Chapter 52
Fifty-Two
Stella’s going to leave. Why would she stay? Her problems are solved, and she doesn’t need me. Those are the words filtering through my brain when Stella lets out a jarring scream.
“Skunk!”
I slam on the breaks of my car and we both jerk, our seatbelts locking us in place. My back slams into my seat and with heavy breaths I gape over at her.
But Stella’s staring outward. “Skunks.” she says, her chest rising and falling with breath. Unlocking her door and reaching for the handle, she steps outside before I have time to question any of her actions.
She rounds the front of the vehicle, peering down.
I hop out and leap to the front of my Bronco. A fully grown skunk sits with her nose to my bumper.
“You almost killed her!” Stella snaps, tears in her eyes.
She’s three feet away from that mama skunk. “Are you trying to get sprayed again?”
“Are you trying to kill a mother? A mother, Roman!”
“I didn’t see her. I was distracted.”
Mama skunk takes two steps my way and I stumble back. But the ol’ girl doesn’t look as though she’s feeling threatened. Not today.
Stella must notice to. “You’ve shocked her,” she says—insanely taking one step closer.
“Stell,” I gripe. “Leave her. She’s fine. We didn’t hit her.” I take three more steps back—bumping into my open car door. “Get inside.”
She follows my orders, but her eyes are glassy with unshed tears.
“What are you doing?” I say, looking over at her.
“Do you even care about her?” Stella asks and I’m utterly confused.
“About the skunk who sprayed you? Do I care about her? I—” I shake my head, no answer coming. No answer feels like the right one. “Do you?”
“Of course. I want her to be happy. To be whole. I don’t want her dead!” That last word bites—as if she thinks I almost hit that skunk on purpose.
“I never said I wanted her dead.”
“But do you care if she’s happy?”
We watch as mama skunk makes her way into the woods and then I hit the gas. We’re almost home, Stella might be leaving, my heart isn’t sure it can take it, and we’re arguing about murdering skunks.
“Do I care if the skunk is happy?”
“Do you even know what she wants?” Stella says.
“Stella,” I growl, shaking my head. Because at this point, I’m certain I don’t know a dang thing.
“You know what,” she says, exhaling a trembling breath. “I need to call my mother.”
“Rebecca?” I feel like I’m lost in the woods with no way home, no clue at what’s happening here.
“Yes.”
Maybe she’s excited to give Rebecca good news.
The thought of Stella leaving our cabin, our home, our bed—makes me sick inside. But I can’t be selfish, not with Stella.
Before I can put the car in park, her phone rings with a FaceTime call to her mother.
“You’re calling now?”
But Stella doesn’t answer, she doesn’t even look at me.
“Stella?” Rebecca says, her face lighting up Stella’s phone.
“Yep! It’s me, Mom,” Stella says, sounding a little too cheery. It’s just not quite right. “Roman too!” She points the phone my direction and once again I’m waving at Stella’s phone.
“Oh, I adore Roman.”
“Don’t’ we all,” Stella deadpans.
Did I do something? Other than almost kill Stella’s skunk friend.
“I have some things to tell you, Mother.” Stella’s chest heaves with a deep breath.
“No—how is Daddy? No—how is home? Just right to it, huh?” Rebecca says.
“Yes,” Stella says, unfazed by her mother’s reproach. “Right to it. Because it’s all long overdue. Because it’s about time I’ve gotten right to it.”
Stella steps into our house and I follow.
“Mom,” Stella says, tossing her purse onto our couch while never wavering from staring into the phone. “I was fired.”
I cough. Did she just say—
“I thought you didn’t have a job yet. Roman said you were commissioned to do some work but not an actual—”
“No,” Stella says, stomping one foot—though the action is lost on Rebecca. “From Clay & Crescent. I didn’t leave them to move in with Roman. I was fired for being too… creative. For changing the uniform designs they’d asked me to work on.”
“Stella, what are you doing?” I hiss, but the woman doesn’t look at me.
She flops herself onto the couch, next to her tossed away purse and kicks off her shoes.
“The day I got fired I was feeling a little flustered. My boss had asked to speak to me. And I knew she wasn’t happy. That morning, I accidentally put regular dish soap in my dishwasher.”
“Oh, dearest. You can’t do that. It’ll ruin your dishwasher.”
“It did,” Stella says. “It caused some insane malfunctioning, and the machine flooded my house.”
I stand back, watching Rebecca over Stella’s shoulder. Her face contorts and she gasps. “Your pretty little cottage—”
“I didn’t end my housing contract early to move in with Roman.” Stella hiccups, but she isn’t finished yet. “I was evicted.”
“Evicted?” Rebecca brushes two fingertips to her forehead. “Oh dear.”
“Yes, evicted,” Stella says. “When you called me all those weeks ago, when I was at Willow’s, and you asked me about a slumber party. I was staying there. I was homeless.”
“But why wouldn’t you have just gone to Roman’s?” Rebecca asks. It’s like the woman is asking for more bad news. Don’t ask Mrs. E—if you don’t ask, she might not tell.
