Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
He left her there. Standing in the middle of the museum. Lost. Still throbbing a little.
And she deserved it. That much Laura knew. She could be mad at him for refusing to accept what she’d said at face value, but she was mad at herself too.
She should have stopped all that before it had gone too far. He’d given her every opportunity to. And she hadn’t. It had all been too…too good.
So this was all her fault. She could admit that. She swallowed at the lump in her throat and went to lock the door behind Ty.
It would be better if they’d never known how good, that was for sure.
She picked up her discarded purse, tried to think her way through this. This was bad, but she’d fix it. If it was her fault, she could certainly fix it.
Maybe he just needed a few days to cool off. Then they could talk and find a way for things to go back to normal. It was just a little mistake. They could fix it. They meant too much to each other not to fix it.
The flickering of lights had a new pain searing in her chest. Because if there was a positive potential outcome, there was also a terrible one. Like it was all over. Ruined. Maybe he wasn’t dead like poor Lissy’s soldier husband, but maybe this was a death of sorts.
And it was all her fault.
She practically ran from that horrible thought. Down the stairs and out through the back. She needed some salty air and bracing cold. She’d walk home along the beach.
Before she hit the sand, she slipped her heels off. God, it was cold. So cold it was hard to think about anything else as she walked.
Perfect.
But the closer she got to the cottage, the heavier the lump in her throat seemed to grow. The lights all being off felt metaphorically awful somehow and tears began to track down her cheeks.
She couldn’t stop the tide of tears as she climbed the stairs onto the deck.
She couldn’t stop the little sob that escaped, then grew.
It was freezing, but she didn’t want to go inside and wake Grandma up with her sobbing, so she lowered herself onto a deck chair, shivering and sobbing into her hands.
She wasn’t sure how long it lasted. The pain seemed to go on and on forever. The tears never ending. It felt like those early days of losing her family all over again. Like the sorrow would never, ever run out.
She heard the sliding glass door rumble open, followed by her grandmother’s voice. “Lara?”
Oh, hell, she couldn’t let Grandma see her this way. She used the hands covering up her face to wipe the tears away, not that it could possibly hide what her face would look like. Maybe she could blame it on the cold.
“Sorry if I woke you.” She rose carefully trying to keep her face tilted away from the light coming from inside. She tried to scoot past and worked hard to keep her voice even instead of squeaky. “I’m just going to go take a shower and—”
“Lara.” Grandma put a hand to her arm, turned her so she had to face her grandmother. “What’s happened?”
Lara shook her head, trying to pretend like it wasn’t that big of a deal even though her face no doubt betrayed her. “Ty and I had a bit of a fight, that’s all.”
“That isn’t like you two.”
“He…” She looked at her grandmother. The only person who could understand, surely. Grandma would support her. She’d agree. She’d support Lara and then… Then they could find a way to put things to rights. Grandma would know just want to do to get Ty to come around. She always did.
Lara wiped at her nose. “He wants to change things between us.”
“Romantically?”
Lara nodded, then let Grandma pull her inside. Grandma nudged her into a kitchen chair, then grabbed a blanket from the basket she kept them in and wrapped one around Lara. Once she was satisfied, she met Lara’s gaze.
“And?” Grandma asked.
“And… Well, we can’t do that.” Lara look down at her lap, not being able to meet Grandma’s direct gaze. “We’re friends. That’s all I want to be.”
When Grandma didn’t say anything, Lara had to look back up. Grandma didn’t nod along or agree. She was looking at Lara like she’d grown a second head. “But you love him,” Grandma said, like it was all so simple.
“As a friend,” Lara said firmly.
“Oh, Lara.” Grandma sighed in a way that Lara associated more with her high school years. All the things Grandma didn’t understand about how she should be allowed to have a cell phone or go to coed sleepovers, and that patently I do not understand youth sigh.
It felt a lot more insulting now. “What? Why can’t it just be friendship? Why does it have to be more?”
“I’ve been friends with men over the years. Your grandfather was my friend, my partner, and I loved him. It was different. I can’t tell you why, but I know when it’s different. You and Ty are different, sweetheart.”
“It doesn’t have to be. Nothing has to change. That’s a choice, and I am choosing not to change anything.”
