Layla – Present
I ring the bell. Once this time.
Owen appears through the back door, and I swear when he looks at me, he sighs.
“Learned some manners, I see.”
“I didn’t know there was such a thing as a bell ringing etiquette.”
He shrugs. “I thought everyone knew.” He forces a smile. “How can I help you?”
“I need some supplies to fix a hole in a wall.”
He eyes me. “I’m assuming it’s an interior wall?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay…” He draws out the word.
He strides around the store, stopping when he reaches something else I’ll presumably need. I have no idea if I’ll be able to figure out how to fix it, even with the right materials, I’m not exactly good at the whole DIY thing.
Owen sets everything he’s gathered from the shelves on top of the counter. He points to each item and tells me briefly what it is before he starts ringing it through.
“Thanks, Owen.” I give him my credit card.
He throws the receipt into the bag and pushes it toward me. “Sure,” he says. “Good luck.”
When I turn the corner, I see Keith standing by the stop sign at the junction.
He’s looking out toward the beach. He looks much the same as the last time I saw him, although the beard he kept neatly cut along his jawline has new streaks of gray through it, contrasting against his dark completion.
He rubs along his forehead, his head dips down as he holds out his wrist. I hesitate.
If he turns, he’ll see me, and I don’t want it to be awkward.
I like Keith. I’ve always liked Keith. I don’t know why this feels weird to me.
He was always so good to Jacob. It was easy to see that Keith cared about him, and clearly, if they are in business together now, he still does.
“Keith.” I step toward him, plastering on a smile.
“Layla.” He turns, then frowns. There’s a hint of reluctance in his voice the way he says my name. He’s not half as friendly as I remember.
I swallow. This was a bad idea. “Is Jacob with you?”
“No.” His jaw works as he breaks eye contact.
“Is something wrong?”
He looks left then right, then gestures to a bench positioned toward the beach. He sits.
“You were a good kid, Layla.”
I’ve got a bad feeling that’s the only nice thing he’s got to say about me. I sit down beside him, leaving a distance that I wish I had done in the first place.
“Jacob didn’t deserve any of what your family put him through.
” He rubs along his forehead. “I used to like you. I used to think you were what he needed, but this…” he points to my ring, “this return, is not fair on him. Sometimes the past is that for a reason. I stopped meddling in Jacob’s life a while ago, but I need you to listen.
If you still care about him, you’ll walk away and put an end to whatever this thing is between you both, because it won’t end well, and he needs to keep moving forward, as do you.
Some people aren’t meant to be in your life forever, and it’s best to let it be.
” He runs his hand over his hair. “I kept the letters from him because he needed a clean break from you. He would never have done that himself, we both know it. You didn’t see him after, and you should be thankful you didn’t have to.
I don’t like all of this being dragged back up, Layla.
I’d hoped he’d never find out, and then you come back and he’s asking me questions that I never wanted to answer.
” He stands. “Go home to your husband, Layla.”
I watch him walk away and hold the brown paper bag against my chest. I lean my back against the wooden bench as I think about every word Keith needed me to hear.
He returned my letters. He kept them from Jacob.
Pain spreads in my chest. Somehow, Keith sending them back hurts worse than when I thought it was Mary returning them because she didn’t have a forwarding address for Jacob in Juvie.
Keith knew how much Jacob meant to me, he read the first letter when I poured my heart out to Jacob, and he still sent them back.
I wipe the tears from my cheeks and look over my shoulder toward the main street, spotting the florist across the way as she begins taking the flowers inside.
I decide I should get Mabel some. She’s going through all the effort of cooking for me, and I feel guilty I’m no longer in the mood for dinner.
I pick out the most cheerful looking bunch of sunflowers that I think she will like.
After what I spent in Owen’s, I’m apprehensive when the lady swipes my credit card, hoping the transaction will go through.
I add it to the list of things I need to take care of.
Now I’m working in Harry’s, at least I can start paying it off.
I put the bag of home repair items into my passenger seat and walk across the street to Mabel’s shop.
“Hello?” I step over a wooden plank.
I hear a door creaking open, then light footsteps coming down the back staircase.
“Oh, good, it’s you.” She waves me up the narrow staircase. “Come quickly, I need your help.”
When I go to hand her the flowers, she clicks her tongue off the roof of her mouth.
“Thank you, dear, you’re very thoughtful.”
She kicks the bottom of the door with an impressive amount of force for an eighty-year-old woman, and then we are standing in her apartment that feels like I’ve stepped back in time to the fifties.
The kitchen units are a mixture of pea green and white, with wood lined between the opening of each drawer.
The counters are tiled in the same shade as the cupboards.
Small white tiles with dainty mustard flowers cover the space between cupboard and counter.
There are odd shaped glass vases of different heights with little flowers dotted along the windowsill.
A mid-century oval dining table is in the center of the small kitchen, covered with a white crocheted tablecloth.
“What’s this?” I point toward a white ceramic casserole dish with fall leaves decorating the sides.
“Well, you see dear, that’s why I need your help.” She lifts the lid. “I tried to make apple pie, and aside from not having a pie dish, I’ve never been any good at making it.”
She tilts the dish. I have no idea how she managed to make it look like that.
She opens a drawer underneath the sink and digs around for a moment before passing me a white frilly apron with blue flowers embroidered along the pockets–I think I made the right decision to bring Mabel flowers.
Pots and pans are cluttered on the stove top, something that smells delicious is bubbling over. She turns her attention to it, as I rummage through her cupboards to see what I can do to save the dessert. She really didn’t have to go through all this effort just for me.
I decide the dessert can pass as a strange take on apple crumble instead. I get to work making the mixture to crumble over the top, and by the time it’s cooking in the oven, there’s a knock on the door.
