20. Chapter 20
Adam
Dinner progresses with forced pleasantries, everyone trying to pretend my father’s outburst didn’t happen.
My mother serves her perfectly roasted turkey and honey-glazed ham with mechanical precision, her smile never reaching her eyes.
I push food around my plate, swallowing just enough to be polite.
“The potatoes are excellent, Paula,” Rhonda says, her voice too bright. “You simply must share your secret.”
“Just plenty of butter,” my mother replies, visibly grateful for the lifeline. “And a touch of real cream.”
Hailey chimes in with a story about a coworker who’d had a little too much to drink at her firm’s Christmas party. Everyone laughs a little too hard, as if eager to drown out the earlier tension.
Across the table, Millie keeps sending me small, hopeful smiles that make my skin crawl. I return none of them.
“Adam,” Rhonda says, turning to me, “Millie mentioned you’ve been making some gorgeous furniture. She showed me pictures of the coffee table you made in Colorado. Such talent!”
Before I can respond, Lauren cuts in. “He really is incredibly talented. We get compliments all the time on the end tables he made for us.”
I shoot her a grateful look. The coffee table Rhonda mentioned was something I made for Caitlin, and it was a labor of love that took me months. It was one of the few pieces of furniture we brought with us from Colorado. That Millie has pictures of it makes my stomach turn.
“You were considering trying to make a career out of it, weren’t you, son?” my father says, “in Colorado?”
“Yeah,” I answer, staring at my plate, “yeah, I was.”
Something that looks almost like guilt passes over my father’s face.
“Well, that would have just been ridiculous,” my mother chimes in, her fork clattering against her plate. “You had responsibilities here, Adam. Making furniture is fine for a hobby, I suppose, but it’s not the sort of thing you make a career out of.”
“Way to be supportive, Mom,” Lauren mutters, earning herself a glare
“Well, I just don’t know what’s gotten into you all.” Mom grumbles, “Of course Adam was going to come home and take over Kelley Property Managment. It was what he was always meant to do.”
“Paula, just drop it,” Dad says tiredly.
Another uncomfortable silence falls. Jake clears his throat. “These rolls are amazing, Mrs. Kelley.”
“Thank you, Jake,” my mother says stiffly.
The conversation limps along through the main course, everyone working overtime to keep things light. By the time my mother stands to clear the plates for dessert, we are all exhausted from the effort of pretending everything is normal.
“Will you girls help me with the pies, please?” My mother asks Hailey and Millie.
“Of course,” Millie says, both of them jumping up to follow my mother into the kitchen.
With them gone, the table collectively exhales. My father turns to me. “You holding up okay, son?”
“Fine,” I say, though it’s far from the truth.
“This is excruciating,” Lauren mutters, leaning toward me. “Mom’s like a volcano about to blow.”
“She’s not the only one,” I reply, my voice low.
Rhonda, seemingly oblivious to the undercurrents, launches into a story about the church Christmas pageant. I tune her out, counting the minutes until I can reasonably leave.
My mother and the girl’s return bearing my mother’s pecan pie and the apple pie Rhonda and Millie brought, the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg filling the dining room.
As the plates are distributed, I notice Millie has positioned herself to serve me, her fingers deliberately brushing mine as she hands me my dessert.
“I know how much you love apple pie,” she says softly.
“Thanks,” I mumble, not meeting her eyes.
My mother takes her seat again, her composure apparently restored.
She takes a delicate bite of pie, then sets her fork down with exaggerated care.
“Adam,” she says, her voice casual in a way that immediately puts me on alert, “I’ve been meaning to ask about your grandmother’s ring.
Caitlin didn’t take it with her, did she? It is a family heirloom after all.”
The table goes silent. Lauren shoots me a warning look.
“She left it behind when she went,” I say carefully.
My mother nods, a strange expression crossing her face. “Well, that’s a relief. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she hadn’t.”
I set my fork down, my appetite vanishing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, dear,” she says, but her tone suggests otherwise. “It’s just that, well, given her background, parents who abandoned her, all those years drifting around with no proper home or purpose, one couldn’t be certain about her sense of… propriety.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask, feeling my face heat and my heart start to pound. “What the hell is your problem with Caitlin? What did she ever do to justify your having such a poor opinion of her?”
“Adam Kelley, language!” Mom snaps, a vivid blush staining her cheeks, “I’m only stating facts. The girl had no stable upbringing, no education to speak of. It’s hardly unreasonable to wonder about her character.”
