Chapter 24
twenty-four
MARILEE
I am a sobby, sodden mess.
So, naturally, I find myself in the kitchen of The Blackberry Muffin on my day off, my hands flecked with pink and purple frosting as I attempt to make a unicorn cake for Scarlett’s upcoming eighth birthday.
But right now, I’m failing even at that, because it more closely resembles a scary clown blob.
Staring at the mess on the yellow granite island, I wipe my trickling nose with the back of my hand, and instantly I know I’ve smeared frosting there.
At that moment, my boss Marla swoops into the kitchen via the swinging door connected to the lobby and freezes upon seeing me. Her eyes flit between me and the cake, and her lips purse.
“Go ahead. You can laugh.” I push the cake away and slump onto one of the three black stools pushed under the edge of the island. “It’s awful.”
“It is.” Marla, while sweet, is also no nonsense. She’ll tell it to you straight, but always with a silver lining. “May I?” Her finger hovers over the cake.
“Why not?”
She dips it in and takes a lick of frosting from her finger. “At least it tastes good, honey.” Then she winks, and the woman’s rosy cheeks are almost enough to cheer me up for the moment.
But then the moment is over, and I remember that the court case is in two hours—and after that, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me and Jordan.
Marla must sense my distress because she wipes her finger off on a towel and comes around to give me a solid pat on the shoulder. “There, there, dear. It’s just a cake. And I know you’re sad about not having much time in the kitchen once you take over for me?—”
“You do?”
“Of course. I felt that way too, at first. But then I got invigorated by the prospect of growing something beyond myself, beyond my skills.” She studies me. “You don’t feel that way, though, do you?”
I blow out a breath. “I confess, I don’t. But maybe I will.” I try to infuse hope into my tone. “That’s not why I’m upset, though.”
“Hmm.” She gathers the supplies I’ve left dirty on her counter and carries them to the sink. “It’s about Mr. Carmichael and your fake marriage then?”
I choke on a sputter. “How did you?—”
“Small-town living, dear. You cannot escape the gossip.” Almost instantly, a bottle of cold water appears before me. “But based on your reaction, I’m guessing there’s an element of truth to it?”
I nod, unable to keep what I’m sure is a miserable expression off my face. “It was my idea, a way to show the judge in Ryder’s custody case that Jordan had a stable home. Only now…”
“Oh my. Well, that is a conundrum, isn’t it?” Marla slowly lowers herself onto the stool beside me, and her knees and joints pop loudly.
Sighing, I fiddle with the cap of the water bottle, flicking it open and then closed again. “I’m just so tired of making the wrong choice, Marla. Of screwing up my life and others’ lives in the process. That’s not what I want to happen, but inevitably…it does.”
“And what’s the alternative to making the wrong choice?”
“Making the right one, of course.”
“And how are you supposed to know what that is?”
I frown. “If I knew, then I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Marla’s frail shoulders lift and lower. “My dear, life is full of choices—some big, some small—and you can’t very well not make them. Just by not making a choice, you’re making a choice.”
My head spins and I place it in my hands.
The weight of her comforting touch lands on my back. “You simply have to do the best you can with the information you have. Use the things God has given you—like a sound mind, and friends who love you, whose advice you trust. Not to mention that precious heart that’s beating in your chest.”
I glance up at her, and she’s gazing at me with so much grandmotherly affection I want to cry.
She reaches a veined and wrinkled hand toward me, tapping my chest right below the clavicle. “Honestly, Marilee, the fact that your heart is not hardened after your first marriage, but still soft and open, is a testament to the strong person you are.”
“Thank you, Marla. But this heart has led me astray more times than I can count.”
“It does that sometimes. But usually it’s because we’ve allowed other voices to invade our minds.”
“What voices?” I ask softly.
“Well, the voices of those who want us to fail. Or the busybodies, who don’t have any stake or say in your life.” She looks at me pointedly. “The biggest voice keeping us from making the right choices, though, is usually the voice of fear. But baby, fear is a liar. It will twist up the truth and turn you upside down with it.”
My heart swells and contracts. “Oh, Marla. I’ve just been such a mess.”
“I know, honey, I know.” Like a mother would, she sweeps her thumb under my glasses and gathers my tears, carrying them away. “But here’s the truth—we are all a mess. We all need a little saving. We all make bad choices sometimes. But leaning into love instead of fear? That’s never a mistake.”
“Even if you choose the wrong man like I did?”
“Tell me this. Have you learned from your experiences? Have you grown? Because that’s what life is—a series of experiences that we can either use to make us better or bitter. And from where I’m sitting, you, Marilee Moffitt, are far better now than where you began. You’ve taken what could have been bitterness and invested it in those you love.”
“But I’ve also hurt the people I love.” Oh, Jordan. And Ryder—what must he have thought when I wasn’t at the house this morning to see him off to school?
“We all do that sometimes too. It’s called being human.” Marla’s eyes spark. “The question is, what are you going to do about it now that you recognize the hold fear’s had on you?”
Oh, Fear…my old friend. But it’s not, is it? It’s been my frenemy, keeping me close, pretending it cared about me, only wanting to protect me from danger. But all the while, it’s been holding me back from really, truly living. From making choices, because making a choice could lead to mistakes. But like Marla said, making the choice to stay in my comfort zone is still a choice.
I push to a stand, the legs of the stool scraping the tile floor. “Marla, I have to go.”
“I know you do, baby.”
I lean down to kiss her weathered cheek. “Thank you,” I whisper. “And maybe, later this week…we can talk about the bakery.” Because fear’s been keeping me rooted in that decision too. And maybe it’s time to face what I really want…and be okay with failure if it comes to it. At least I’d have tried.
“That’d be fine.”
With another goodbye, I’m out the front door of the bakery and in my car, racing up Hillside Drive to Jordan’s house, praying I’m not too late.
And when I arrive and don’t see his truck in the driveway, my heart seizes.
Still, maybe there’s a slight chance…
I run inside. “Jay? Ryder?”
But the hallway is dark, and the air feels sad. I peek out back, just in case. But reality settles in.
Nobody’s home.
I’ll have to meet them at the courthouse after all.
And by not being here for him, I’ve fed into Jordan’s biggest fear—that the people he loves won’t show up for him.
But there’s no time to dwell on my mistakes. Only time to fix them. And I suddenly know what I can do to show him I will always have his back. That we all do.
Turning toward the front door, something on the refrigerator catches my eye. A drawing in color—a new one, with a big Ryder scrawled in the corner in red crayon. As I study it, my jaw drops at the picture’s simplicity. At its profoundness. Oh, this sweet, sweet boy…
My sweet, sweet boy.
I pull the drawing off the fridge, tuck it into my bag, and make a mad dash for my car. I know exactly where I need to be and what I need to do.
I just hope I’m not too late.