Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Jif pushed open the heavy front door of her mother’s massive home in a Charleston subdivision.
Five bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, a wet bar in the den, two verandahs, and a hot tub might seem like a little much for one person, but if Jif had a dream house, something very much like this would be it.
Maybe on Daniel Island. Or in Harleston if she wanted something more urban. Both would be best, of course.
Jif let herself in, not because she had a key, but because her mother never locked the door. The kindhearted would call Grace Pritchard innocent; the heartless would call her na?ve.
She dropped her purse on the bench by the door and kicked off her shoes. Colton was right, their mom came from a time and culture so far removed from her children’s it may as well be the difference between leather helmets and modern, polycarbonate ones with SpeedFlex panels.
“Mom?” Jif shouted as she wiggled her toes in the deep-piled carpet of the hallway. “Where are you?”
A door slammed in another part of the house, and Jif’s heart jumped.
“Jennifer? Is that you?”
Jif wrinkled her nose at her full name. Only her mother used it anymore.
Don’t be silly, it’s your name, she’d say, as if all the reasons Jif had for hating it didn’t matter.
As if she didn’t understand full well why it symbolized something Jif would rather forget.
“Yeah, Mom. I texted you.”
“Oh, Lordy, okay. Give me a minute, and I’ll be down. I have to put on my face.”
The world would certainly end if anyone saw Grace Pritchard without her hair and makeup done, even her daughter.
Jif made her way toward the kitchen, but as she navigated through the formal dining room, she bumped a long sideboard table.
Photo frames rattled back and forth, and Jif caught one as it tumbled toward the floor.
Setting it upright, she caught sight of the captured memory and frowned, slamming it face down hard enough to risk cracking the glass.
Her mother would fix it as soon as she noticed, but Jif hated her parents’ happy faces, her mother in white, her father in dove gray. She would never understand why her mother hadn’t shattered it—shredded and burned it—years ago.
Her eyes caught on the next frame, a double one with her wearing her varsity cheerleading uniform in the first and her graduation photo in the second.
Beside it sat another of her, this time at her college commencement.
A few more flanked that one, shots of her as a child during the Christmas they spent skiing in Vermont, with her brother at Disney World, the whole family on a cruise in Alaska.
She itched to lay the last one flat, too, but her mom would notice sooner.
The other end of the table enshrined Colton.
His graduation photos from high school and college, too, as well as the night the Raptors drafted him, wearing their signature black jersey with silver embellishments.
She and her mom stood on either side of him, crushed close by his embrace, too excited—elated—to let them go.
The night their lives changed for the second time.
She edged that picture forward.
The light scuff of her mother’s steps on the stairs caught her attention and she whirled, heading for the kitchen and pulling open the refrigerator. By the time her mom entered, she’d perched herself innocently on a barstool at the island, sipping from a can of sparkling water.
“Jennifer, honey, what a sweet surprise.” Grace floated to her daughter and bestowed an air kiss on each cheek.
“I texted,” Jif repeated.
Her mother collected a Diet Pepsi from the fridge, then crossed to the cabinet and pulled a sleeve of crackers from a box on the shelf. “I don’t wander around the house with my phone, but I’m glad you’re here. How are you doing?”
The concern in her eyes reminded Jif her mom knew about her breakup with Jordan and had probably already made far more of it in her mind.
“I’m fine, Mom.” She tucked her hair behind her ears, then took another sip of her drink.
Grace spread the crackers artfully across a cutting board burned with the Raptors name and logo, then leaned across the island and flicked Jif’s hair until it fell forward again. “You should leave it down like this. It makes your ears smaller.”
She bustled back to the refrigerator and pulled out several packages of deli meats and cheeses, arranging them beside the crackers. “Colton told me about Jordan. What did you do?”
Irritation flashed through her, and Jif shoved her hair behind her ears again. “We were never serious, and he had an offer from Cincinnati, so we moved on.”
Grace frowned, disappointed. “He didn’t ask you to go with him?”
“Not in the middle of the school year.” Jif rolled her can along the bottom edge, expanding the circle of condensation it left behind until her mom lifted it and wiped up the moisture with a towel. She poured the remainder into a glass as Jif continued, “I can’t just up and leave.”
Grace sprinkled cherry tomatoes atop the cheese slices and lightly smacked Jif’s hand when she reached across to steal one, letting it pop in her mouth before chewing slowly.
