Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Georgie
Around one thirty, Marlowe and my dad show up, and I’m running on empty emotionally.
I checked the numbers they sent me on break, and all it did was make me angry.
This is my dream. The trucks, the expansion.
I wrote all of this in the back of my notebook and never had the guts to do anything about it, and now two people that have nothing to do with my family legacy and who only care about me when it’s convenient are trying to make my dream their reality.
The anger in me is so foreign.
The pain isn’t.
“So, how’s my girl?” Dad asks when he comes up to the truck. His arm is around Marlowe, and she’s beaming, the poor woman. She actually believes he’s going to stick around this time, doesn’t she?
And heck, maybe if she can make this fleet idea of his work, he will. Maybe all he’s ever needed is someone to dream with him … and do all the work so he can take all the glory.
“Fine, Dad. This is my friend Olivia,” I say.
Liv and my dad exchange pleasantries. Marlowe keeps a radiant smile on her face.
“How about an It’s Bean Real on the house for your dad?” Dad asks.
How about you don’t take anything else away from me?
The words are on the tip of my tongue, so close, in fact, I have to roll my lips together to keep from saying them.
I give him a curt nod. “Coming right up.”
“Did you have a chance to look at the numbers?” Marlowe asks as Liv starts working on the drink that’s quickly become our seasonal favorite, and it’s barely autumn.
“I did. The math checks out. I don’t have anything else to add.”
“That’s it?” Marlowe’s smile doesn’t move, but her voice does. “We were hoping for your actual thoughts, Georgie. Not confirmation.”
“That’s all I have for you right now. I’ve been up since four thirty. Sorry.”
Something flashes across her face. “I see. Well, forgive me for thinking you might actually want to be part of creating something as a family.”
Her words knock the wind out of me.
“Marlowe.” Dad’s hand finds her arm before I can answer. She stops, purses her lips, and her shoulders drop.
“Excuse me,” she says, not quite looking at me. “It’s been a long week. I should take this call.” She’s got her phone out and starts walking back toward the car, and I’m glad she’s gone before she can see that her words have so much power over me.
“Are you okay, Georgie girl?” Dad asks. I’ll say this for him—he may not care about people as deeply as he should, but he can read them like a book.
“I’m busy, Dad. Managing the truck is a lot. I don’t think you guys understand how much devotion it takes.”
Dad keeps his eyes on mine. “I meant today. It’s been twelve years since your mom passed.”
I almost drop to my knees.
It’s already the ninth? My eyes fly to the little The Far Side tear-off calendar I keep by register, a gift from Alma.
It is. It’s September ninth. My mom has been dead for twelve years.
And I forgot.
“I know how much you miss her,” Dad’s saying, but it’s like he’s saying it from another room. His words don’t sound right. “I miss her, too.”
“I believe you,” I say.
His brow screws up as he looks at me. “Was there ever any doubt?”
I shake my head, not wanting to look him in the eye. He doesn’t feel things like I do, like my mom did. He doesn’t love the way he should.
But at least he remembered what today is.
“No, Dad. I just miss her.”
“It’s hard. Marlowe’s always on edge on the anniversary. I think she knows your mom was my first love and I’ll never get over losing her. She doesn’t understand how it’s possible that I could love them both.”
He reaches up to the counter to grab my hand, and I let him. If I could feel anything, I wonder if it would be nice.
The whole time I’ve been talking to my dad and Marlowe, Liv has been cleaning the last rush and getting things ready for the next one.
It’s a tender mercy that no customers have come in the last ten minutes.
She passes by me to grab and wipe down a counter, and she gives me a small smile of solidarity.
At my mom’s funeral, Alma said there’s power in grieving with those who grieve, and the best way to do it is to simply be there, arms and heart wide open, mouth firmly shut.
Liv is good at that.
Alma isn’t. She’s never kept her mouth that firmly shut, but she’s been there, and for the last twelve years, I’ve thought maybe that was all I’d ever get.
Logan actually made me think I might get everything I could dream of and more, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that.
But Liv and Alma—that’s something.
My dad and Marlowe leave without fanfare, and Liv and I finish our shift in silence.
A bit after three, we’re on the ten-minute drive back to Mullet Ridge from Sugar Maple.
