Chapter Nine
Sunday dawned gloomy and crisp, as if it was announcing that fall had arrived in full swing and the people of Northwood should be ready.
Sawyer thought about going for a run, but the gray sky changed her mind, so she opened the app on her phone and went through a half-hour yoga class, just to get her body moving and her muscles stretched. After that, she headed downstairs to start her coffee brewing.
She heard Jenna’s door close, watched out the front window as she drove away in her decade-old Toyota, and part of her was bummed to know she wasn’t next door.
There was something warm and satisfying knowing she was tucked safely in the same house as Sawyer—which she didn’t understand but accepted for now.
Around noon, it started to rain and made for the perfect Sunday atmosphere to spend the day on the couch.
She clicked on the fireplace, then made herself a bowl of popcorn and watched a movie.
By the time that was over, the rain had eased up, and she found her gaze landing on the Lily Chambers book Jenna had sold her, sitting accusingly on the table under the TV.
They had a little stare-down, her and the book, across the living room.
It lasted a good four minutes before Sawyer sighed loudly, pushed herself to her feet, and crossed to grab it.
Back on the couch, under the afghan her grandmother made her, she stared at the cover.
It was happy, with bright colors of turquoise and coral, two women on the front who were obviously bakers or something. Pastry chefs, maybe? She sighed again, opened the book, and began reading.
When the knock on the door came, it startled her enough to make her flinch in her seat.
She had no idea how much time had passed, but she was on page 112, so quite a bit.
She set the book, pages down, on the coffee table and tossed the blanket off, regretting that instantly as the chill of the day assaulted her, so she picked it back up and wrapped it around her shoulders.
She was running a hand through her hair when she opened the door and stopped in shock.
“Hey, Sawyer,” Amanda said, an uncertain smile on her face.
Sawyer had to swallow twice before she could find her voice. “Amanda. Hi. Um…” She cleared her throat. “How did you…what are you doing here?”
“Well, it took some fancy undercover work, but I managed to find your new address, since somebody wouldn’t give it to me.” Amanda said it with a smile, like it was a silly misunderstanding that Sawyer hadn’t shared where she lived now. “Can we talk for a minute?”
No! No, we cannot talk. I don’t want to talk to you.
You ruined me. You broke me in ways I didn’t know a person could be broken.
I’m still recovering and I’m just now starting to do better.
It has taken me so long to get here. So, no, I don’t want to talk to you because I don’t want to go backward.
I don’t want to undo all the hard work it took for me to get to this place.
Backsliding is not an option for me, can you understand that?
This isn’t all about you, you know. I exist here. I’m part of this.
That’s what she should have said, should have shouted, to Amanda.
“Sure” is what she actually said, though she didn’t let Amanda in. Instead, she stepped out onto the porch, tightening her grip on the blanket wrapped around her like a protective cocoon, and forced Amanda to take a couple steps back.
They stood there awkwardly for a moment, Amanda sort of shuffling from one foot to the other, as if she was nervous, Sawyer gazing off into the street or at the trees or down the block.
Anywhere but looking right at Amanda. She didn’t want to fall into the depths of her blue eyes the way she used to. She would drown, just like always.
“This is nice,” Amanda said, making a show of looking around, at the house, the porch, the front lawn. “It’s a really nice neighborhood.”
“It is.”
Amanda glanced down at her feet, and Sawyer realized in that moment that she was nervous.
Amanda was never nervous. Ever. She had the confidence of a dozen CEOs, of several star athletes.
Sawyer had never seen her even flinch with any kind of nerves.
She never raised her voice. She was always calm and stoic.
It was infuriating, especially when they were having an emotional discussion.
But Sawyer did her best to match that, to appear unaffected, despite the fact her heart was beating so solidly against her rib cage, she was surprised Amanda couldn’t hear it.
“Okay, um. So, I just wanted to say thank you.” Amanda’s smile was uncertain—again, a strange emotion to appear so clearly on her face.
“For?” Sawyer was confused now. She hadn’t done anything. In fact, she’d maintained as much distance as she could from Amanda over the past eight months. What could she be thanked for?
