5. Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Now
“You know we passed a black cat on the way there.”
I sit on a pristine white ottoman in my mother’s living room, holding a glass of the sugar-free lemonade that she insiststastes just like the real thing. “Did we?”
Mom is sitting on the futon across from me, a marble coffee table filling the space between us. When I was growing up, Mom always kept our house neat, but she didn’t attempt to erase all evidence of a family living there. Sitting in the five-bedroom house she lives in now feels like taking a break in a furniture store. “Mm-hmm. Explains our bad luck, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.”
She takes a dainty sip of her own lemonade, studying me over the rim of the glass. I try not to squirm. For the majority of my adult life, I have twisted myself into knots to become the daughter she always wanted. Most days I’m confident in who I’ve become, but every time I come back to visit, I constantly second-guess myself, wondering if I’m being too loud, too opinionated. Too much.
“You have a good life ahead of you, Nina,” she says. “Marrying a man like Daniel means the only thing you’ll ever have to worry about is what to wear in the morning.”
There are multiple implicit meanings in her words, and I hear them all: Don’t ruin this. Make sure not to upset Daniel with the changes to the wedding. Get Theo out of your head right now.
“I know,” I tell her, because I do. “Everything will be fine.”
Footsteps approach, and I turn to see my stepfather in the doorway. He’s dressed in his usual outfit of slacks, a crisp blue button-up, and brown loafers. My mother does not believe that shoes belong in the house—neither of us are wearing them now—but she rarely pushes back against anything he does. I guess spotless floors are one of the things she gave up in exchange for marrying real estate mogul Travis Weldon and becoming a multimillionaire overnight.
“How did it go?” he asks, sinking onto the couch beside my mom. He puts his arm around her, squeezing her shoulder with his large hand. I look away. I did not grow up seeing my parents share physical affection, and even though Mom has been married to Travis for several years now, it’s still strange to see him touch her. “Everything still on track?”
I expect Mom to answer, but she flicks her eyes at me.
“Their lawn is a mess from the storm,” I say. “But we’re going to keep the date the same and move it indoors.”
“What about the flowers?” she asks. “Your dress?”
“I already sent the florist an email,” I tell her. “She said it’s not too late to make changes. The dress I have will just have to do.”
“It’s an outside summer dress,” Mom says, a tsk in her tone. “There’s no fullness to it at all. You’re going to be drowned out by that big room.”
Travis laughs. It’s a big, booming sound that echoes off the high vaulted ceilings. “There’s not a set of walls in the world that can overshadow a bride on her wedding day.”
“He would know,” I point out.
She purses her lips, the telltale sign that she is putting her desire to be an agreeable wife over her natural inclination to tell me I’m wrong. “Well,” she concedes, “I suppose if Daniel sees it that way, there’s no problem.”
“I’m sure he does,” says Travis, placating.
I sip on my lemonade and say nothing. I could mention the fact that how I feel about my own wedding dress has not been mentioned once, but there’s no point. I save my breath.
Mom clears her throat. “Things are working out for you, Nina Lynn. I used to worry that they never would.”
I glance at Travis. In the years they’ve been together, I haven’t been able to figure out how much he knows about our lives before him. He’s obviously aware that Mom is divorced, that she used to be a small business owner, and that she no longer speaks to her ex-husband or son. Surely she had to give him some reason for the estrangement, but my gut feeling is that she has never been completely forthcoming about what happened the summer before my senior year.
Travis gives me an oblivious smile. “We all have to sow our oats when we’re young, huh?”
I glance at my mother. “Right.”
Even though Travis was the one who said it, her perturbed exhale and disapproving look are directed at me. “You better call Daniel and run all of this by him,” she says pointedly. “We don’t want to do anything concrete without his permission.”
I bristle at the use of the word permission , but tamp it down and take the dismissal as the reprieve it is. “I’ll go out to the patio and call. He said he might leave work early today.”
I drain the rest of my flavorless lemonade and drop it off in the kitchen. Mom and Travis begin talking about a client of his. Their voices follow me out to the back patio until I shut the door behind me, enclosing myself in blissful quiet.
I highly doubt Daniel actually left work early, so I tap out a text about moving the wedding inside and send it. I watch the screen until the word delivered turns to read , then wait a couple more minutes to see if he’ll respond. No bubbles pop up. No reply comes.
Accepting that my fiancé has chosen to ignore me, I scroll through my texts until I find my last conversation with Dad. I blanch when I see that we haven’t spoken since he wished me a happy birthday last October. It’s been even longer for me and Brock—nearly a year has passed since he sent a picture of his kidswatching fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Most of the information I have about Brock’s life comes from social media, so it was strange to receive a picture from him out of the blue. I wonder if he realizes how much weight the Fourth of July still holds for me. How hard I try not to think about it, and how much I still dread it every single year. It’s part of why I scheduled my wedding the eighth—the hope being that with so much to do, I wouldn’t have time to dwell.
Of course, that plan would have gone a lot better had Theo not reappeared in my life.