7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Wendy
Wendy woke with her cheek pressed into an uneven sofa cushion and one foot on the floor.
For one confused second, she expected the pale ceiling of the Trace estate.
Then garden light filtered through old cream curtains, birds called from the oaks, and the smell of coffee reached her from the guesthouse kitchen.
Her phone lay facedown on the rug where it had slipped from her hand. She wore a faded blue sweatshirt her mother had brought over after Wendy’s shower the night before, along with soft pants that were a little too short.
She’d tried the bed on her first night here. Sometime before morning, she’d reached across the mattress for Hunter and found a cold sheet. The shock had woken her so hard that she’d sat upright with his name behind her teeth. She’d moved to the sofa after that.
The truth he’d finally given her still ran through her mind. The song was hers. Proof that he loved her. Proof that he’d known exactly what he was giving away.
A quiet knock came at the door.
“You can come in,” Wendy called. Her voice sounded rough.
Her mother entered with a tray balanced against one hip. Coffee, toast, eggs, and sliced peaches.
“Before you say you aren’t hungry,” her mother said, “I brought several levels of commitment. Coffee is the lowest.”
Wendy pushed herself upright. “You planned for resistance.”
“I raised you.” Her mother set the tray on the coffee table. “I know resistance when it’s asleep on my sofa.”
The corner of Wendy’s mouth moved. It wasn’t quite a smile, so her mother didn’t celebrate it.
“Do you want company?” her mother asked. “I can sit, I can leave, or I can tell you what your father is doing to the garden gate, which may take us through lunch.”
“What is he doing to the gate?”
“Making it more secure than several federal buildings.”
Wendy wrapped both hands around the coffee. The mug had a small chip near the handle. She remembered drinking cocoa from it after high school dances and exams.
“Did someone come by?”
“No.” Her mother sat only after Wendy nodded toward the armchair. “Your father told the house staff and the garden crew that you’re not receiving visitors. He also spoke to the neighbors closest to the drive. They know not to direct anyone here.”
Wendy looked toward the window. “Hunter won’t force his way in.”
She believed that. Or she believed the man she loved wouldn’t. The trouble was that she had also believed he wouldn’t make her marriage part of a romantic campaign.
“Your father isn’t making a judgment about what Hunter will do,” her mother said. “He’s making sure you don’t have to worry about it.”
Wendy lowered her eyes to the coffee. Care without a question hidden inside it still felt strange. No one needed her to explain Hunter’s fear, protect his reputation, or turn her pain into a reasonable plan.
“Have you slept at all?” her mother asked.
“Some.”
“Do you want me to believe that answer?”
“Not especially.”
“All right.” The woman buttered a piece of toast and placed it on Wendy’s plate. “Do you want to tell me anything?”
Wendy waited for the rest. What happened? Are you leaving him? Did he sleep with her? Are you going back?
Her mother only took a peach slice for herself.
“He says the song was for me,” Wendy said at last.
Her mother’s hand stopped halfway to her mouth. “Really?”
“Really.” Wendy looked at the ring on her finger. “It’s about us at twenty. He meant it for our anniversary. Then he let another woman sing it with him and to him in front of the world.”
Grace set the peach down. “Oh, sweetheart.”
Wendy’s throat tightened. Pity from strangers felt like a hand pushing her face toward her own humiliation. Compassion from her mother hurt in a different place.
“I believe he rejected Serena,” Wendy said. “I believe he never touched her. Somehow, that makes me feel worse about the song.”
“Because he knew it was yours, and yet he didn’t do anything.”
Wendy nodded. Her mother didn’t explain Hunter to her. She didn’t suggest a decision. She moved her armchair closer and held out her hand. Wendy took it.
Her father arrived later with dirt on one knee and a ring of new keys. He placed them beside Wendy’s phone, which she’d moved from the rug to the table.
“Side gate, patio door, storage room,” he said. “The guesthouse key hasn’t changed. I added a separate code at the main gate for you. Nobody comes through it unless you approve them.”
“Dad, you didn’t have to rebuild the estate.”
“I replaced one lock and changed one code.” He glanced toward the patio. “The hinge was already bad.”
“Of course it was.”