Before Amanda could continue, Jenna’s car pulled into the driveway, and both Sawyer and Amanda glanced at it.
“Who’s that?” Amanda asked.
“My next-door neighbor.” Sawyer swallowed hard as Jenna shut her car door and headed for the porch, both women still watching her.
Jenna’s look of concern somehow made Sawyer feel the tiniest bit better as she mounted the stairs and reached her own door. She looked at the women as she slid her key into her lock and made eye contact with Sawyer. “Everything okay?” she asked.
Sawyer gave one nod.
Jenna nodded back, shot a glance at Amanda, then went inside and shut the door.
A beat passed and Amanda spoke again. “I’ve been seeing Christine,” she said, then added, “from the office,” as if Sawyer needed additional information.
“I know who Christine is.” It took every ounce of energy Sawyer had not to allow any emotion into her words.
“Sure. Of course you do. That was dumb.” Amanda glanced down at her feet. “But I wanted to let you know that I left Cindy.” She gave a humorless laugh. “Finally.”
“Oh.” It was all she could manage. If she said more, she’d explode. Or implode. Or just plode? Was that a thing? All she knew was that if she opened her mouth again, she couldn’t be held responsible for what came out. So she stood there. Just stood there like some mute idiot while Amanda went on.
“I’m in such a better place now. I mean, it hasn’t been easy. There’ve been tears and arguments. Lots of shouting and sobbing. Moving out was hard.”
“You moved out?”
Amanda nodded, clearly proud of the fact. “My therapist helped me realize it was for the best.”
“You have a therapist?”
This time, Amanda laughed. “I do. Can you believe it?”
Sawyer shook her head slowly because no, she couldn’t.
“Anyway, I wanted you to know about all these changes, and I wanted to say thank you, because I hear your voice so often in my head telling me the right thing to do.” She laughed through her nose.
“If you hadn’t blocked me, I’d have just texted or called.
But I thought it was important for you to know, so I hunted you down.
And like I said, I wanted to say thank you.
” And before Sawyer had time to defend herself, Amanda had pulled her into a hug, wrapped her up in her arms, her usual sweet floral scent enveloping Sawyer like a poison gas.
She closed her eyes and let herself inhale and sink into Amanda for only a split second before she stiffened and pushed her arms out from inside the blanket, made herself dislodge from Amanda’s embrace.
Amanda looked disappointed for only a moment before schooling her features and forcing a smile—an expression Sawyer knew well.
“Okay. Good. I feel better now that you know and now that I got to thank you.” She took a step back and made a show of looking around the porch again.
“This really is nice, Sawyer. It suits you.” She smiled again, a genuine one this time, gave Sawyer a little wave, and descended the steps to head toward her Mercedes, parked on the street.
Sawyer stood there on the porch, wrapped in her grandmother’s blanket, and stared.
Amanda gave a little toot toot on her horn as she drove away, and Sawyer was pretty sure she felt her heart crack open in her chest—something she’d thought she was through with when it came to Amanda.
She continued to stand there until Jenna’s door opened and she peeked around the edge of the storm door.
“You okay?” she asked, her voice soft.
Sawyer swallowed. “I’m not sure.”
Jenna held the door open. “Come inside. You can sit with me while I cook.”
Somehow, nothing in the world sounded better than that. Sawyer, still wrapped like a burrito in her blanket, followed Jenna inside.
Jenna had a small table with two chairs set in the tiny breakfast nook of her kitchen, and she guided Sawyer to it and sat her down. Arnold, sensing the atmosphere, trotted over to Sawyer and lay down near her feet on guard duty. Jenna smiled at her boy, then turned on the kettle.
“Do you like tea?” she asked.
“Do you have wine?” Sawyer countered, and Jenna grinned.
“Something stronger is needed, huh? You got it.” She turned the kettle back off and poured two glasses of wine from the bottle of Cabernet she’d uncorked the night before.
She handed one to Sawyer and said, “I’m here to listen if you want to talk about who that was and what she said to make you look like somebody stole your puppy.
And if you’d rather not talk about it, that’s okay, too.
I’m making us some chili. The weather kind of calls for it, you know? ”