Chapter 8 #2
The pain that flashed in her eyes struck me like a lightning bolt. I knew what I’d believed with every bone in my body back then, but seeing her reaction now had doubts seeping in like water in a doomed ship.
I swallowed, bowing my head. “Back then…” Hell.
I hated admitting any of this because I could suddenly see how it was going to come across.
“I’d had a crush on you for as long as I could remember, so that first night when you came over to my car and talked to me, with no airs, just what seemed like real talk between us, I rode the high from that for days.
At the same time, there was this part of me that couldn’t quite believe someone like you would be interested in a farm kid like me.
My mom was the help. You were the rich girl whose family employed her. ”
“But that happened week after week. We were getting to know each other. I thought we were being real with each other.”
“I thought we were too. Most of the time. But doubts sometimes crept in.”
“So you thought I was faking it? So I could…what? What would be my motivation for that, Luke?”
“I don’t know. I was seventeen. Seventeen-year-old boys don’t make sense. They’re all hormones and insecurity. But you had a reputation for being a mean girl.”
Magnolia downed several gulps of champagne. “I wasn’t that girl when I was with you,” she said quietly.
I straightened so I could look at her. Her eyes were averted, and she was fiddling with her beaded bracelet, so unlike the gold and diamonds she’d worn back then, pulling it around and around her wrist. She looked vulnerable, uncertain, maybe even embarrassed.
A lock of her reddish-blond hair fell over her face.
I fixed my gaze on it as I was shot back in time again, recalling when I’d run my fingers through her hair while I kissed her in the front seat of my family’s old, beat-up car.
I remember thinking how silky and luxurious it was and how surreal that I knew what Magnolia James’s hair felt like between my fingers, what her lips tasted like under mine, how sweet her voice was when it was just us.
Her wardrobe might’ve changed since then, but her mane of long, gorgeous hair hadn’t. I wondered if it still felt as smooth.
“I was genuine with you, Luke. You treated me like I was special. You made me feel safe enough to be myself. You’re the only person who ever saw that side of me.”
“You had boyfriends all the time,” I pointed out.
“I had guys who took me out and wanted to get in my pants. Not real relationships with any of them. You were different—or at least I thought you were back then, in part because you didn’t try to get in my pants, but also because you listened.
You opened up to me too. But then you cut me out of your life in every way without hearing my side of what happened. ”
Closing my eyes, I pressed my thumb and finger against the pressure points on my forehead as everything I’d held true all these years unraveled.
I couldn’t deny that what she said rang true. I’d thought our fledgling relationship was special too. Real. We’d connected. Until I’d come in from working in the strawberry fields one Wednesday afternoon and found my mom home when she was supposed to be at work.
When my mom had told me what happened, I’d taken it personally. Maybe I’d jumped to conclusions. Maybe I’d let my teenage-boy insecurities take the reins. For sure, I’d been pissed as hell that anyone had treated my mom like shit.
And the aftermath my mother suffered…
I locked down on that memory, unwilling to be bowled over by the emotional tsunami it was capable of stirring.
“You mean what you said about my mom?” I asked in a raw, gravelly voice.
“That she was pleasant and kind? Of course. I grew up with a front-and-center view of what cold, manipulative, and vengeful look like. That wasn’t your mom. She was quiet but sweet to me. Respectful. Sometimes I wondered if she knew about you and me.”
“If she did, she never said anything, but you know how moms are. They have a sixth sense.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know how moms are. Not normal moms. Not good moms.”
“My mom was good. Kindhearted. Honest. But also depressed. Getting fired and then blacklisted…” I shook my head, pressing my hands together in front of my mouth.
“It sent her spiraling. She sank further into depression. She became sickly, staying in bed most days, plagued by chronic pain that the doctors couldn’t diagnose.
” I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat.
“She never recovered. Was never herself again.”
“I’m sorry about your mom, Luke. Truly. She sounds like a special person.”
