15. CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 15
Rose
" M alou, you have two rooms booked for the week of Christmas, hon, no names and no credit cards," I called out to my friend as she slowly walked into the lounge where I was going through the bookings on her laptop.
"I know. They're my friends."
I raised an eyebrow. "Hon, I didn't know you had friends but for me."
"Flower girl, I got friends and lovers," she said saucily. "Just leave those bookings there and don't worry about them."
I inputted the rooms for Malou's friends and started looking at the weekly menus, jotting down the groceries I needed to buy on a sticky note.
"When do Willow and Mike get here?" Malou asked.
I smiled, feeling utterly giddy to be seeing my baby girl soon. "This Friday. I can't believe Willow will be at Angel's Rest. I just can't."
Malou put a hand on my arm. "You're a good mother, Rose. Your kids may have behaved badly, but I think once they realize how they hurt you, they'll both come back to you."
"You think so?" I couldn't even dare hope that Jude would forgive me. He hadn't called since that awful conversation we had. I wished I hadn't been so hard on him. I wanted to text him and apologize, but Dr. Mercer had pushed me to maintain my boundaries. My kids would treat me the way I allowed them to. I needed to put guardrails up to protect myself from harsh words. That didn't make me a bad mother, but a good one. Teaching my children to respect people, especially their own parents, was a good lesson worth learning.
Despite all of that, I missed Jude. I missed Willow. I missed Gray—him most of all. I missed his arms around me in bed. I missed making love with him. I missed it when he talked to me about work. I missed his smell.
Malou sat down on the couch as the small walk from her room to the lounge had tired her. "I know for sure that your kids will come back to you, Flower Girl. Being this close to death is making me psychic, I think."
I chuckled.
Her dark face was drawn and pale. It was only a matter of weeks; the doctor had warned me a day ago when we went for her regular checkup. He once again asked me to consider hospice, and I once again told him Malou wanted to die in her own home. I couldn't afford a nurse—but we didn't need one. I was her nurse. I'd bathe her, clean her, do whatever was needed. I'd be there for her.
I sat next to her on the couch, keeping an eye on the clock. I had a pork roast in the oven, and dinner would be served to the eight guests: two couples and one family with teenagers, in an hour.
"You need some painkillers?" I asked.
She shook her head. "They take the pain away but make me fall asleep too. I've got little time left, I'd like to be awake for some of it."
I took her hand in mine, and we looked out from the large windows of the lounge into the front garden and the ocean beyond.
"You hear from Gray?" Malou asked.
"Not since that call when he yelled at me."
"I know you love him, Flower Girl." She patted my hand with her bony one. "But I don't think you believe he loves you ."
"He doesn't." I had always felt that, but now it had become a certainty. He was going to divorce me and sign the papers like he said he would. I'd asked Leah, and she told me that Gray's lawyer was looking through everything, and I should hear from her soon. It would take several months to finalize—but since I'd already moved out and wanted nothing from Gray, it was all going to be pretty uncomplicated.
So, this was how my twenty-year marriage ended—without complications. It was what everyone who was getting divorced wanted, right? This was a good thing, yeah?
Fighting with Gray would destroy me. As things stood, I knew it would take a long while for me to heal from a broken marriage. And, once Malou was gone and I was truly alone, I'd have to patch myself up again . It wasn't going to be easy.
"What does Gray have to do to convince you of his love?" Malou asked, surprising me with her question.
My therapist had asked me the same question, and I didn't have a clear answer.
"I don't know," I admitted. "But the question is moot, Malou. He doesn't love me, and he's not going to move a finger to convince me. According to him, I should just get my ass home and stop being so dramatic."
"You sound like one of them bitter wives from the Real Housewives of Atlanta ," Malou commented dryly.
"Well, I could be one of them," I chuckled. "I lived in their neighborhood and hung out with the other rich white folk of Hotlanta ."
Malou laughed and then sobered. "In the beginning, I thought you'd change. Become them . But you never did. You've always been you ."
"That's not quite true," I murmured. "I lost myself, Malou. Became invisible. The thing about marriage no one tells you is that you have to give yourself completely to it. You do it selflessly. Your kids, your husband, they become your life. But you don't become theirs. No one even says thank you . It's like you were expected to lose yourself and your identity to become a mother and wife. I don't even know who Rose May is anymore. They didn't see me, that's true—but what's truly fucked up is that I didn't see myself either."
Malou leaned into me, and I kissed her forehead, holding her thin, frail body close. She smelled like mint. She'd taken to chewing on the leaves to remove the foul taste of death (her words) from her mouth.
"I don't want you alone here…in this world when I'm gone," Malou told me.
"You're the one who said it was okay to be alone, just not lonely. I won't be lonely, hon."
"I hate that you're hurting, Flower Girl. I hate it very much." She gripped my hand tight. "But I'll tell you something that I know is true. Your family loves you. They may not have shown it lately, but they do."
It was a nice fantasy. But I didn't think it was true. I was thrilled that Willow was coming over, but that was guilt. I knew that and didn't care. I'd have my child with me for any reason at all. Jude had not even bothered to reach out to me. And then there was Gray.
"They needed me when they were little, the kids, and Gray too, so he could work while I took care of things at home." I had worked so hard at being a good mother and wife. It was all for nothing. Here I was, forty years old, alone . "Now, they have their own lives. I get that. I just wish that they wanted me even if they didn't need me."
I'd talked about this to Dr. Mercer often, how I frequently felt like a wife, mother, and whore with no agency of my own. There was no Rose, just avatars of her that serviced her family.
Malou's breathing slowed, and I knew she'd fallen asleep. I adjusted her head so it would rest on a cushion. She looked tiny on the large couch. I put a blanket over her and left her to sleep while I checked on my pot roast and slipped into a new avatar . That of the owner of a bed-and-breakfast: Rose May Smith, who knew how to cook, clean, and be a wonderful hostess—but this time, I was doing it for myself, and that tasted like freedom.