Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
S aturday morning, Grace was helping her mom set the table for brunch, but she was still thinking about the kayak trip and how she messed everything up. Why couldn’t she say how she really felt? Why was she so afraid?
She figured she knew. After all, a person didn’t go through the kind of pain that she’d gone through with her husband cheating and leaving her without having some kind of scars and issues to show from it.
And she assumed that’s how it was manifesting itself, by pushing Trevor away, because she automatically assumed that he was going to hurt her.
But in their relationship, it had always been the other way around, and on Friday, she had, true to form, hurt him again.
He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t want to hear it, and she was only hoping that she would be able to talk to him today, when he came with his dad, and find some way to tell him how she really felt.
Maybe it was too late. He certainly hadn’t acted like he was interested in hearing anything from her. Although, he’d allowed her to kiss him.
She wanted to touch her fingers to her lips, but her mom was coming in with a fruit salad to set on the table, and Grace was supposed to have the plates and silverware arranged for her sisters and Don and Trevor who were going to show up anytime.
“I think we have everything.” Her mother looked over the table, her eyes shining. She was excited, because she was going to be telling her daughters about her boyfriend.
Grace had thought that maybe it would be a good idea to tell her daughters first and then invite them to a meal, but her mom had insisted that the meal was the best idea.
It would be a fine idea, as long as both her sisters were okay with her mom’s relationship.
If either one of them had any doubts or reservations, it was going to get awkward.
But her mom couldn’t see that. All she could see through her love-tinted glasses was the fact that she was in love and she wanted everyone to be happy for her.
Grace said a small prayer that Stacy and Jill would be kind, even if they didn’t agree. She didn’t want to see the excitement and happiness torn from her mother’s face.
There was a perfunctory knock at the door, and then it opened. Jill and Stacy walked in together.
“Did you guys drive together?” Grace asked as she walked over to greet her sisters.
“No, we just have the same timing apparently,” Stacy said, using her free arm to hug her sister. Grace was surprised, but she hugged her back. “I brought some Danishes, because I couldn’t show up with nothing.” She held up the box in her other hand.
“I bet if you take those to the kitchen, Mom can find fancy plates to put them on.” Grace spoke as she leaned toward Jill and embraced her as well.
“That’s where we differ, because I didn’t bring anything. I just got off a twelve-hour shift at five o’clock. I grabbed a couple of hours of sleep before I got up to come here.”
“Doesn’t sound like enough sleep,” Grace said, looking at her sister with concern. She hadn’t considered that as a nurse, she probably didn’t work regular hours the way everyone else did.
“I’ll be okay. I just can’t stay very long, because I need to go back and sleep some more. I’m going in again at five o’clock this evening.”
“That’s a rough schedule,” Grace said, walking toward the table beside her sister.
She really did want to have a better relationship with her sisters.
She’d reached out to her friends, but either the phone numbers she had were old and not any good, or they didn’t answer.
Since she hadn’t spoken to either Claire or Lauren.
But her sisters were right in front of her, and she intended to do her best to start building something that would last. The reason they didn’t have a relationship was her fault. Her and her arrogance, running out of town thinking she was better than everyone else.
“But it’s very rewarding work. Although, it’s stressful.”
“That’s not good for your health,” Grace said, thinking of the irony of someone working as a nurse and the work itself making them less healthy, more likely to need a nurse.
“I know. I love the work right now, but I do have an eye out for a nice, cushy office job with a good doctor. Something like that would be less stressful than working in a hospital. I can handle it now, but I can see that as I get older, I’m going to want something else.”
“It’s good that you’re able to see that,” Grace said, wishing that she was somehow capable of seeing what was good for her and what she needed. Unfortunately, she consistently made bad choices. And really had no idea of what she actually wanted or what was best for her.
She could see all of those mistakes scattered throughout her life. She wanted to ask her sister how she got so wise and how she figured things out. But her mother came over, embracing her sister.
