Chapter 6 #2
“It just seemed like you two were growing closer.”
“No.” She shook her head. The thrill she felt at Sam noticing how close she and Cassie were was overshadowed by the sadness that they no longer appeared to be close at all. “No, she hasn’t said anything to me.” Saying the words out loud sent a pain to her chest that caught her by surprise.
Fall had always been one of Cassie’s favorite times of the year.
Though she was exhausted from all of the event-planning hours she’d been putting in on top of her usual workload, she had helped Molly enough over the years to have some idea of what to do and it was getting easier the more she got the hang of it.
Every fall, she and Molly went on a hayride to get a pumpkin and despite this year being tougher than usual, Molly had agreed to come along.
It was a tradition their mom had started when they were too young to even remember it.
After they lost their parents, Cassie and Molly had made a point to always be together and continue the tradition.
In some small way, it helped them both feel connected to the original version of their family, the family they had before everything changed.
The first year they had gone on the hayride was only six months after their parents passed.
It was heart-wrenching. The people sitting beside them atop the prickly hay bales had tried to inch away from them and focus only on the passing pumpkins as if there weren’t two girls in their midst with tears streaming down their faces.
A piece of hay stabbed Cassie’s leg as the wagon lurched forward, ripping her from her memories.
She readjusted and turned to look at her sister.
Though they had shared many joyful hayrides since that one so long ago, the new pain was written across Molly’s features as she stared, unseeing, at the green fields dotted with orange pumpkins.
The sadness drove a jolt of pain deep into Cassie’s chest. It hurt beyond description to see her sister so down.
She’d tried unsuccessfully to get Molly to open up about what had happened, to try to convince her to give it another chance.
But Molly shut her down each time, refusing to even utter Eva’s name aloud.
Cassie knew breakups were painful and required time to progress through the stages of sadness, denial, hurt, anger, and grief before someone could come out on the other side, hopefully changed for the better. In time.
But Cassie knew that Eva was more than just a partner to Molly.
Eva had been the rock Molly needed when they lost their parents.
Cassie was eleven when their parents were killed in a car accident.
Molly was ten years older, and even though she had always been mature for her age, taking on full custody of her younger sister was a lot.
Molly became a mixture of big sister and parental unit in one night.
It was dizzying, dealing with the loss and grief over their parents, which was complex enough in itself, and somehow trying to create a new version of their family.
Eva had stayed by Molly’s side, buoying her on the tough days, and they all did their best to find a way forward.
Eva was inextricably linked to the greatest loss Cassie and Molly had ever experienced, and Cassie’s biggest fear, as she looked at the emptiness in her sister’s expression, was that a piece of Molly might be lost forever.
That little spark that had been so bright when her big sister was just a kid dimmed slightly when she took over the role of parent and guardian of Cassie, but was kept alive by the love Eva wrapped her in.
No, this was all wrong. It had to be a misunderstanding. If anyone could work through this, Molly and Eva could. Cassie would not let things go down like this. She needed answers and she was going to get them.
Cassie wasn’t sure how this was going to go, but she couldn’t just keep watching Molly suffer and not do anything about it. She needed answers, an explanation, something, for how Eva could treat Molly like this.
She scanned the cars outside the pastel-blue creole cottage Molly and Eva had called home. She didn’t see any nearby vehicles to indicate Eva was in a photo session. Molly and Eva had turned the back room of the house into a studio where Eva could photograph clients to save money on rental space.
Cassie rang the doorbell, and when the door swung open, the look on Eva’s face disintegrated into one of weariness with the realization that this moment was finally here. Her posture slumped as if the weight of the impending conversation was already a little too much to bear.
Eva tried to force a small smile. “Hey, Cas. Come in,” she said with a wave of her hand.
Cassie entered cautiously, the sadness emanating from Eva momentarily striking Cassie with great empathy. Gone was her confident quest to find the truth and maybe even put Eva in her place.
Cassie scanned the front room, the main living space, taking in the blank spaces where Molly’s stuff had been.
Anger rose in her chest at how quickly and easily Eva seemed to erase nearly twenty years of a life together with Molly.
She was about to turn to Eva and give her a piece of her mind when something caught her eye from the white shelf of the built-in.
She walked toward it and picked up the black frame with two photos crammed side by side into a space big enough for one.
The image on the left showed a young Eva and Molly; they must have been around twenty—before Molly and Cassie had lost their parents.
They were sitting on the hood of Molly’s VW bug, clad in grunge flannels and beanies, with their arms draped over each other’s shoulders and heads resting against one another, full of smiles and clearly in love.
The image on the right was from Molly’s first wedding reception client, the same year Eva had decided to pursue her photography passion as a career.
Eva stood with her camera draped over her shoulder, smiling at the camera with her arm wrapped around Molly, who was placing a kiss on the side of her head.
Cassie remembered the love and support they had demonstrated that year, helping each other to fully realize their true selves and lives’ missions, and how incredible it had been to watch.
It all came through in that one photo. The love, commitment, understanding, loyalty—it was all there in their eyes.
Grief gripped Cassie’s chest. Tears threatened and her lip quivered as she turned to face Eva, who stood several feet away, watching her, the glisten of unshed tears in her eyes.
The love was clearly still there. What Cassie couldn’t understand was why they were apart.
She raised a hand toward Eva, a plea. “I don’t understand. ”
Eva gave a soft, sad smile. “Want some tea?”
Cassie’s eyes returned to the frame in her hands before muttering, “Sure.”
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