by Shirley Jump
“Some of us run from the very thing we want most in the world. And some of us undermine it because we’re afraid to take that risk. Life is about risk, Harris. It’s what gives a little spice to the plain every day.” Della gave Harris’s hand a squeeze before releasing him. “Don’t give up. She’s as smitten with you as you are with her.”
He chuckled. “Smitten? That’s a word I haven’t heard in a long time.”
“Just because it’s an old word doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to modern times.” Della gathered the receipts into a pile, then got to her feet. “Anyway, it was nice chatting with you, Harris, but I really need to get home. Bobby texted me and told me he has a romantic evening planned.” She beamed, as smitten as a teenage girl with her husband of more than three decades.
Harris seemed doomed to be surrounded by couples in love. Maybe there was something in the air around here, or at least everywhere but in the air between him and Mellie. “Good night, Della. Thank you for the advice.”
“Anytime.” She crossed to the door then turned back. “Oh, and Harris? There’s a piece of raspberry cheesecake left in the fridge. Someone told me that’s her favorite dessert. You might want to bring that with you upstairs and leave it as a surprise.”
After Della left, Harris thought about her words for a long time. He opened the fridge, stared at the cheesecake, then shut the door again.
* * *
Melanie stayed up late, writing and rewriting the article before she emailed it to Saul. For the first time in forever, a sense of pride filled her when she looked at her words. She’d been fair and honest, with a little heartstring pulling sprinkled among the facts. The email and its attachment left her out-box, and she whispered a prayer that it would all work out for the good.
This was it. Her new start. Her new career.
And the end of her relationship with Harris.
The wedding was only a few days away, and then she could go back to New York and put him in her past. Again. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much the second time.
The next night, Melanie went to dinner at her sister’s house again and pretended to be inordinately interested in the details about the flowers and the catering. She helped Abby pick out the appetizers and decide on some handmade decorations for the tables in the park, promising to come by the next day to assemble them.
She played Legos with Jake, attempted to master Grand Theft Auto on Cody’s Xbox, and all in all, pulled off a pretty great fake-happy night. Abby gave her sister a tight hug when the evening drew to a close. “I’m glad you came over.”
“Me, too. I’ll be here tomorrow, around noon?”
“Sure. That would be great.” Abby hugged her again.
Ma put a hand on Melanie’s arm as she headed for the door. “Can we talk for a minute?”
“Sure.” The two of them headed outside and began to walk the tree-lined street where Abby lived. There was a slight breeze in the air, the temps a little cooler now, edging toward fall. But it was still warm enough not to need a coat as they caught sight of the sun sinking beyond the horizon.
“Abby tells me you lost your job, too.”
Melanie nodded. “And I didn’t tell you about that, either, Ma. I should have, and I’m sorry.”
Her mother kept walking for a while, not saying anything. “You were right about me. I do criticize and judge. I just...I wanted a different life for you girls.”
“Different than the one you had as a single mom.” Melanie grabbed a leaf off a low-hanging branch and tore it apart, piece by piece, watching the trail of green confetti.
Her mother nodded. “It was hard. I didn’t have a college education, like the two of you do. I worked a lot of jobs that didn’t pay well, and I guess I...I was angry and resentful. And I took it out on the two of you.”
Ma started walking again, holding her peace for a long while. The breeze skated through the trees, making the leaves dance and chatter above them. “I went to that fund-raiser and met that newspaper editor. He raved about you. Then I read your article on the oldest living resident. I had no idea you could write with such...heart.”
“Thanks.” The praise warmed Melanie. Maybe because it was the first honest praise she’d heard from her mother in a long, long time. Praise that she had earned, with her words, with her work. With honest work.
Ma stopped beside a wrought iron bench. “Let me sit a little while.”
Melanie realized how much older her mother had gotten in the last few years. Ma was in her late fifties now, and the years were beginning to creep into her face, her pace. Melanie settled beside her mother, feeling an odd sense of protectiveness come over her.
“Do you think it’s too late for me to get really involved with the wedding? I mean, with more than my opinion?” her mother asked. “I’ve let Abby down so much with that.”
“Of course it’s not too late. Abby would love that.”
Ma’s features trembled, and her eyes welled. “You and Abby have always been so close. So very, very close. And I was...jealous.”
“Jealous?”
Her mother drew in a breath. “When your father died, all I had was you two. It was like you and your sister became your own little unit and I was left out of that circle. Then you both moved away, and...”
Tears shimmered on her mother’s lashes. For the first time, Melanie saw the vulnerability beneath her mother’s strong facade, the emotions that had kept her from getting close to her daughters, that had her using criticism as a wall between them. There were hundreds of comments Melanie could retread, but she was tired of going over the past. And tired of the past controlling her future.
Melanie reached out and hugged her mother, hugged her tight, until the sun finished setting and the wounds between them began to heal.
