7. CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 7
Rose
" H ow's Malou doing?" Leah asked over the phone as I kneaded dough for bread after the guests had gone to bed. This was my quiet time—when I could think while preparing for the next day.
It had been ten days since I left Atlanta.
My heart was broken.
I missed Gray.
I was tempted to call him about five times a day, but I stopped myself. He never answered when I lived at home and he recognized my number, so what were the chances he'd pick up now, especially from an unfamiliar one?
"Fading away. I went with her to see her doctor yesterday, and she doesn't have a lot of time left."
"God, Rose, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine how hard this is for you."
"She's so young. It breaks my heart."
"Speakin' of heartbreaks, I have all the paperwork ready."
I let out an unsteady breath and stopped kneading for a moment.
I asked Leah to handle the divorce and deliver the papers to Gray. My biggest fear was handing them to him myself, only to watch him glance at them, nod, and go back to whatever was on his computer screen. To avoid that painful moment, I took what felt like the coward’s way out and had Leah take care of it.
"Okay. If you send the papers to me, I can sign and get them back to you."
"Rose, are you sure you don't want to get some money? Honey, you took care of his house and his children."
" Our house and our children. I don't want a dime from him."
"I can fight the prenup. You've been together for twenty years."
"I don't want you to, Leah."
"I hate that you're having to go through a divorce. But I get it. I mean, it's all over town so…."
"What's all over town?" I asked, my heart hammering.
"Come on, Rose, you know."
I cleared my throat. I was gone just a few days, and had Gray already moved on? Well, that just told me where I stood on his list of priorities.
"He's been having an affair with his assistant for God knows how long. Everyone knows."
I burst out laughing. "I don't think so."
"You can't be this blind."
"I'm not, trust me, Leah. I know Gray inside and out. He might not love me anymore, or maybe he never truly did, but breaking his marriage vows by cheating? That's not who he is."
"I don't know how many women who come to my office think that their husbands wouldn't cheat on them and—"
"My husband wouldn’t cheat on me with another woman, Leah. It’s worse than that. He never loved me. And that painful truth has been becoming clearer over the past few years. He’ll probably think I did him a favor."
"You want me to deliver by hand or courier it?"
"You do whatever you normally do. Honestly, Leah, Gray won't care. It might have even taken him a couple of days to notice I was gone."
Leah sighed. "And you want nothing?"
"No. Just make sure you add a note about the Mercedes and the five thousand dollars. I didn't mention the car in the letter I left him. He can have the car right away if he wants it. The money, well, I'm going to need some time, so maybe you can put together a plan for me to return the money."
"For the love of everythin' holy, Rose, the man can afford five thousand dollars," Leah snapped. "You know what, I'm going to hand deliver these divorce papers to Gray Rutherford and while I’m at it, I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind."
"You do you, Leah, but he's not gonna give a rat's ass, so you'd be wastin' your time."
We talked a little more about my life at Angel Island. By the time I ended the call, I was ready to leave the bread dough to proof in the warmest part of the kitchen.
I heard a sound and looked at Malou standing at the doorstep of the kitchen. "You sure about getting divorced?"
"No," I confessed. "But I can't go back, Malou."
"I know."
"I was fading away. Every morning, I wished I'd die, and then I'd see you and feel guilty because you so want to live and…." My tears choked me.
"Oh, stop with the drama, Flower Girl," Malou mocked with her customary dry humor. "All this cryin' is gonna make my last days on this earth depressing, and I don't want that."
I helped her get comfortable on a chair at the breakfast nook and wrapped a blanket around her. She leaned back on the cushions, exhausted. Just walking from her bedroom to the kitchen had tired her out. The doctor had told me weeks or months, but most probably weeks—that's all the time she had left. He'd suggested hospice, and I'd told him hell no . Malou didn't want that either.
I was here, and I'd take care of her. I was going to bathe her, hold her, take her to the bathroom, hold her when she threw up—whatever she needed.
She slept a lot, ate very little, drank some tea because water tasted bad to her. It was painful to see my vital friend waste away.
"Mint tea?"
She nodded, her breathing shallow. I turned the kettle on and added loose tea into a pot along with mint leaves and some honey. Her throat hurt and the honey helped to soothe some of the ache.
"Gray isn't a bad man," Malou suddenly said.
"No, he's not."
"He's a selfish motherfucker, but you allowed him to treat you the way he did."
"I know."
I set the steeping tea on the table, along with a set of teacups and saucers.
Malou used her late husband’s insurance money to turn the house he left her into a B better to be seen and not heard; sometimes it was even best to be not seen or heard.
"Rose, being alone ain't a bad thing. I was alone, but I had you. Hell , you won't even have that after I'm gone. See, it's okay to be alone; it ain't okay to be lonely. So, when Gray comes to you, cause he will, you make sure he knows why he wants you back."
A sob tore its way out of me. "I don't think he wants me back , Malou. I don't think he wanted me in the first place."
I rested my head on her shoulder, and she held me close. We sat together like we used to when we were children, hiding while some guy my mother was seeing was fucking her coked-up body, or Malou's father was beating on her mother.
Now, our monsters were inside us—her cancer and my broken heart.