Chapter 36
[Neve]
Lumi is already at her house when I arrive. Isolde is on her way, but I’m numb to my surroundings as I sit on the familiar couch in Lumi’s living room. She took Wren out of her car seat, seemingly pacifying her, as I stared at the empty fireplace across the room.
Right now, I never want to leave this position. The worn couch. The comfort of my sister’s home. That vacant fireplace.
When Isolde arrives, she sits next to me, holding my hand while Lumi paces the room, gently bouncing Wren to keep her content.
“What happened?” Isolde asks Lumi while rubbing my forearm.
“A hotel is going on the land where Rusty’s Wrecks sits.”
I close my eyes at Lumi’s explanation.
“How?” Isolde asks. “Why?”
Lumi sighs. “Because Bucky Beaver Body Shop has a parent company that has the right to use the property for any means they see fit. Apparently, they want to build a hotel.”
As my eyes slowly open, I glance at Isolde. “We were tricked.”
She gives me a sympathetic look. One that says I’m pathetic. She pats my arm, but I tug it from her.
“I don’t understand,” she says, like I’m overreacting. “We sold it to them.”
“We thought they were putting in another body shop,” I argue.
“Even if they put in a new one, they’d tear down the old one,” Isolde states, like it’s perfectly reasonable.
It is reasonable, but being rational evades me right now.
Lumi shakes her head at Isolde in that not-helping kind of way, then she gives me a wide, false smile.
“Did you know about this?” I do not want to believe my sister tricked me as well. That she knew a hotel was a possibility.
“No.” She shakes her head more adamantly. “But I did have Saint’s lawyers read the contract, and I knew it was a possibility. Not the possibility of a hotel, but just the possibility of it being something other than another garage.”
I stare at her, unblinking. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The room falls silent.
Because they wanted to sell.
I couldn’t buy my sisters out, and the place was bleeding money. No one was collecting dividends because we weren’t making ends meet.
This is the reasonable side I should focus on, but I’m hurt. From all angles, I’m hurt.
I abruptly stand and take Wren from Lumi, tugging her to my chest, holding her as tightly as I can. I press my lips to her hair and close my eyes again. I’m too angry to cry. The sob earlier was more like a wail. No tears followed.
“He’s taken everything from me,” I mutter to Wren’s head, sensing Lumi shaking hers one more time.
My business. My heart. My life.
Oh God, my life. I’m going to be a single mother without a job in a house too small to raise a child.
The overwhelm overshadows any tears.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
And I don’t understand why it hurts so much.
“Because you loved Dad,” Lumi says softly, and I realize I might have said a few things aloud.
“And you love Tate,” Isolde adds.
I didn’t. I couldn’t.
But I did.
The tears finally leak, and I’m not certain they’ll ever stop.
Lumi suggests I spend the night. I can’t go back to Tate’s house, and I can’t go back to mine yet, either. I just want to hide here a little longer.
Once upon a time, we’d share a bed if I stayed over. Sometimes, all three of us would climb into Lumi’s bed, like we did as teenagers. Half the time, I’d end up on Lumi’s lumpy couch because three adult women in a bed isn’t as fun as it used to be.
But that night, I sleep in Danny’s room. His masculine presence still permeates the space. His teenage scent lingers, although it’s been almost five years since he’s lived here on any permanent level. Faded posters hang on one wall. The double bed has a dark comforter.
Despite Wren easily sleeping almost anywhere, I don’t sleep at all.
I just lay there and stare at her, across the room in a baby bassinet Lumi still had from when Danny was a baby.
I let my mind race.
About our future. What I’ll do for work. And how one day, even Wren will leave me.
She’ll go to college like Danny did, and get a great job somewhere outside of Maine, and probably never want to come back to Lovewell Landing, when I’ve never wanted to leave this place.
Maybe it’s time for me to go somewhere. But where? I love it here. My sisters are here. My business is . . .
I sigh and flop onto my back, staring up at a poster of some hot teen starlet, positioned over the bed.
I do not want to think about what my nephew did as a teenager with that image above him.
“Fidgety sticks,” I grumble as the ache of betrayal and the weight of being overwhelmed return, and more tears begin to fall.