“Of course you can. A summer wedding in the Midwest.” She pressed her hands together. “Barnyard chic. I have a pinboard for that.”
Jif swallowed. “Mom, I promise, it’s not that big a deal.”
Grace studied her daughter for a long moment, then slid the completed charcuterie board across the counter before retrieving plates and taking the place beside her daughter.
“If you weren’t serious, why did you waste almost a year with this boy?
Last week I told Sarah Ryland we expected a proposal any day. ”
Jif scowled. Every parent claimed their children’s accomplishments as their own, of course, but her mother prematurely announcing Jif’s expectations rankled. Not least of all because they’d come to nothing.
“I didn’t waste the last year, Mom.”
Because time spent with someone couldn’t be anything but a waste of time unless it ended with a proposal. At least, according to her mother.
“Of course not, darling. You have the diamonds, but not the ring to go with them.”
“Right. The diamonds.” A girl’s best friend. Something tangible. Jordan’s matched set of necklace and earrings. The same set that included an engagement band with an identical, pear-shaped teardrop, haloed in smaller diamonds and set in polished platinum.
Shoved in the back of her jewelry box, she hadn’t worn them since the breakup.
“And the memories.” Her tone came out more bitter than she meant.
False sympathy painted Grace’s features.
Head cheerleader, she’d married the high school quarterback by the fall of his sophomore year at college, and Colton arrived a bit shy of nine months later.
That it took six more years for a second pregnancy to take was her own personal cross to bear, along with her father’s chronic infidelity and eventual abandonment.
By all rights, Jif should avoid football players like the plague, but her brother’s contract saved them after her father left.
Jif shoved a cracker with salami into her mouth.
“Small bites, darling.” Grace nibbled a piece of cheese, then set it on her plate. “Colton tells me you’re accompanying him to an event on Saturday. Will anyone interesting be there?”
“Interesting? Maybe.” Interesting to her mother meant a potential son-in-law. She might think that meant most of her son’s teammates, but only a scant handful were ready to settle down.
“What about the nice man I met last season, Price? No, Pierce. Or maybe Jonah? I’ve met him a few times and he seems lovely.” She raised an eyebrow at Jif, whose cheeks flared with color. “No one’s going to buy the milk when you’re giving it away for free.”
“I’m not a cow.”
A minuscule line bisected Grace’s eyebrows before smoothing away. “Of course you’re not. I’m just saying, in my day...”
Jif gritted her teeth and bit back her first reply, laying a hand on her mother’s arm and smiling instead. “I know, Mom.”
“I’m considering your best interests. I want you happily married. I want grandchildren.”
“You have thirty of them every year. I could use a reading grandma in my classroom.”
Grace sniffed, then pinned Jif with a stare. “That’s not what I meant. At least consider it, okay?”
“Consider settling down? Sure, Mom, as soon as Colton does.” Jif’s brows knit together. “How come he gets to have his fun, and you call it sowing his oats, but when it comes to me, I’m giving away the milk?”
“Jennifer Charity Pritchard, that is more than enough. I raised you better than to make snide comments about your brother.”
She froze at her mother’s tone. Grace rarely lost her temper with her children, but Jif shouldn’t have pushed. Colton could do no wrong in their mother’s eyes.
Of course he couldn’t. If not for him...
Jif pushed the thought away. Gratitude would only forgive so many double standards before it turned acrid and resentful, and she couldn’t afford to spoil her relationship with her brother.
Literally or figuratively.
Reaching for another cracker, she flickered a sideways glance at her mother. “Sorry.”
It didn’t make her words untrue, but she shouldn’t have voiced them.
“Lunch is really good,” Jif said gently. “Thanks for making it.”
“I can show you how before you go. Maybe take some leftovers with you in case you meet anyone Saturday.”
As if she’d have the chance to present a homemade charcuterie board to a potential husband during a charity gala.
Especially not since she’d be attending as Colton’s plus-one, so her chances of going home with anyone else were approximately negative infinity.
She made at least a token effort to keep her exploits out of Colton’s direct line of sight.
She didn’t always succeed, but she tried.
Still, her mom meant well. As Colton said, she came from a different world. “Thanks, Mom.”
Grace toasted her with another cracker, which Jif dutifully nibbled instead of shoving straight into her mouth.
For her mom, she’d try, too.