Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
MIRABETH
I’ve often been grateful to my parents for all the love and comfort they gave me—my mom’s tricks and continued avoidance aside—but I’ve never been more so than when I have to sit at Conrad’s parents’ dining table, tension thick in the air.
It’s been two weeks since that horrible, revelatory night, and I have to hide the fact that I’m once again on the verge of crying.
Not even one of Tripp’s steaks can lift my spirits, my nose turning up at the charred-to-perfection scent as I pick at my food while Conrad’s Mom, Sondra, tries to cajole Tripp into conversation.
She told me earlier that I could start calling her Mom, too, but I politely declined, since there’s no sense in getting attached to her or anyone else.
“I’ll be right back,” Conrad says to me, disappointment flashing across his face when I slightly turn my back to him as he excuses himself to the restroom.
As I suspected, Alisa pops up out of her seat across from Conrad, lifting the empty blown-glass water pitcher from the middle of the table.
“This needs a refill. Does anyone else need anything while I’m up?
” She skips over me as she looks around the table while taking various drink orders, probably because I’ve hardly said two words all night, and she hurries toward the kitchen around the corner, out of sight.
Bet she’s been looking forward to this opportunity since we sat down.
Don’t you dare cry at this table, Mirabeth, I tell myself, sitting up straighter and forcing down creamy mashed potatoes that threaten to come right back up my throat.
Sondra points her fork at me from the left of Conrad’s empty chair.
“I spoke to your mom yesterday. Ooh-wee, that woman is a hoot. Think of how much more fun the holidays will be with her. I can’t wait for Christmas.
Hopefully, Santa will bring us a little present,” she says, winking before dropping her eyes to my stomach with a grin.
I shudder and look past Sondra as each second Conrad and Alisa are gone ticks louder in my head. “She’s still not picking up my calls,” I mumble.
“Just give her some time, hon,” Sondra says, the skin around her eyes crinkling with mirth behind her glasses. “She knows she’s in for an earful after the trick she pulled and is putting off the inevitable.”
“No kidding.” I want to set down my fork and cross my arms. Instead, I give my fake mother-in-law a half-hearted smile that I don’t feel. It must not be all that convincing, considering her own smile dips.
“She can’t be all that bright if she thought it was a good idea to volunteer you for that hairbrained marriage program,” Tripp rudely says to me from the head of the table.
My jaw drops, and Sondra hisses, “Tripp!”
Little Drew, lost in his own world as he swirls gravy into his mashed potatoes with his index finger, startles across from me in his booster seat, and Brad tousles his hair.
“What? If it was Bridget in Mirabeth’s shoes, would you have let her go through with marrying some random, convicted criminal?
” Tripp asks Sondra, waving his fork around, since this family is big on talking with their hands like mine is.
“No, you wouldn’t,” he says before she can respond.
“Her mom ought to have more sense. Look who her daughter ended up with.” He can barely conceal his sneer, tipping his head toward the kitchen where Conrad is supposedly in the hall bathroom just past it.
“I’ve had just about enough out of you,” Sondra says while Brad chokes on a laugh, and she brandishes her steak knife at Tripp like a weapon. “And if anyone’s going to get an earful tonight, it’s going to be you.”
Tripp sucks his teeth, but his cheeks flush with what I hope is shame or embarrassment.
“You know my mom and dad met at the same prison Conrad was in, right?” I ask Tripp, stringing together more than ten words for the first time in weeks, letting my teeth scrape my fork when I force myself to take another bite of steak.
“He was one of her patients…at the prison…where he was incarcerated.”
“Oh snap,” Brad says, now looking toward the kitchen, checking the time on his watch. “Didn’t see that coming.”
Tripp shifts his weight around, peering at me with more intensity.
“No, I did not. No wonder your mom doesn’t care who you end up with.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Your kids will likely end up in prison, too, which is the last thing this family needs.
” He throws his cloth napkin down on the table and stomps out of the dining room.
As if I want to have kids with a cheater who’s still in love with his ex.
Even though I’m mandated to house Conrad until this farce of a marriage comes to an end, I haven’t so much as let him do more than cuddle me at night since I saw him kiss Alisa.
The gall of them to do it right there on my stoop, when they thought I was in the bathroom.
I only allow the nightly cuddles simply so he won’t know I’m only pretending to be asleep when he gets into bed.
Whenever his warm breath fans across my neck, all I can think is, could she taste me on his lips after what he did to me in the car?
Could he taste Brad on hers? Do they even care, so long as they get to sneak around?
If only I could stop replaying that moment in my head—Alisa slipping her hand around the back of Conrad’s head, their lips meeting for a stolen kiss, the two of them whispering low to each other.