“What’s this big news you have?” Stacy asked, coming out from the kitchen where she’d gone to set her Danishes down.
“You’ll find out in just a few minutes. I wanted to come out and greet Jill and chat a bit before…well, before,” her mom said, her eyes shining.
“Do you have any idea what this is about?” Stacy asked Grace point-blank.
Grace fidgeted. She knew exactly what this was about. But she could feel Stacy’s displeasure, and she didn’t want to get yelled at.
“Don’t you worry about it. Everything’s going to come out in just a few minutes. Now, come to the kitchen with me while I find a plate to arrange your Danishes on and tell me what’s going on in your life. Because pretty soon, it’s going to be all about me. ”
Her mother put one arm around Stacy and one arm around Jill and guided them into the kitchen. Grace trailed along behind, not feeling left out. After all, she would have her mother to herself all week, and her sisters had to go back to their actual lives.
Maybe there was an advantage to being at rock bottom and having nowhere else to go. She didn’t have anything to take her away from her mother, as she did when she was younger. It felt like a reward to get to be with her.
Stacy and Jill chatted about their lives as their mom found a plate and arranged the Danishes artistically on it. Her mom had a flair for that, and Grace had inherited it. Jill and Stacy would probably just serve them from the box.
Not that there was anything wrong with that, because there wasn’t.
It was just something that Grace had that made her feel like she was a little gifted.
And made her feel a little less jealous of her sisters’ successes in life.
Sure, she screwed up. She made some bad decisions and had things go in a totally wrong direction.
But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t change things and turn them around.
And that included talking to Trevor and seeing if she could work things out. No. Admitting that she had feelings for him. Strong feelings, and that she wanted to have a real relationship, not a fake one. And not just friends.
She smiled a bit as she thought about their kiss under the kayak.
It wasn’t exactly romantic, with the wet and the wind and the crunched-up way they were sitting, but in her mind, it was absolutely perfect.
It couldn’t have been better. Unless he would have wrapped his arms around her and kissed her like he meant it.
Instead of just allowing her to kiss him.
“You must be thinking of something really nice with that sappy smile on your face,” Stacy observed, and Grace realized that she was smiling for no reason, since she was not paying the slightest bit of attention to what everyone was saying.
She didn’t have to answer though, because there was a knock at the door. This one was not perfunctory, and all the ladies in the room turned to look at it .
“I’ll go answer it,” her mom said before anyone else could say anything.
“What is going on?” Stacy asked, drilling her eyes into Grace’s.
Growing up, Stacy was a bit of a taskmaster, a control freak, the boss, the way the oldest child typically was.
Grace had been trained to listen to her, and the look that she gave her now was intimidating, reaching back into her childhood.
But somehow, she found the presence of mind to smile and shake her head. “This is Mom’s surprise. Just relax.”
Her sister did not like that at all, mostly because she didn’t like not being in control, and she definitely didn’t like Grace knowing something that she didn’t, which Grace could see clearly from the look she gave Grace before she turned toward the door.
She gasped softly. “That’s a man,” she said, to no one in particular, although she said it under her breath as Don walked in.
“Don!” their mother exclaimed, and she threw her arms around him like she hadn’t seen him for six weeks instead of less than a day.
“Gita Baby,” Don said in that slightly sexy, slightly sultry tone that Grace was actually getting used to.
Maybe it didn’t sound so bad after all. She wouldn’t mind someone talking to her in that kind of voice.
No. She didn’t want just anyone talking to her in that tone of voice.
She wanted to hear it from Trevor, and for her and her only.
“What’s going on?” Jill asked as Don and Gita embraced.
“Girls, I wanted you to meet my boyfriend, Don Gillett.”
“We know Don. We grew up with Trevor and his siblings,” Stacy said, moving forward.
Maybe she realized that what she had said wasn’t the most polite thing, because her tone modulated as she said, “But it’s good to see you again after all these years.
” She put her hand out, and Don shook it.
Then, as though what their mother had said finally penetrated, she said, “Did you say your boyfriend?”
