17
“I just bought my condo,” Jesse explained to Clara. He was sitting at the peninsula watching her dump sticks of butter into a mixing bowl and wondering why she was making cookies when they’d just had chocolate cake. Beck was washing the dinner dishes at the sink for Nash to dry and put away, and Hart was in the living room playing chess with his parents. “I’m what you’d call cash poor. Not really looking to invest in anything right now.”
“Imagine stripping all this honey stain,” she invited, indicating the staircase and rafters and window frames with a sweep of the arm. “Imagine a light blond color on all this wood. Easy on the eyes. Refreshing to the stressed-out doctor’s brain. Clean Scandinavian simplicity right here in Texas.”
“Honestly, it sounds like a ton of work.”
“That’s because you’re tired right now,” she said confidently, scooping brown sugar on top of the butter. “Was that one scoop or two?”
“Two. Won’t you need a mixer for that?”
“I have one,” she said cheekily, handing him a wooden spoon.
He sighed and took the bowl from her. The butter was pretty hard but not frozen; there was hope.
“I think once you’ve had a good night’s sleep, you’ll realize how much you like this house,” she went on, starting to measure flour in a glass measuring pitcher.
“A good night’s sleep won’t make any difference,” he maintained.
“Then why is there fear behind your eyes?” Nash asked him in a British accent.
Clara’s deep brown eyes were large and luminous. “Jesse, I need you to trust me,” she intoned.
It was eerily close to hypnotism.
Two could play that game; he reached across the counter and took her floury hand carefully in both of his own, gentling his voice. “Clara. Honey. This place is a money pit. I don’t even make enough to support another residence. I don’t have that many vacation days, and I don’t want to spend them driving here from Austin. There are a million reasons why this won’t happen. I need you to understand.”
She was smiling fondly at him, just like that time he’d yelled at her for touching his comic books.
“I totally hear you,” she assured him.
“Great.”
“And I agree to disagree.”
“No!” he exclaimed, flinging her hand away. “Why am I not getting through to you?”
Clara poured a little vanilla extract into the butter-and-sugar bowl as she answered him. “Because you didn’t say anything about not liking being here. You just listed a few surmountable obstacles.”
Jesse wondered, as he resumed smashing the butter into the sugar, just what she would consider an insurmountable obstacle. If anything.
“How are you going to surmount my lack of funds?” Not that he wanted to encourage her—and by that token, he probably should have said how would you instead of how are you going to .
“You’re extremely careful with money, and you don’t have any student loans like a lot of young doctors. Therefore, I’m confident that you have a lot more than you’re letting on.”
He wished he had a great rebuttal, but she wasn’t far off. He’d always been tight with money because he knew what it was like not to have any, and he probably could cover a second mortgage with some frugal living, but that didn’t mean he liked the idea.
“I’ll drop the subject after my closing argument,” she promised. “First point: imagine the roots you could put down here. This could be a real legacy for generations of Floreses. Second: being able to take a break and unplug in a place like this whenever you want could save you from burnout. And finally: this house has a great layout and a great view and you can get it for a song.”
Jesse looked at her earnest little face and knew that she felt strongly about it, but she was barking up the wrong tree.
“The end,” she added, and smiled at him.
He saw a dimple appear in her cheek and simultaneously felt a tiny chunk of his resolve slip away. Good thing there was still a lot left. Witchy had been spot-on.
“That butter looks pretty smooth. Time to add eggs. Want to see something cool?”
“Yeah,” he said automatically.
She took a butcher knife out of a drawer and selected an egg from the carton.
“What are you doing?”
“Just watch. Beck, look. Nash.”
“We’re watching,” Nash assured her.
She tossed the egg into the air and caught it deftly on the sharp edge of the blade, cracking it but not breaking it all the way through.
“I can do that. Give me that,” Beck demanded, taking the knife from her.
“I only need three eggs,” she cautioned, scooping the cracked one off the knife and emptying it into Jesse’s bowl. “The rest are for breakfast, so don’t waste them.”
“Go ask Mom if we can crack all the eggs tonight,” Beck ordered Nash.
“On it,” Nash replied.
“Where’d you learn that?” Jesse asked her.
“Aunt Liesl. She has a bunch of tricks from culinary school.”
“Dang it,” Beck said, as the knife sliced all the way through the egg and it splattered on the counter.
“It’s fine,” Clara assured him, picking the shell out of the mess. “I can still use it. Don’t toss it quite so high.”
Nash returned. “She said we can crack as many as we want. Just save them in a bowl in the fridge after.”
Hart appeared behind him. “What’s going on with the eggs?”
“Get in line,” Beck said.
Clara added the second raw egg to the batter. “We should talk about your feelings for a minute, Jesse.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How are you doing with stuff?”
“What stuff?” Jesse asked blankly.
“Well, let’s see, realizing that the past six years were a lie and the time you spent with us wasn’t just any other foster placement and my mom’s not evil and you’re not actually alone in the world?”
“Oh. That stuff.”
She waited.
“Fine, I guess.”
“How’d it feel to punch Hart in the face?” Nash asked. “I’ve always wondered.”
“Bet it hurt your hand more than it hurt me,” Hart interposed.
“Are you still having trouble processing everything?” Clara asked, ignoring them. “You’ve been thinking my mom screwed you over for a long time.”