We have the windows open, and the air has the crisp smell of peanut vines curing in the next field over, sharper than it was even yesterday.
“I’m sorry,” Liv says looking forward at the road. “What a crappy day. It’s the anniversary of your mom’s passing. Your dad and stepmom are such tools. Logan’s ghosting you out of nowhere, no explanation. That’s a lot, Georgie. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” I say. The filter I’ve relied on to hold back my emotions broke when Logan left and my dad came into town, and because Liv has already seen the raw, unfiltered version of me, it feels like too much work to repair the filter.
“I can’t believe my dad remembered today and I didn’t.
I think about my mom every day. I miss her constantly.
My whole life is practically a shrine to her memory, and he’s the one who remembered?
The man who could never be bothered to stick around for the hard parts?
” I shake my head, but it’s more like a dozen tiny shakes that I’m powerless to stop.
“And Logan. Why is he freezing me out? What is it about me that’s so unlovable? Why am I never enough for people?”
“You’re asking the wrong question,” Liv says.
“Pardon?” I ask.
“Asking why you’re never enough for anyone else is the wrong question. You’re making their failings about you.”
“Oh.” A grain silo passes on the right before the landscape returns to fences and fields.
“Sorry,” Liv says. “You probably wanted one of those rant sessions girls have on TV where the one girl goes off and the other girl validates everything she says. I’ve never had friends like that, so I don’t know how to do it.”
A laugh bubbles out of my lips. “Believe me, neither do I.” I sniff. “So what’s the right question?”
“Girl, what do I know? I spent twelve years in foster care before I aged out. But that wasn’t my fault.
So if your dad or Logan or Marlowe aren’t treating you right, that’s not your fault, either.
And you forgetting today’s the anniversary of your mom’s death—isn’t that a good thing?
Doesn’t it mean that you’re moving forward?
Do you think, wherever she is, she wants you dwelling on her death or living your life? ”
“Huh.”
“Sorry, I suck at this.”
“Don’t say that,” I say, still reeling over her twelve years in foster care and the truth she dropped so casually about my mom.
My mom wouldn’t want me dwelling on how much I miss her, even if I can’t help it.
She made me promise I would never go to her gravesite to remember her.
She told me I needed to remember her by doing the things we loved.
Apart from the shop, books, and baseball, what have I let myself love?
Blond hair, blue eyes, and the number 49 flash into my mind, but I blink them away.
The truck hits the pothole on Sycamore that I forgot to avoid. We both fly up at the impact.
“You’re a big book person,” Liv says, “So let me put it this way: You’re like an open book, but it’s a book of poetry.
So, yeah, you have this … inviting kind of vibe from the outside, but you know deep down that no one will be able to really get in, anyway, so you’re happy to smile and talk and guess their drink order.
In turn, they get to draw their easy conclusions about you being this happy-go-lucky type with your Disney Princess vibe, forgetting that Disney Princesses usually have a horrifying back story to go with the birds and mice braiding their hair.
There’s safety in knowing others without ever being known. No fulfillment, but there is safety.”
My throat bobs as I try to swallow, but nothing goes down. “I’m scared he’s going to forget about me.”
“Does he know that?”
“I don’t let myself want things, Liv. If I tell him how much I care about him, I may as well write it in the stars so the heavens can hold it over me. It’s hard for me to believe anyone can care about me, but he’s almost made me believe it.”
Liv is silent as we pull into the parking lot.
We get out together and walk toward her car.
With every step, I feel a crack creeping through my chest the way it sometimes does in a mug after it falls.
It’s not the crash of shattered pieces, but a hairline fracture no one notices until it suddenly splits in two.
Liv rummages in her bag for her keys. “I don’t think Logan’s going to forget about you.”
“What if he does?”
“It’ll hurt. You’ll probably retreat into yourself. Maybe you’ll have a harder time trusting that anyone is who they say they are.”
“But I won’t die?” I give a weak laugh.
“Not of a broken heart, you won’t. You’ll have to live with it, and that’s bad enough.”
We both stand there, holding our bags over our shoulders, sharing a sad smile. “Thanks, Liv.”
“I’m great for a pep talk, aren’t I?”
I laugh. “A pep talk doesn’t erase pain. Real talk at least makes you feel less alone.”
“I was hoping you’d see it that way. See you tomorrow, Georgie.”