His steady gaze met hers. “If Hunter appears, he stops at the gate. If you want him turned away, he gets turned away. If you ever want something different, you tell me. I won’t decide it for you.”
Her eyes burned again. “Thank you.”
Her kissed the top of her head. “Eat the eggs before your mother blames me for distracting you.”
Her mother lifted her brows. “I was going to blame the gate.”
For several days, Wendy stayed inside the guesthouse and let her parents care for her in small, ordinary ways.
Her mother left food without checking whether every bite vanished.
Her father fixed the patio hinge, replaced a weak porch bulb, and never invented a reason to come inside.
They invited her to the main house and accepted no when she couldn’t manage it.
The guesthouse was modest compared to the Trace estate.
Grace and Noah Loom, her parents, had enough money to fill it with anything Wendy needed, but they’d left it warm and useful instead of perfect.
The cushions didn’t match, and family dishes filled the kitchen cabinets.
Sunlight crossed the worn floorboards in wide gold bars.
Her mother asked which groceries Wendy wanted instead of stocking the kitchen with the childhood foods she assumed would comfort her.
Their care gave Wendy privacy without asking her to become a child again.
Most of that money had come after Wendy moved away, when her father sold the agricultural-equipment company he’d spent her childhood building.
Wendy kept the television off. She moved all the social apps into a folder she refused to open most days.
Her blocked list still held Hunter’s number, and each time she checked her email, she prepared herself for a message from an assistant, a new address, a lawyer, or Hunter himself.
Nothing came. No flowers, no delivery, and no plea carried through her parents.
Her brain didn’t trust the quiet. A car slowing on the road made her shoulders tighten.
A knock from the meter reader sent her heart racing before her father called to say it was handled.
She’d spent the drive north braced for Hunter to use every tool to close the distance, and now his silence should’ve been a relief.
Sometimes it was. Sometimes it felt like he’d watched her leave and gone back to the campaign.
Wendy refused to answer a question built from facts she didn’t have. Respect and indifference could look exactly alike from behind a closed door. She wasn’t ready to open it just to learn which one she’d been given.
Her mother finally arrived one morning with her purse instead of a tray.
“We’re going to Juniper,” she said.
Wendy looked down at the old T-shirt and jeans she’d put on after her shower. “No.”
“That’s a complete answer.” Her mother leaned against the kitchen counter. “I’m still asking you to reconsider it.”
“People will stare.”
“Some will.”
“Someone will take a picture.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not a very good sales pitch.”
“The pie is excellent.” Her mother’s expression softened. “We can leave before we order, if you feel uncomfortable. We can get food to go. You can spend the whole trip angry with me, but hiding until strangers lose interest gives strangers control over when you get your life back.”
Wendy flinched. Not because the words were cruel. Because they were true.
She changed into a plain white shirt and tied her hair back. She considered taking off her ring, then hated that a small town diner might decide something she hadn’t decided for herself. She left it on.
On the drive into town, she admitted that Hunter’s schedule wasn’t the only reason she’d kept visits to Aria Springs short.
Home brought her too close to the woman who’d once planned a practice, a podcast, and a retreat before checking anyone else’s calendar.
Even the road toward Main Street reminded her that Vesper Hill still stood beyond the town, carrying a future she’d agreed to discuss later, until later became years.
She didn’t even know if the old, abandoned vineyard was still for sale.
Juniper Diner looked almost exactly as it had when Wendy was twenty.
Red vinyl showed through worn cracks in the booths, and framed photographs of local vineyards covered one wall.
Pies sat under glass domes near the register, and the smell of coffee and grilled onions settled into Wendy’s clothes before she reached the table.
Heads turned. The pause lasted only a breath, but Wendy felt every eye on her. Her skin went cold under her shirt.
A young woman near the counter lifted her phone. Her mother didn’t say anything, but she gave the woman a look. The woman flushed and lowered it.
“Window booth?” the waitress asked.
Wendy remembered her from years ago, though her dark braid now showed strands of silver. She didn’t glance at Wendy’s ring or whisper about Hunter.
“Please,” Wendy said.
“Good to see you, Wendy.” The waitress gathered two menus. “Your mother has been giving your share of the pie business to other people. It’s been a hardship.”
“I’ve carried the burden bravely,” her mother said.