Chapter Thirteen
Harris put all his energies into hammering, plastering and painting. He spent the next five days pouring himself into building the new Kingston home. Every day, John showed up for a few hours before and after working in his barbershop, working side by side with Harris. In the hours while they worked and sweated, Harris and John talked. The conversation in the café was forgotten, and they slipped back into their friendship without missing a step. Harris liked that, liked it a lot. John served as part father figure, part best friend, and right now, Harris needed both.
John told him about his difficult childhood, about the stresses of business ownership, about how he loved the customers he had at the barbershop. Harris opened up about his father, about the toll working with him had taken on Harris and about how he’d been searching for ways to make it up to the people he’d hurt ever since.
“Sometimes it all works out as it’s meant to,” John said. “I never would have settled in this town, or opened up my barbershop, if I still had the machining business. I miss my company and the people I worked with, but there’s a lot less stress nowadays, where all I have to worry about is what size clipper blade to use.” He nodded toward the trio of men who were shingling the new garage. “And you employing these local folks who were unemployed was a really good thing.”
“I’m glad to do it, and I’m already working on some training and contacts for your people up north,” Harris said. He’d changed a few lives, but it was never enough. The guilt hung on his shoulders like an unwelcome dinner guest. If Harris hadn’t quit working for his father, or stayed in the same town, maybe his mother would have held on longer, or at least she wouldn’t have been alone at the end. He’d never have that answer, and somehow, he needed to be okay with that. “My father has cost me and the people I care about too much. I don’t want him to do that anymore.”
“Cost you, like with Melanie?” John handed Harris a couple of nails, then waited while Harris used them to put a railing in place for the back deck. “You told me one night that breaking up with her was the biggest mistake of your life.”
“No. Getting involved with her again was the biggest mistake of my life.” He slammed the hammer head against the nail, sinking it in one move.
John picked up their water bottles and handed Harris one. “You’re talking about the article.”
Harris stepped back from the railing and tucked the hammer into his tool belt. He took a sip of water, but the icy liquid did nothing to quench the burn in his chest. “I told her a hundred times I didn’t want the fire to be publicized. But she wrote about it anyway.”
John considered that for a moment, turning the nails over and over in his palm. “Maybe because it was a story that should be told.”
“I disagree.” He capped the water bottle and set it back on the decking. “I can’t believe she did that after I clearly asked her not to.”
One of the Barlow brothers called out a break for lunch. John dropped the nails back into the bucket but reached for Harris’s shoulder to stop him from leaving. “Have you even read it?”
“No.” He’d heard that Saul had sent it on to the Charlotte Observer. The piece came out this morning, and Harris had no doubt that by this afternoon, reporters would be swarming the job site. He’d already had several calls from unknown numbers that he had let go straight to voice mail.
“Then you don’t know if she was kind or cruel. You don’t know if maybe...maybe she’s written a piece that could change someone else’s life. Stop a man from picking up a drink when he really should be picking up the phone.” John’s voice roughened. “Catherine and I read it, and I have to say, I think she did a wonderful job capturing the story.”
Harris considered this. “I expected her to write some exploitive piece that would get her picked up by a national news outlet.”
“Yeah, well, you thought wrong.” John reached in his back pocket and pulled out a folded paper. “See for yourself.”
Harris stared at the newsprint, half-afraid to open it up.
John clapped Harris on the back. “We all make mistakes, Harris. We lose our judgment, we leap without looking, we hurt the ones we love. But if our motives are true, then we know we’ve done the best we can—or at least, that we’ll try to do better in the future. I don’t know Melanie, but my wife thinks she’s amazing because she’s been here, helping out. She’s called and checked on Catherine every day. She dropped off school supplies and backpacks for the kids yesterday. Someone like that wouldn’t write an article that would hurt my family.”
Mellie had done all of that? He knew she’d been at the job site off and on, mostly whenever he wasn’t here, because Jack Barlow had mentioned it. But he had no idea she had been so involved with the Kingstons.
John went off to eat lunch while Harris stayed behind with the half-finished railing and the story Mellie had written. The exterior of the new Kingston family home was up, and the interior walls were beginning to take shape. Plumbing and electrical were snaking through the frame, laying a blueprint for a new beginning. The entire site looked and smelled like a fresh start. A do-over for one bad decision.
Maybe it was time Harris did the same.
* * *
Melanie started to cry when she slid the zipper up Abby’s back. “God, you look so beautiful. And so happy.”
Abby beamed at her reflection. Her dress was simple, white and knee-length, with cap sleeves and a scoop neck and a small ring of rhinestones around the hem. She’d forgone a veil, leaving her dark hair long and held back with a barrette decorated with tiny flowers and long, slender ribbons that trailed down to her shoulders. “It’s like I’m seventeen again and going to the prom with the cool guy. Except this time I get to stay with him for the rest of my life.”
Melanie hugged Abby, a light embrace to avoid wrinkling her dress. “Dylan’s a lucky guy.”
“So is Harris—or at least, he will be soon, once he gets his head on straight.” Abby reached for two bouquets of lilies, one small for Melanie, and one big for herself, then handed Melanie her flowers.
“Harris? We’re not even dating.”
