two days.”
“Probably post-partum,” I say, taking a bite of chicken.
I hear Betsy cry in the background. Chrissy coos to her as the phone gets jolted all around. “Eric! Are you in here? Can you help me for a minute?”
“Hey, Chrissy,” I say, setting down my fork. “Go take care of your baby girl.”
The thought of that precious baby’s face makes me soften.
“Are you sure?” she asks. “I, um …”
“I’m sure. Thank you for calling me and for all the things you said.”
“I meant them, Mariah.”
I look at my reflection in the window over the sink. My little birthmark looks a little darker, a little more noticeable for some reason.
“I know you did. Just give me some time to think about things.”
“Absolutely. Thank you for taking my call.”
“Sure.”
“Goodbye, Mariah.”
Ending the call, food forgotten, I head into the living room and lay on the couch. The entire conversation, line-for-line rolls back through my mind as I dissect everything we both said.
I’m scared to believe her. I’m scared not to too.
Lance
“Hand me another box of nails,” Peck shouts from overhead.
Machlan grabs the last box on the tailgate of his truck and climbs the two bottom rungs and hands them to Peck. There’s a little patch of roofing on Nana’s shed that she uses to store her Christmas decorations and yard ornaments that she needed fixed. My skill set usually has me coming by to check her taxes or deal with insurance, but when Machlan and Peck said they were coming over, I figured it was better than sitting around the house ruminating.
Cross flies down the driveway in his Jeep, kicking gravel all over the yard. We laugh, knowing Nana will have his ass when she sees him again.
“Typical,” Machlan shouts. “Show up when the work is about done.”
“I’ve been on the phone.”
Machlan holds the ladder steady as Peck’s boot hits the top rung. “I bet.”
“Hadley called.” Cross gives Machlan a ‘you asked for it’ kind of look.
“How is she?” I ask.
Machlan glares my way, disappearing to the other side of the shed so he doesn’t have to hear. A part of me feels bad for asking knowing how hard it is for my brother to hear anything about her at all. Even though none of us are one-hundred-percent sure what actually transpired between them, it was enough to keep Machlan from settling down again.
“She’s good,” Cross says. “Had a question about the guy she’s been seeing for a while. Can’t say I like him much, but it seems like he’s around for the long haul.”
Peck’s hammer taps against the roof before he whips around and sits on his behind. “Here I am, doin’ all the work, and you guys will go inside and tell Nana what a great job you did. Such bullshit.”
“Keep it up and that ladder just might give out on ya on the way down,” Machlan says, coming back into view.
Peck grins, resting his arms on his knees. “So, Lance. With all this talk about Hadley, what’s going
on with Mariah?”
“I wish I knew,” I say, feeling my stomach bottom out.
“She dump you already?” Machlan asks with a smirk.
“No, asshole, she didn’t.” Leaning back against Cross’ Jeep, I sigh. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Women always are,” Cross notes.
“She’s not hard to explain. The situation is.”
Cross looks at me funny. “If she’s not hard to explain, marry her. Now. You’ve found a one in a million.”
“No shit,” Machlan adds.
I shove off the hood and start picking up stray nails. There’s no way to tell them Mariah doesn’t have a damn thing about her that makes her undesirable or off-limits or makes me not want to see her again. They won’t understand.
“You’re scared shitless, aren’t you?” Cross cracks.
Peck just watches me from his perch, a hammer dangling from his hand. He raises a brow but chooses to remain silent.
“You’re not getting any younger, you know,” Machlan notes.
“Yeah, I know. Thanks for pointing that out.”
He shrugs.
“Believe it or not,” I say, dumping the nails in a discarded box, “this really has nothing to do with her.”
“Oh, so this is one of those ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ kind of things?” Cross jokes. “You better get something better than that before you go fucking up all kinds of shit.”
“Kind of.”
“You’re admitting you have flaws?” Machlan asks. “I didn’t think we’d see the day.”
“I’ve never said I didn’t have flaws. I just said I didn’t have as many as you fuckers.”
They all laugh, Machlan holding the ladder as Peck climbs to the ground. “Tell you what,” my youngest brother says. “I have a feeling there’s a lot more to this conversation than you’re letting on. But I’m not a pushy guy. When you’re ready to get slammed and pour your heart out, I’ll have an Old Fashioned ready for you at Crave.”
“Gee, thanks.”
We work together to clean up the mess. Nana calls from the house, ordering us inside for sandwiches before we leave.
“Hey,” I say, pulling my thoughts away from Mariah. “Do any of you need someone to do some odd jobs or have an apartment for rent?”
Machlan looks up from the toolbox. “Maybe. Why?”
“There’s a kid at school. He’s a foster kid. Good boy. He’s turning eighteen soon and apparently he’ll be on his own as soon.”
“No shit?” Cross flinches.
“I wanted to see if I could help him find something.”
“If not, I could take a roommate,” Peck offers. “And I bet if you call Sienna, she’d make Walker give him a job.”
We all laugh, knowing that’s true.
Machlan and Cross get in their cars and drive a few yards to Nana’s back door. Peck and I load the rest of the tools and then stand next to the bed.
“If I can do anything to help that kid, let me know,” Peck says, shaking his head. “That’s gonna bother me all night now.”
Laughing, I take off his hat and throw it at him as I walk by. “He’ll be fine. We’ll work it out.”
“What about Mariah? You gonna work that out?”
My steps falter as I make it to my car. Head hanging, spirit deflating, I sigh. “I don’t know, man.”
“Did you even talk to her?”
“I talk to her every day.”
“You’re a dumbass,” he says.