It took everything in me not to slam the bathroom door when I locked myself inside, tears bursting out of me.
No matter how many times I splashed water on my face, they just kept falling, my face red and raw from crying so hard.
I had to bury my head under the comforter when I went to bed so Conrad wouldn’t know how much he hurt me.
Even my devil of a cat has been nice to me ever since, allowing me to scratch his belly sometimes.
Conrad shouldn’t have been able to hurt me, and that makes it all the worse—the fact that in just under two weeks, I had been caught up in a whirlwind romance that was wholly one-sided.
I foolishly formed an instant connection with the man I came to think, maybe, just maybe, might have been picked for me by some divine source.
I was on the fast track to falling in love, thinking I’d found my person. That he might have been the one.
How stupid I’ve been from the very beginning, utterly lacking in the common sense department, my mom and Conrad so easily able to trick me. It’s crushing.
Thank god I’m on birth control, my breasts tender and my stomach bloated with the telltale sign that I’m about to get my period, so it doesn’t matter what Conrad and I did before I froze him out in an effort to protect my foolish, naive, lonely heart.
I drop my fork on my plate, ready to go home and never see any of these people again. If only I could leave Conrad here with them.
Sondra reaches across to lay her hand on my arm, worry evident in the pinch of her red brows.
“I don’t want it to sound like I’m making excuses for his behavior,” she says of Tripp, mistaking the pain I’m in as one in response to her jerk of a husband.
“Just that things have been hard on him since Andrew passed and Conrad was arrested. He’s hurting, but he’ll come around, and you’ll see how wonderful he is, deep down inside. Just give it time.”
Not like I’ll be around that long. “Good luck,” I mutter, truly meaning it. I might not have to deal with these people for the rest of my life, but Conrad will. I have just enough empathy for him that I hope things will get better between him and his father.
I have the intense urge to slap my hand over my mouth, my stomach rebelling, when Alisa returns with the water pitcher on Conrad’s heels, quickly ducking her head to hide a little smile. She can’t hide the blush staining her cheeks, though.
“What took you so long?” Brad asks, holding his glass up for Alisa to fill.
“Sorry, babe.” Alisa rubs his shoulder. “I got sidelined talking to Conrad.”
Brad’s lips tighten on his brother, who takes his seat beside me.
“Sorry,” Conrad whispers, leaning closer to me. “She kind of cornered me.”
“I’m sure you hated that,” I say quietly with a hint of sarcasm, taking big gulps of water when Alisa fills my glass.
Conrad’s brows furrow. “Yeah, I did.”
I finish my glass, miserable within seconds when my stomach suddenly spasms, and a cold sweat breaks out on my forehead.
“Are you feeling ok?” Conrad asks, flicking his gaze to my arm when I wrap it around my stomach, then up to my eyes, which still feel swollen from holding back hot tears.
I hate how much I care that my stupid, fake husband was probably making out in the bathroom with his stupid, beautiful ex-fiancée while Brad and I sat here like stupid chumps.
“No. I want to go home,” I whisper, already moving out of my chair. I don’t give a flying fig how rude it is to just get up and walk out in the middle of dinner, since being rude seems to be the modus operandi around here, excluding Sondra and little Drew.
“You’re leaving already?” Alisa asks Conrad.
“I’m leaving,” I say. “Conrad can do whatever he wants.” And find his own way home, if he even wants to come home.
I hand Sondra the gold-wrapped gift Conrad and I brought.
It’s a portrait of ten-year-old Andrew on Carolina Beach that I illustrated and printed, professionally matted, and framed with the scallop-edged driftwood that Conrad hand-carved.
I wish I could watch her open it, but if I have to stay here one moment longer with Alisa making googly eyes at Conrad, I’m really going to be sick.
“Happy anniversary,” I tell Sondra over my shoulder, digging my keys out of my purse as I hurry out the front door.
But when I get to my Beetle parked in the driveway behind Sondra’s shiny, silver Beamer, I have to sit sideways on my seat, bent over with my head between my knees, sucking in air to quell my nausea.
When I finally get it somewhat under control, I look up, hurt all the more to find Conrad huddled with Alisa on the front porch to my left.
They’re not even bothering to hide their canoodling from Sondra, who’s wringing her napkin in her hands as she looks back and forth between them and me.
“Want me to drive?” Conrad asks after jogging across the carefully kempt lawn when he can finally pull himself away from the woman he really wants to be with.
Since I still want to hurl, I nod quickly and switch to the passenger seat, waving weakly to Sondra, Alisa now nowhere to be seen.