At the booth, Wendy sat with her back to the wall. It was a therapist’s choice, she told herself. Not a frightened woman’s.
An older man passing their table paused. “Wendy Loom,” he said, warm surprise in his voice. “Welcome home.”
The name struck deep. Becoming Wendy Trace hadn’t erased the woman who’d grown up here as Wendy Loom. She hadn’t stopped being Wendy when the internet turned her into his wife, his victim, or the woman standing between two singers.
“Thank you,” she managed.
He nodded and kept walking.
Another woman approached while her mother poured cream into her coffee. Wendy recognized her from the local library board.
“I won’t keep you,” the woman said. “My sister used to listen to your show. She got me listening too. You helped us understand why we kept having the same fight with our husbands.” She smiled. “I’m glad you’re here.”
She left before Wendy had to respond with anything larger than thanks.
The attention didn’t stop. A few people stared too long. A whisper followed her when she went to the restroom. Someone outside held a phone toward the window, and Wendy had to breathe through the urge to run.
But the diner also held people who remembered her without the giant screens. They remembered the girl who studied in the corner booth, Grace and Noah’s daughter, the woman whose voice had once reached beyond this small town because she had something worth saying.
Wendy ate half a piece of peach pie. It felt like an achievement too small to name and too large to dismiss.
***
An hour later, back at the guesthouse, Lily appeared on Wendy’s laptop with a toddler shouting somewhere behind her.
“Jake has them,” Lily said. A crash sounded, and she looked over her shoulder. “That statement is currently under review.”
Wendy gave a short laugh before she could stop it.
Lily turned back with a gentler expression. “There you are.”
The laugh vanished. “Don’t make too much of it.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Wendy told her about the diner, the whispers, and the people who remembered her show.
“They remember someone I’m not anymore,” she said.
“You paused a podcast. You didn’t have your professional knowledge removed by surgery.”
“My marriage is public evidence that I couldn’t do what I taught.”
“No.” Lily leaned toward the camera. “Your marriage is evidence that therapists can be hurt by people they love. We don’t become immune to hope because we can name a pattern.”
“Try putting that on a licensing application,” Wendy huffed.
“Gladly. I’ll add citations.”
Wendy shook her head, but warmth stayed in her chest.
Lily’s voice softened. “Your old show inbox is still full of messages. Some are ugly because people are ugly. A lot of them are asking if you’re all right. Some still talk about episodes that helped them. Your work didn’t become false because Hunter failed you.”
“I don’t know if I can do it again.”
“Then don’t do it again. Not yet.” Lily held her gaze. “Record five minutes for yourself. No audience. No brand. Don’t publish it. Don’t even make it good. Just hear what your voice sounds like when it belongs to you.”
That evening, Wendy stood in the guesthouse’s spare room. It held a narrow table, an empty bookshelf, and two folded chairs. The bare floor made every step sound louder than it was. She set her old notebooks and three listener letters on the table, then propped her phone against a water glass.
She opened the recording app. The first attempt lasted twelve seconds.
“Hello, and welcome…”
Too polished. Too much like the woman who could make pain neat before anyone saw it. She deleted it.
On the second attempt, she stared at the moving line on the screen until the silence embarrassed her. Then she thought of the cold bed she couldn’t sleep in her first night here, the diner, and the woman who’d said Wendy’s work had helped her family.
“Sometimes a life changes without your consent,” Wendy began. Her voice shook. She let it. “The first thing you survive may not be the loss itself. It may be the moment you understand that the future you organized yourself around isn’t waiting for you anymore.”
She stopped, breathed, and continued. The words weren’t perfect. She lost her place. She repeated herself. But when she spoke about taking one honest action before certainty arrived, her old cadence returned. Calm without performance. Kind without making the truth smaller.
Wendy ended the recording before she knew how to finish it.
In the dark sitting room, she played it back. Grief lived in the pauses. Doubt roughened the first few lines. Underneath both, she heard the woman strangers had once trusted with their hardest questions.
She heard herself.
For the first time since the concert, Wendy didn’t imagine Hunter hearing her. She didn’t picture a headline, or a camera, or a comment section. The words belonged to no one else.
She opened a new document and typed a possible title – Starting Over Is Not the Same as Failing.