The sun begins to set, the evening air cooling. A heaviness settles around me, a sadness, almost, that I haven’t felt since my parents died. It’s not the same, not as tragic, but not entirely different either.
I’m on a precipice of losing something important to me and I don’t really have a choice.
“You ever think of adopting?” Peck asks quietly. “I mean, there are ways to build a family without using sperm.”
“I’m not against that. I think it’s a damn good idea. But that’s a choice for my life and I’m not at liberty to make that choice for her.”
He grins. “I don’t think that girl would let you make any decision she didn’t want.”
“Probably right,” I laugh, thinking of how hard-headed she can be. The toe of my boot scrapes against the ground, sending a load of pebbles scattering off the driveway.
“I love her, Peck.”
“I know you do.”
“Why am I not terrified about that? How can you be so fucking sure and so fucking scared at the same time about the same thing?”
“Because you love her,” he laughs. “I think it’s only terrifying when you aren’t sure. And if you aren’t sure, you probably don’t.”
“How’d you get so wise?”
He takes his hat off and wipes his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. “Baby, I was born this way.”
Shaking my head, I open the door to my car.
“She doesn’t love your sperm count,” Peck notes. “Remember that.”
“So eloquent.”
“You don’t pay me enough to be eloquent.”
“I don’t pay you at all.”
“Good point,” he says, pulling a drink out of the cooler in the back of his truck. “Look, I feel invested in this relationship. I need you to tell her you love her.”
“Not happening,” I say. I climb into the driver’s seat.
Peck just shakes his head. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”
“I’m also a liar,” I tell him, starting the car and revving up the engine. “This isn’t only about her. It’s also about me.”
“What about you?”
“I’m a pussy who can’t admit my weaknesses.” A resolution slides over me. “Do me a favor and tell Nana I got sick or had to do something, okay?”
He gasps. “You want me to lie to Nana?”
“Just pretend it’s you telling her you didn’t sneak in here and eat all the leftover fried chicken last weekend.”
“How’d you know about that?”
I tap the side of my head. “I know everything.” Closing the door, I throw the transmission in reverse and head down the driveway.
Unfortunately, I do know things. Even the things I was happier not knowing. Now I just need the balls to pull the trigger.
Whipping out my phone, I search for Mariah’s name.
Me:Something came up I have to do tonight. I won’t make dinner. I’m sorry.
Before I can change my mind, I turn my phone off. Tossing it in the back seat, I take off down the road, gravel crunching beneath my tires.
Twenty-Seven
Mariah
Whitney pushes her plate to the center of the table. It’s streaked with stir fry sauce and a few pieces of cooked onion. “That was really good.”
“Thanks.” Whether she’s lying to me or not, I don’t have a clue. My taste buds are gone. That or my brain is too occupied at the moment to really taste anything. “How’s work?”
“Eh, about the same. I think I might be moving floors though.”
“We’re happy about that?”
“Yes,” she gushes. “My schedule would stabilize and I’d have more daylight hours.” Taking a sip of her water, she watches me over the rim. “Jonah asked me out today.”
My jaw drops. “He did not.”
Her laugh floats easily through the air. Mine isn’t as easy, nor is it as engaged. I just don’t feel it.
“I turned him down. I mean, you dated him—”
“I so did not date him,” I insist. “That wasn’t even a date, let alone dating.”
“Fine. But he’s not my type either.”
“But you thought he was mine?”
“I thought you were desperate,” she laughs. “He was a good starter date.”
My hand smacks my face. “Starter date? Men aren’t objects, Whit.”
“Nah, they kind of are.” She runs a finger around the edge of her glass. “Speaking of men, I’ve refrained from asking about Lance so you could b
ring it up. But, you haven’t and I’m tired of waiting.”
“You’re so kind,” I groan.
“Not really. Spill it. What’s going on?”
What is going on? Hell if I know, but something is because I can feel it. It’s that sixth sense you get when something is awry. That niggle in your stomach that doesn’t quite feel like you have to puke but makes you a little leery of getting too far away from the restroom.
It’s in my scalp, that prickly sensation like my hair follicles are standing on end, waiting for me to process whatever unknown that’s coming.
I’ve told myself over the past two hours that it’s nothing. From the second Lance’s text came through, I’ve passed this sinking feeling off as leftover stress from the day. The problem is, I can’t work it out enough to believe myself.
“Nothing,” I say, getting our plates together and carrying them to the sink. I busy myself with scraping leftover bits and pieces down the garbage disposal and rinsing off the rest. When I finish, she’s still watching patiently like she’s expecting more from me. I toss down a dishtowel. “What?”
“You don’t cook like that just for you. And when I showed up, it was already done, which tells me you had plans. If that’s true, then what happened to them? Because that would explain this ‘my goldfish just jumped out of the bowl’ thing you have going on.”
“Really? Goldfish?”
“Yeah, goldfish. You aren’t crying, so it’s not one of your thousand fictional cats,” she laughs. “People don’t get as attached to goldfish unless they’re like six.”
“Fair enough,” I sigh, collapsing back into my chair. “Dinner was for Lance. He was supposed to come over but I got this short text that he ‘couldn’t make it’ and then my return message wasn’t delivered.”
“So, you think he shut his phone off.”
“Yup. Or it died, I guess, but …” I flex my neck, that half-cringe thing people do when they’re working something out in their heads that I never understand. It’s like the universal delivery, the same as opening your mouth to put on mascara.
The honest way of answering that question has me one step closer to needing the toilet. I’ve been in an anxiety spiral since seeing the app earlier today, but then with Chrissy calling and Lance calling and his phone dying, it’s all adding up to more than I can handle and I’m clinging to reason to keep from toppling over the edge in a freak-out fest.
Craft Page 22