Was he having trouble? Great question. He had no idea.
Another egg hit the counter with a splat .
“It’s kind of like you have to forgive her even though she didn’t do anything wrong,” Clara mused. “Reminds me of when I dreamed that my cousin Eve stole my dog, I was so mad at her for days. It felt so real. Luckily she was away at school at the time and didn’t know. Not that I’ve ever had a dog.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So, are you mad at her?”
“Eve?”
“My mom, doofus.”
“Oh. Nah, I don’t think so.”
“She was more than a normal foster mom to you. You really loved her. Mother love is unique and sacred. If she told me to get lost, I’d be devastated.”
“Same,” Nash put in. “Makes it even worse that Mom’s not the judgy type. Extra shocking.”
Jesse thought about that. Yes, he had taken it pretty badly. Worse than a breakup.
“Maybe not as shocking to Jesse as it would be to us,” Clara hypothesized, watching him thoughtfully. “Maybe you were able to believe it because, in a way…you’d always kind of expected it.”
He’d come to the same conclusion. People had a tendency to see what they expected to see, and he’d spent his years among the Wilders waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why shouldn’t they reject him, when his own mother had? How could strangers love him, when his own mother couldn’t?
“ But, it must be kind of nice,” Clara went on, “knowing Mom wasn’t willing to write you off, in spite of everything.”
Was it nice, knowing that Dr. Wilder hadn’t ever given up on him? He dug deep for some kind of emotion, but he was still numb.
“I mean, you’re not even her biological son, but that sounds kind of like unconditional love.”
He stared at her, frowning. Unconditional love? Didn’t exist.
Clara smiled, and his attention was drawn from her warm brown eyes to her mouth.
“You’re like a gardener,” Beck interrupted, addressing his sister. “Walking between tidy rows of soil, sowing little seeds and sprinkling them with water. Tossing out weeds.”
“Yeah,” Nash agreed at once. “Tending his emotional garden like a spirit guide.”
“Spirit gardener,” Hart murmured absently, and tossed an egg up. It landed on the knife like it was supposed to, and all the boys cheered.
Jesse wanted to tell them that he didn’t need anyone to guide him through his own emotions, but he wasn’t sure if it would be the truth. He had no idea what he should be feeling, so he might as well hear Clara out.
“Did you notice when Beck came into the bathroom this morning and saw you, he just acted like it was normal to have you there?” she recalled. “I’m sure Nash told him everything later, but at that point, he didn’t know anything about what had happened downstairs, but it didn’t matter.”
“Yeah,” Jesse said, glancing at Beck, who was watching Nash’s attempt at egg-cracking with an older brother’s judgmental eye.
“Oblivious,” Clara added, smiling at him again.
Her lips were a soft shade of pink, just a little bit glossy, and perfectly shaped. “Mm.”
“Or,” she suggested, “love.”
He tore his eyes from her mouth. “You think Beck loves me?”
She leaned across the counter to smack his shoulder, and she didn’t hold back; it stung. “We all love you, moron. You’re not the only one who felt rejected for six years. Everything you’re feeling today, we’re feeling, too.”
He looked at each of the boys and then back at Clara. “I hadn’t really thought about what you guys were feeling.”
“It was like you died,” Beck said flatly, without looking away from the egg game. “Just…no funeral.”
Jesse winced. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Hart said curtly. “Obviously.”
“We’re just glad you’re back,” Nash added—Mr. Silver Lining.
“Don’t you feel like…you don’t really know me anymore?” he asked them curiously. “I mean, Nash, you were a little kid last time I saw you. Beck still had braces.”
“Dude,” Beck objected.
Apparently it wasn’t cool to mention a man’s braces.
“He didn’t even know I went to college,” Clara told them. “He thought I was a beauty school dropout.”
Beck and Nash instantly put the phrase to music, making Jesse think it was probably a real song he’d never heard before.
“I’m sorry for assuming that you’d peaked in high school,” he said, and grinned at her disgruntled expression.
“I could kind of see it, though,” Hart admitted.
“Dad!” Clara yelled.
“Shut up, Hart,” came her father’s voice from across the house.
“Yeah, Hart,” Clara said, mollified. Then she looked directly at Jesse and said, “But Hart’s right that it’s not your fault. Sure, you dated the wrong girl. But Mom and Dad should have at least talked to you in person. Hart should have called that woman’s bluff and gotten arrested. I should have invited you to my party and then tracked you down like a dog if you didn’t show up.”
Hart didn’t disagree.
“So why didn’t we do it?” Clara wondered, looking genuinely perplexed. “Why the heck were we giving him space? We’re not a give-you-space kind of family.”
“No, you’re not,” Jesse agreed dryly, thinking of her campaign to sell him on the cabin.
Clara looked amused. “Now, don’t you be rude,” she chided. “I know what’s best for you, that’s all.”
“Tell us the answer, spirit gardener,” Nash petitioned humbly.
“Maybe it’s for the same reason he didn’t reach out to us,” she guessed. “Maybe on some level, we’d been expecting it. Maybe we were insecure about not being his bio family.”
Jesse felt his eyebrows lift. “Jealous of my messed-up family?”
She and Hart exchanged glances. Hart began to nod. “Yeah,” Clara said.