Grandma looked at her as if Lara had reached out and slapped her. She gripped the back of a kitchen chair like it was holding her up. She even paled. But Lara didn’t understand what she’d said that was so awful.
Gingerly, Grandma pulled the chair closer to Lara, settled into it.
“A few years back when you wanted to stop going to counseling, I didn’t argue because I thought you had come to a healthy grip on what had happened to you,” she said, quietly.
Intently. Searching Lara’s face for something. “Was I wrong?”
Lara shook her head. “No. No, this doesn’t have to do with that.” It wasn’t about not being able to get up in the morning because she missed her family so much. It wasn’t about the panic attacks. Those were gone.
Mostly. Except for the other day after she’d sold her painting. But that was a little blip. She’d handled it.
“Then why is a nearly thirty-year-old woman sobbing over the idea that something might change?”
“Why don’t you understand?” Lara hadn’t felt so lost in ages. She thought… Grandma always understood. Always supported her. Why was this different?
“Oh, baby. I understand. I know how the grief all ebbs and flows and sometimes make the future feel harder than staying stuck in place. In a way, I’m so lucky I had you to be strong for, because it meant I had to try to crawl out of that horrible, horrible time.
For you. I would have curled up and died without you. ”
Lara didn’t know what to do with that. She’d thought Grandma was so strong. Oh, not that she hadn’t been marked by everything she’d lost. Just that she’d…she’d been stronger at carrying it. Because Lara had never seen her falter. Never seen her even close to giving up.
“You know all these groups and things I’m a part of?
The clubs, the volunteer work. I didn’t do any of those things before the accident, if you recall.
I worked the museum and didn’t mind keeping mostly to myself and my family.
After your grandfather died, I went internal for a while, but when…
the accident happened, I knew I couldn’t hide away from you. ”
Lara thought back to before… Something she didn’t often do. But she supposed Grandma had been different then. Lara hadn’t paid much mind to her grandmother’s external life, but no…all the community involvement hadn’t been part of Mary Lou’s life when Lara had been little.
“I had to find a different way to deal,” Grandma continued.
“At first, I took on all those groups and efforts to keep my mind busy. So I wouldn’t have to think about all that pain, get lost in it.
It helped me stay upright and be what you needed.
But a funny thing happened—throwing myself into things I enjoyed, into projects I loved, causes that were important to me…
the worry and grief had less of a place to linger.
I suppose I thought you’d gotten there too. Right along with me.”
“I did. I am.” But Lara couldn’t help but wonder now, in the face of what her grandmother was saying, if she’d backslid somewhere along the way. “I don’t… I hardly ever cry about them. I like my life. I just want it to stay this way.”
“It can’t though. Death aside, nothing stays the same.
And there’s a sadness, a grief in that. No doubt.
But I tell you what, if a handsome man wanted to sweep me off my feet these days, I’d let him.
No matter how much I loved your grandfather, no matter how much it’d hurt to lose again.
Because you learn to carry your grief, and joy is a buoy. ”
“I have joy,” Lara insisted. “I miss them, but it doesn’t take me out at the knees most days. I love our life. The museum, Wild Rose Point. I just liked…Ty coming and going.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“I mean why would you want someone you care about to come and go? It’s not like the going made him happy. Or you, for that matter. Why wouldn’t you want him here, whole and happy? Living a life that suits him instead of that bastard father of his?”
Lara shook her head. “I’m glad… I’m so glad he’s home and settling down and following his own path. I just…” The thought of being a part of it squeezed at her lungs, just like the panic after she’d sold those paintings. Too much of a good thing and…
“I’m surprised at you,” Grandma said very quietly. “I thought you were happy.”
“I…” She wanted to tell her grandmother that she was, because she should be, but she’d told Ty, hadn’t she? That she wasn’t happy. And he wasn’t happy.
Why did that feel so much safer than this?
“I know it’s trite, honey, but do you think your parents would want you drowning in your own misery, afraid to live because it might hurt? It’s not how they raised you. It’s not how I raised you.”
“I’m not afraid.” That wasn’t the right word. She knew she couldn’t control bad things. They came at you no matter what. “I’m trying to…”
“Manage things? Control things? Keep everything just how you want it so nothing goes wrong?”