“Then why have you been moping around the last few days?” Abby arched a brow. “You’ve been here almost every day, saying you’re helping me get ready for the wedding—”
“Which I did. I made all those Mason jars with the flowers in them and decorated those big candles for the tables. At least I didn’t have to outfit a baby goat, too.”
The joke flickered in Abby’s smile, then disappeared. “And the whole time, you looked like you had lost your best friend.” Her features softened. “Why don’t you go talk to him?”
“Because I betrayed him and I don’t think he will forgive me.” She sighed and plopped into the chair in Abby’s bedroom. “I wrote that story about the Kingstons and sent it to Saul. For five minutes, I dreamed of a big paper picking it up and being able to use it to launch my career again and get the fund-raiser a lot of publicity and donations. Then I thought of Harris’s face when he confronted me, and I...I couldn’t do it. I called Saul and begged him not to run it, but he told me it was too good to let it sit in a drawer. He called the Charlotte Observer, and they ran it this morning.”
“I know. Ma brought me the paper early this morning. She bought ten of them, in fact.” Abby grinned. “She’s a little proud. And so am I. It was a beautiful piece, Melanie.”
“Which means nothing if I hurt someone I love by writing it.” As soon as the words were out, Melanie realized they were true. She did love Harris. She had never stopped, not really. But what she’d done had ruined any chance between them, and there was no taking that moment back.
So she helped her sister get ready and drove down to the park to meet the minister and Dylan and the boys, who had spent the night with their soon-to-be stepfather. The Barlow family was there, along with Mavis and Dylan’s uncle Ty and a bunch of other families from town. She noticed the Kingstons sitting in the fourth row, the kids wearing the new clothes she had gone with Catherine to buy a couple days ago.
The minister stepped into the center of the makeshift outdoor church setting, and a band began to play Abby and Dylan’s favorite song, while Abby’s boys walked her down the aisle to Dylan. Melanie saw Ma crying in the front row. Abby stopped, leaned down, hugged her mother, and the two shared a moment before Abby straightened and met her husband-to-be at the end of the rows of chairs. The boys peeled off to sit by their grandmother, and the minister began to speak.
Melanie barely heard the words her sister and Dylan spoke. All she saw was the love radiating between them, the happiness. It almost glowed. A swell of envy grew in Melanie, as she saw what could be—if she found true love.
Once upon a time, she’d thought she had that with Harris. But in typical Melanie fashion, she had detonated it all by keeping the truth from him. Taken off, headed to school—
Running.
Wasn’t that what she had done all week, too? Run from seeing him? Avoided him, instead of going to him and having a heart-to-heart about the article, about how she felt, about what had scared her all those years ago?
The ceremony came to an end, Abby and Dylan kissed, and the crowd cheered. They headed over to the park gazebo where the band was set up and a couple dozen tables and chairs were decorated for the guests. Jack Barlow had constructed a temporary dance floor, and as soon as the band began to play, Dylan waltzed onto it with his bride.
Melanie laid the bouquets on one of the tables and hung to the side, under the shade of a tree, watching them and thinking about how her life could have gone differently if only she had stayed put and talked instead of avoided.
Saul came over to her. The perpetual ball cap was still on his head, even though he’d dressed up and added a tie to his usual short-sleeve button-down shirt. “Nice wedding.”
“It was. Nice and casual. Great to see so many people from town here.”
Saul nodded. “And the Kingstons. I heard from Mrs. K that you bought their dress clot
hes for today and took their little one to get a suit.”
She’d used the money she’d earned from writing for the Stone Gap Gazette, which still put her behind the eight ball financially, but the look of gratitude on Catherine Kingston’s face made it worth the expense. “It was the least I could do. They’re such a wonderful family.”
“And a part of you feels like a jerk for writing that article?” Saul arched a brow.
“Yeah.” Even though the family had loved the article, Melanie still felt terrible. The Observer had called her this morning, offering her a job as a staff reporter. So had two other big-city papers and one national magazine. She’d let all the calls go to voice mail.
“Well, don’t. That article is one of the best damned pieces of journalism I have seen in a long time. And I’ve been around since the Stone Age, so I should know. My friend at the Observer said he called and offered you a job. You should take it. They’re a great paper to work for and can pay a lot more than I could. My fishing will just have to wait a bit.”
It was everything she’d wanted, all wrapped up with a tidy little bow. And yet she felt more depressed than she had when her life fell apart.
The old Melanie would have said to hell with the consequences, just run the article and she’d be on her way before the fallout had a chance to hit. But this was the new Melanie, the one who had grown up a lot in the last year, and who had finally realized that being honest with those she loved—and with herself—was the only way forward. And this Melanie couldn’t ignore the havoc she’d created in her path of best intentions.
“I’m thinking about his offer,” she said. “I haven’t decided what I want to do yet.”
“I get that. But you know...”
“A job offer like that won’t be there forever.” She gave Saul a smile. “Thank you for believing in me.”
“It was easy to do after I read your work. And for the record, I’m eating more kale now, too.” He grinned.