“Mom has a boyfriend?” Jill didn’t seem to be able to believe it either, but her words were softer and probably didn’t carry across the room. “That’s…crazy wild.”
“I know,” Grace said, thinking about how long it took her to get used to the idea.
She didn’t figure her sisters would jump into it any quicker, but no matter how many times she told her mom that she thought that her mom should tell them privately before she sprang her boyfriend on them, her mom insisted that they would be happy and excited for her.
“I guess if you’re happy, that makes me happy too,” Stacy said, seeming to take a moment before she wrapped her arms around her mother. “I really am happy. You look like you’re glowing.”
“I’m in love. Isn’t that what people in love do? Glow?”
“I guess. But it’s an odd look to see on my mom,” Stacy said, obviously trying to be kind but having a little bit of a hard time.
Grace bumped Jill. “You’ll get used to it. Don really is a good guy.”
“I’m just so shocked,” Jill said as she seemed to force her feet to move slowly across the floor. “Mr. Gillett. It’s a pleasure.”
“You can call me Don. I expect that we’re going to be family very soon.”
Jill’s eyes got huge, and Grace wished he could shove those words back in his mouth.
They were just getting used to the idea that their mother had a boyfriend, and she knew how shocking it was for her to see her mom with someone other than their dad.
The idea that the man was going to take her dad’s place was probably a little more than what they could handle right now.
“Oh. Okay,” Jill said, obviously struggling for words.
“Don has been so good to Mom. This is the happiest I’ve seen her in years,” Grace said, coming over and hoping that her sisters did not point out that she barely ever visited her mom or saw her, so she wouldn’t know whether she had been happy all the years that she had been gone or not.
Thankfully her sisters seemed to be so discombobulated by the fact that their mom had a boyfriend, or by seeing their mom hugging and glowing like a teenager in love with someone other than their dad, that they didn’t point out the obvious untruth beneath her words.
“It makes me happy to know that someone’s making Mom happy. She deserves it. She’s the best woman I know,” Jill said, her words still reserved, and she nodded at Don, as though she were warning him.
She did hold her hand out, and Don shook it, putting his free hand over top of hers and leaning close as he said, “I know what a treasure she is. And trust me, I have no intention of taking that for granted. ”
Grace wanted to say that Don’s wife had left him after thirty years of marriage, and that he knew heartbreak, and that she thought that one of the lessons he had learned through that was that there were things that he could do to make his marriage better.
But she didn’t know whether it was the time or place, and also at that very moment, she realized that… Don was alone.
Trevor hadn’t come.
She actually stepped away from the group and looked outside just to be sure he wasn’t still hanging out by the door or something. She pulled the door closed when she realized it was true.
He wasn’t there.
Immediately she realized that she probably shouldn’t have expected him to come.
After all, why would he have? They had confessed to their parents that the relationship was a farce, designed only to get their parents together, and now that was out in the open, there was no need for them to pretend anymore.
She had wanted Trevor to be there. She had expected to be able to talk to him, had been counting on it. Disappointment, deep and hard and hot, swirled in her chest and filled up her stomach with a tar-like substance that made her insides cling together.
Now what? When was she going to be able to see him to be able to tell him how she felt and to ask him to give her a chance?
Maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe his absence was answer enough.
That he had enough of her and was done, done with her and the pain and hurt that she’d inflicted on him over the years.
Although, she didn’t know that he even felt anything for her.
After all, she kissed him, and he’d let her, but he hadn’t really kissed her back.
She had been telling herself that she just surprised him and hadn’t allowed herself to think that maybe he hadn’t wanted to.
Maybe he’d been too polite to pull back and tell her that he didn’t want to kiss her, but by his lack of interest, he’d shown her that he was over her and didn’t want to go back down that road.
Regardless, she had to push that out of her mind, because this was her mother’s day. Her mother was glowing and happy, and she wanted her daughters to be happy and excited for her, and Grace was going to do her very best to not let her mother down.