But then, Stella might be on a suicide mission. She’s telling. Everything.
“I went to one of Roman’s games, the beginning of November. Until then, I hadn’t seen Roman in nine years. Same as you and Dad.”
“No. That can’t be right.” Rebecca shakes her head, her eyes looking past her daughter to me—lingering in the background. “Roman?”
What else can I do? I give one simple nod, confirming Stella’s truth.
“That was only two months ago,” Rebecca says.
“Not even,” Stella says. “Oh, and you probably don’t remember but that piece I spent months on—my Spiral Song vase.”
“The one nominated for that award,” Rebecca says.
Stella’s face shows signs of life with her mother’s recollection. “Yes. That one. It broke in the flood and never made it to judging.”
“Can we go back to Roman?” Rebecca says, her face somber with bomb shell after bomb shell. “Are you or are you not married?”
“I am.”
Rebecca’s brows knit. She studies her daughter through that four-inch screen. “And was it a drunken night, like you said?”
“No,” Stella confesses. “No drunken night.”
Rebecca nods, her lips in a flat line. “So, you are married because…”
For the first time since she started this descent Stella squirms. “Because I didn’t want to disappoint you and Daddy. I didn’t want you to hear bad news upon bad news and feel sick over me. Moving back in with you and Dad wasn’t right, but I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“So, you married the first man willing?” Rebecca’s eyes flick to me. “Oh, no offense, Roman,” she says, her lips twitching with some semblance of a smile. “You know I adore you like a son. Scott and I can’t wait to see you!” She waves three fingers my way.
I give a small half wave and wait to hear Stella’s answer.
“It was possibly not my sanest decision.” She swallows. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, Mom. The last thing I wanted to do was cause you more pain. I watched you hurt so much when Brice died. I never wanted to be the source of your pain.”
“Oh, Stella,” Rebecca says. “We just want you well. Well and happy. I’m sorry for your struggles.” Rebecca blinks—I think to hold back tears. “I know I’ve been overzealous since we lost your brother. But you are never the source of my pain, dearest. You’re quite the opposite.”
“I just want you to have peace,” Stella tells her. “You’ve been worried about me since the day Brice died. Worried and sick over all my choices and—”
“Oh, my girl.” Rebecca sniffs. “That isn’t your fault. That’s something I’m working through. I never realized you put so much on yourself.”
“I just—” Stella mimics her mother with a sniff of her own. “I hated being the reason you felt anxious or heartache.”
“Then, let’s stop crying. Yes?” Rebecca whimpers, swatting one tear from her cheek. “You’ll be more open, and I’ll be less helpful? Please?”
Stella laughs through her tears. “Deal. I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, dearest. And I just want to be in your life. Good and bad.”
“I’ll call tomorrow. We have a wedding in the morning and then—”
“On Christmas Eve?” Rebecca asks.
“Yes, friends of ours. But then we’ll talk.”
“Yes,” Rebecca says. “All about Roman and this marriage.”
“A little about Roman and maybe about the marriage,” Stella says, wasting no time to set boundaries with her mother.
“And maybe we can see you in January. If you’re able to come for a visit.”
“I’d like that,” Stella says.
I feel like we’ve run a marathon, when I’ve merely stood back to watch this emotional ride. “What was that?” I say, the minute she’s hung up the phone.
“I decided the lies were more painful than the truth.”
Sitting on the seat of Stella’s pottery wheel I run a hand over my head, holding my phone out and on speaker.
“So,” I say to none other than Lucca Cruz. “What do you think?”
“She told her mother everything?” Lucca says, his tone matching the shock I felt when it happened.
“Everything.”
“I’m sorry, bro,” he says. “It sounds like she’s taking the job in Cali, like she’s saying goodbye.”
“But she likes me. She said as much.”
“You could try long distance,” he says. “I had a girl back in Brazil and one in Cali. It was too far though. They couldn’t handle it. I get it. I’m easily missed.”
“Lucca, could you shut up. I don’t understand what any of this means. I can’t force her to tell me. She’s got a job offer and an unhealthy attachment to a family of skunks and—”
“Did you say skunks? Because if you said skunks, maybe you need to rethink this relationship.”
“I just don’t know what she wants. I don’t know if she wants the job, to stay married, or even is she wants me anymore—”
“Maybe she’s in it for the skunks.”
“I’m serious,” I say, dragging my hand down my face once more.
“Graveyard. Bruh. You are thinking about this all wrong. You don’t know what she wants. You only know what you want.”
I sit with that a minute. “True.”
“Yeah, it is,” Lucca says. “True and wise.”
“It is kind of wise.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s what you get when you come to me, Mano. Wisdom.”
I ignore the cockiness of my friend. “And tonight, Stella just taught me that honesty truly might be the best policy.”
“You’re gonna tell her to stay?” Lucca says with a laugh.
“I’m going to tell her I want her to stay. The choice is hers.”