“Paula, that’s enough,” my father says, his voice sharp.
But my mother seems unable to stop herself now that she’s started. “Really, Adam, when you think about it, this is for the best. What kind of wife would she have made? What kind of mother? With no example to follow?”
“Paula,” my father says again, louder.
“She was nothing but kind to all of you,” I say, my voice tight with anger. “She tried so hard to fit in, to be accepted, and you never gave her a chance.”
“She didn’t try,” Millie scoffs, her sweet facade cracking. “She was always so… weird. All she ever talked about was cooking, like it’s some special talent.”
“She wasn’t weird; she was wonderful,” I snap at Millie, and her face flushes an angry red.
“None of you ever asked her about anything else,” Lauren interjects, her voice sharp. “Adam’s right; we never gave her a chance.”
Hailey rolls her eyes. “Oh please. What else was there to ask about? Her family’s stupid little restaurant? All the years she spent drifting? Her job at that greasy spoon? It’s not like she was going places.”
“Her clothes were weird too,” Millie jumps back in. “She was always wearing those loose, flowy things. Like she was trying to be some kind of hippie. Remember that awful yellow dress?”
“I loved that yellow dress,” I say quietly, thinking of how the sunlight caught in Caitlin’s hair the day she wore it to the farmer’s market, how her laugh had turned heads, how her hand fit perfectly in mine. “She looked beautiful in it. She was always beautiful to me.”
Something mean and ugly twists on Millie’s face, and her eyes narrow as she looks at me.
“As if cooking makes her special,” Rhonda says with a snort. “Some of us cook every day without making a fuss about it.”
“She cooked well enough. I’ll give her that,” my mother says with a dismissive wave. “But honestly, it’s hardly a special skill. Like Rhonda said, we cook every day. It’s what any decent housewife does.”
Rhonda nods eagerly. “Millie cooks too, you know. She made the most wonderful lasagna last week, didn’t you, sweetie?”
Millie manages a smile. “It was nothing special.”
“All of you stop fucking talking about her—” I start, my voice angry and loud, but before I can finish my sentence, Hailey cuts me off, unable to resist piling on.
“And those freckles — so many freckles. She looked like she’d been splattered with mud. What?” She adds slightly defensively, seeing my expression.
I sit for a moment, staring at these women who I now realize I never truly knew until I watched how they treated someone that they considered beneath them.
Someone whose only sin was being an obstacle to their plans.
They aren’t even content with having run Caitlin off.
They won’t be satisfied until they’ve completely destroyed even the memory of her.
And what does it say about me that I saw what they were doing to the woman I love and never spoke up?
Nothing good, that’s what.
But I want to be better. I want to be a man that’s deserving of Caitlin.
“Oh, I don’t know, Hailey,” I reply, sitting back and folding my arms. “I’m just thinking about how I’ve known all of you my whole life and all these years…I never realized what truly horrible people you all are.”
“ADAM KELLEY.” Mom surges to her feet while the other three sit staring at me with open mouths. “How dare you speak about us like that! About me like that! Gerald, are you going to just sit there or are you going to say something?”
Dad raises his head from his hands and stares straight at Mom. “I can’t say that I disagree with the boy right now, Paula.”
“GERALD!” Mom gapes at her husband, at a loss for words.
“You know, Mom,” I say, drawing her gaze back to me, “I brought the woman I love home to my family, and you treated her horribly. You want to know what the worst part is, though? The part that keeps me up at night? I let you. I didn’t protect her.
And that’s something I’ll regret for the rest of my life. ”
“You’re just angry because you know what we’re saying is true. She wasn’t right for you,” my mother insists. “She wasn’t right for this family. No roots, no connections, nothing to offer but—”
“She offered me happiness,” I interrupt, my voice rising. “Which is more than I can say for any of you.”
“You don’t mean that,” Millie says, tears filling her eyes. “Adam, you’re just confused—”
“I’m not confused,” I cut her off. “I’m seeing clearly for the first time in years.”
“She was using you,” my mother says, leaning forward. “You were just a meal ticket to her, a way out of her meaningless life.”
“That’s rich,” I say, my face flushed with anger. “Caitlin is the most genuine person I’ve ever met. She loved me for who I am, not for what I could give her or what she thought I should be.”
“This is ridiculous,” Hailey says with an eye roll. “She wasn’t good enough for you. She was just a common fry cook who—”
“SHUT UP!”