Mabel grins at me with a suspicious gleam in her eyes before disappearing toward the small hallway.
I hear a deep laugh, and I stop. My eyes widen. If I thought I felt awkward with Keith earlier, I had no idea. I sit down at the table and then stand up. I don’t know what I’m doing. What is wrong with me?
I open the oven and pretend to check the apple crumble.
“Layla?” Jacob says my name as if it’s a question.
“I forgot you two already know each other.” Mabel stirs the pot on the stove top.
I close the oven door and get out of her way.
She’s humming to herself between words. “I thought we could do with one more guest tonight.” She looks at Jacob. “Usually Jacob and I eat and then he does some work downstairs. It’s a weekly tradition.” She smiles at me. “Now, please sit, both of you. I’ve got it from here.”
I forgot about their weekly tradition.
I sit down on the seat facing where Jacob’s chosen to sit. Everything about this is making me feel uncomfortable. I don’t want him to think I’ve invited myself along.
Mabel sets the plates of lasagna down in front of us. “Layla very kindly rescued my apple pie.” She pats Jacob on the shoulder.
“Apple crumble.” I wink at her.
I reach for the salad bowl at the same time he does. He clears his throat.
“You go first.”
I feel my cheeks flood with heat.
I throw some salad onto my plate, then decide it’s a much safer option to focus solely on the food in front of me. I take a bite of lasagna and forget all about my current dining partner.
“This is amazing, Mabel.”
“My mother was Italian. I learnt a few things.” She winks, then clears her throat. “So, how do you two know each other?”
“School,” Jacob answers.
She gives him a pointed look. “Young man, I may be old, but I am not yet blind.”
“We did meet in school,” I inject. “We dated for a while, and then I moved away.” I give her the short version. The version I used to tell anyone who asked me about ex-boyfriends. Ben knew the long story, he was the only one who did.
“That’s better.” She pauses. “And then you married someone else?” she concludes, her voice drifting off at the end.
I nod, looking at my plate.
“Pity.” She clicks her tongue off the roof of her mouth, and I feel my cheeks redden further.
Mabel thankfully drops the subject after that, and we eat the rest of the meal with short, polite conversations.
After we’re finished, Jacob excuses himself and goes downstairs while I help Mabel with the dishes. She told me she hates drying them, so I volunteered.
She passes me a soapy dish, and I rub the tea towel over it.
“There’s more to that story, between the two of you.” She’s looking into the dish water as she speaks.
“It wasn’t something that ended well.”
“First love’s rarely do.” She sighs with what seems like the weight of her own memories. “What’s important is, you’re happy now?”
“I was.” I set the dish down and take another from the draining board.
“Was?” She raises an eyebrow.
I take a deep breath. This is a sentence that never seems to get easier, and I wonder if it ever will. The words shouldn’t coexist together, and yet there they are set one after the other in a sentence that marks the worst point in my life.
“My husband, he… he died.” I rub against the dish in my hand so hard I think I might break it.
Her small, wrinkled, manicured hands close over mine. She takes the dish from me and holds onto my hand.
“Oh, Layla, I’m so sorry.”
I stay quiet, afraid if I speak, I’ll start to cry, and I’m so sick of crying.
She takes my hand and sits down with me at the table.
“When?”
“Ten months ago. Last October.”
Her eyes widen. She looks down to where her hand is holding mine and squeezes.
“I was really happy.” I swallow. “But I guess nothing lasts forever, right?”
She squeezes my hand again.
“No, dear, nothing does. One day we all lose those that matter most.” She gives me a timid smile. “But that doesn’t mean you give up, not when there’s still life to be lived.”
***
Jacob has the button-up shirt he was wearing to dinner off, it’s laying across one of the old tables. He’s in a white T-shirt with his back to me while he uses a saw to cut through a wooden beam. His muscles flex with the movement of his arm.
“I’m sorry about tonight,” I say. “I didn’t know you’d be here, I forgot Fridays are your thing.”
He stops sawing and looks over his shoulder at me.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Then why did you seem so…” I search for the word and can’t place it.
He sets the saw down and turns completely.
“I don’t know,” he answers.
I sigh, gathering up my hair like I would if I was going to tie it back. I let go when I notice he’s still looking at me.
“What happened to your neck?”
I pull my hair forward, covering the bruises.
“It’s nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing.” He steps closer.
I put my hand on my forehead.
“Rhett and I had a fight. That’s all. I’m fine.”
His eyes darken, his jaw ticks.
“Is that why you were in Owen’s store today?”
“How do you know I was there?”
His lip quirks.
“Have you forgotten how this town works?”
Apparently, I have.
“I guess I have.”
“What happened with Rhett?”
He’s not letting this go.
“I told you we had an argument. I’m fine.”
“He hurt you.”
I close my eyes for a second.
“He hurt the wall, and probably his own hand, more than he hurt me.”
His lips are pressed into a tight line.
“He shouldn’t have touched you at all, Layla.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“No. It won’t.” A muscle flexes in his jaw, and the room falls into a tense silence that I rush to fill.
“Mabel invited me back next week. Is that okay?”
“You don’t need my permission.”
“I know. That’s not what I’m asking. I want to know if you’re comfortable with me being here. I know it’s your thing with Mabel, and if it’s too weird or awkward, I can make an excuse.”
“No. Don’t do that.”
I try to ignore the little jump my heart does at his quick dismissal.
“Okay then. I’ll see you next week.” I start to leave.
His lip twitches like he wants to smile, but he’s fighting against it.
“Goodnight, Layla.”
I tap my fingers along the door frame.
“Goodnight, Jacob.”