“She was a good one.” My throat swelled with the loss of her.
Silence grew between us. Magnolia emptied her glass again and set it on the desk, but she didn’t refill it.
“For the record, I told my fa—Felix I didn’t believe your mom stole my ring. He didn’t care what I believed. And now I know why.”
I glanced up at her, curious what she meant.
“He made it all up. After my mom’s visit today, I’m ninety-nine percent certain he knew your mom didn’t take the ring.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to follow.
Magnolia opened a desk drawer, took out an envelope, and emptied it. A single ring with a large green, heart-shaped stone surrounded by diamonds rolled onto the desk.
“It turned up?” I asked.
“About an hour ago. My mother took it with her when she left.”
I listened with my mouth hanging open as Magnolia told me about her parents’ history, particularly the parts her mother had revealed to her today, about the battles between her parents and their twisted agreement.
It sounded like a damn soap opera, not someone’s real life.
That was the environment she’d grown up in?
Jesus.
“She took the ring because she knew he’d figure it out. In her mind, she won in the end because she got the ring that was supposed to be hers.”
I couldn’t come up with a response. Her family life was something I couldn’t even imagine. No kid should have to be exposed to immature, hateful games like that.
Magnolia skipped the glass and swigged directly from the champagne bottle as I attempted to process her story. I believed it. You couldn’t make up shit like that.
“Why would Felix accuse my mother of taking a ring he knew his wife had stolen?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. Your mom was an innocent bystander. A scapegoat. I don’t understand what would make him do it.”
The bastard clearly had a black soul.
Another question popped into my head. “If you didn’t think my mom stole it, what did you think happened to your ring all these years?”
She shrugged. “I thought maybe it fell off when I wore it or went down a drain or into a heating duct without my noticing. It’s bothered me ever since. I can’t tell you how many times I turned the house upside down searching for it.”
“And now you have it back.”
“I don’t want it. But it’s worth a lot. Felix James has always used money for evil. I want to figure out something good to do with it. I don’t know what yet.”
“Whatever it’s worth, you could put that into your business,” I suggested, knowing firsthand how there were never enough funds for a fledgling venture.
“I don’t want anything from that monster touching my business. It’s mine and mine alone. I’ll succeed without him.”
Studying her, I took my first gulp of champagne. The lightness and bubbles made me shudder, and I set the glass back on the desk.
Outside, the rain intensified, hitting the large windows behind me, pulling my brain out of the morass of history and back to the here and now. My watch said I’d been here for nearly an hour.
“Hell, I need to get home,” I said, standing abruptly. “My little girl’s waiting for me.” I needed to address the shitstorm of everything she’d revealed, but I didn’t know what to say, as I was still absorbing it. “Uh, thanks for telling me all of this. I…I need to let it all sink in.”
Thunder clapped loudly, suddenly, and Magnolia visibly startled, reminding me she used to be scared of storms.
“Are you okay?” I found myself asking.
“I’m fine,” she said stiffly. “Go, get home to your daughter. I’ll be fine.”
She didn’t sound fine, but she wasn’t my responsibility. Addie was. The farm was.
Still…
“You’re not going to drive anywhere, are you?” I eyed the champagne bottle. I couldn’t see how much was left, but she’d gone through at least half of it while I’d been sitting here.
With a dismissive laugh, she said, “I live above The Lily Pad.”
The stationery store was a block away, on the other side of the square.
“I’d offer you a lift, but my truck is nearly that far away,” I said.
She waved me off. “I’ll just ride it out here. Go.”
I nodded once and went into the outer room. When I glanced back at her, her gaze was averted. Instead of the light, celebratory mood I’d walked in on, Magnolia looked sad, uneasy. As if she was all alone to face the ghosts her mother’s visit had awakened.
For the first time in eighteen years, I felt more than an ounce of empathy for Magnolia James.
My phone buzzed with a silent text message. I knew without looking it was my dad wondering where the hell I was, so I walked out the door into the storm.