19. A Love Knot #2
Lola stands beside her and is—I’m furious to have to admit this—gracefully beautiful in the uncomplicated way of someone who has never had to fight very hard for anything.
Paula glares at Nana Mae. The hostility that passes between those two in the space of a single glance has the density of a decades-long grudge that’s still very much alive.
“Mae Belle.” Paula’s tone carries the sickeningly sweet condescension that many Southern women have mastered.
“Paula.” Nana Mae, on the other hand, is pure ice… and it makes me love her a little more.
Lola drifts toward me. She exudes a friendliness that’s somehow more difficult to deal with than the hostility of her grandmother.
“I love your sweatshirt,” she says in a tone that indicates otherwise. She means Cole’s hoodie that’s four sizes too big and has his freaking name embroidered onto the left-hand side.
If Paula’s the assassin, Lola’s the sleeper cell spy who operates in the shadows.
“Thanks.”
Her gaze dips to my hand. Not…rudely—more like someone who has wanted something for a long time and can’t figure out why she wasn’t the one to get it.
She quickly smooths over her complicated expression, and I find I respect her more for it. At least she’s being honest.
“Cole’s a lucky guy,” she says. Simply. With only the slightest hint of snark.
It instantly puts me on edge.
“He’s working on it,” I say because I don’t believe she really knows Cole at all.
She laughs, then Paula materializes at her side, hissing about the rosemary selection, and they’re gone, drifting toward the next stall with the unhurried pace of women who always manage to get everything they want.
I glance down at my hand with a frown. The diamond sparkles up at me as though it’s laughing at all my strategies and safety measures.
Nana Mae holds out a bundle of sweet peas and once again remains quiet, which I’m finding is her most devastating move. She forces me to sit in the silence of unasked questions, too afraid of the answers to ever ask for the truth.
“I’ll meet you up ahead,” Katie says, jarring me out of my strange thoughts. “I have to go see about a…guy.” She waggles her brows at me, and against my better judgment, I laugh and allow Nana Mae to drag me further into the pits of small-town attention.
The bookstall at the far end of the market is by far my favorite, and it has nothing to do with the fact that it doesn’t have a crowd of people swarming it.
That is, until I run into Bea.
She’s arguing with the book vendor. “This is not upmarket fiction,” she states. “It’s literary fiction, and you know it.”
The vendor appears to have had this same conversation multiple times because he doesn’t address her, he simply looks at me as I step in next to her to see what book she’s talking about.
“Mis-categorizing a book doesn’t make it sell any better,” she says to the vendor, and then to me, without transition, “How are you sleeping?”
I blink. “Better?”
“Mm.” She picks up a paperback, examines the blurb, then sets it back down. “You know what I’ve noticed about people who sleep well for the first time in a while?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.” I almost smile. I bet she was such a good therapist because she never let her patients get away with any bullshit.
She nods and lifts another book. “They’ve usually put something down.” She holds the new book out to the vendor and pays for it with exact change, already counted. “Doesn’t mean it’s gone. It just means they’re not carrying it while they sleep. That’s a big step.”
She tucks the book under her arm and stares at me with calm, assessing eyes.
“I didn’t say anything,” I point out.
“No,” she agrees. “But you stopped walking when you saw me, which is its own kind of statement.”
I hate that she’s right.
“The thing about putting down something heavy…” She’s done this long enough that she knows exactly when and how hard to push.
“Is that eventually, you’ll have to examine it.
In daylight. With all the original context intact.
Not the story you told yourself about it—the actual thing that’s been weighing you down. ”
A woman passes with a double stroller, and we both step aside. When the gap closes, Bea is already scanning the next stall.
Then she looks down at the tote I’m still carrying. “A love knot. That’s an interesting choice.”
“This?” I ask, lifting the bag to inspect the rope heart more closely.
“It signifies unity and enduring commitment. It represents friendship, everlasting love, loyalty, and the intertwining of lives. Perhaps you’ll want to investigate why those attributes are easier to accept now that you’ve set down some of your pain.”
I scoff. I haven’t set down my pain. I don’t even know exactly what my pain is. “Sorry, Bea. It’s just a bag.”
Her smile says she’s heard a hundred lies to detect the truth. “It’s never just a bag, dear. Sometimes we just need the canvas to hold the lies we’re not ready to examine yet.”
I frown so hard, a headache blooms.
“Good market today,” she says, then walks away.
I stand there, holding the love knot tote and thinking about my pain versus the story I told myself about it. Is six years of “fine” enough of a down payment on something I’ve always wanted, or is it just a very long way of standing on a curb and waiting for someone to find me?
With no clear answer, I drift through the market, knowing Nana Mae or Katie will find me eventually.
But it’s Hudson I run into at the lemonade stand sometime later.
“What are you doing?” he asks.