52. Trust me
Fifty-Two
TRUST ME
Luke
“Ma, we gotta talk.” I find her in the kitchen slicing tomatoes.
“Is it about that review?” She doesn’t look up from the cutting board, just grabs another handful of grape tomatoes and continues slicing. I’m not entirely surprised she knows already. I am surprised she seems so unbothered by it though.
“Yeah… Look, I—”
“Honey, sit down.” The knife slices through the tomato once more before she wipes it on her apron and sets it on the butcher block in front of her.
“Ma—”
“Sit.”
I pull the stool out and prop my elbows on the white marble kitchen island, knee bouncing under the ledge. Ma pours water into the teakettle and places it on the stove, pulling two mugs and two tea bags from the cabinet. My heart rate spikes, my knee bouncing faster.
When I was a little boy, Ma made herself some tea and sat me here at this counter. That was the day she told me, with tears in her eyes, my cousin was going to live with us. I sat at this counter when Dad told me he had cancer. Ma had three mugs of tea set before us as he told me his prognosis.
The day I told her Samantha had left and she wasn’t coming back, Ma said, “Some things simply aren’t meant to be,” as she slid the steaming cup of herbal tea across the counter.
Tea was Ma’s way of bringing comfort to a tough conversation.
The kettle whistles from the stovetop. Ma takes the stool beside me, placing the mug in front of me.
“I told you how your father and I met, didn’t I?” she asks, blowing on the steam swirling above her mug.
“Yeah. You met on the lake, fell in love, and here we are.”
“Ah yes, you got the abbreviated version, but there’s more to it.” She reaches for the honey and dribbles some into her tea, then passes it to me.
“I was on my way overseas when I came to Maple Cove. I was supposed to go to one of the most prestigious culinary schools in France, but I wanted to spend the summer with my best friend, so I came here and waited tables with Joanie at her dad’s tavern.”
Joanie and Ma were college roommates for two years until Ma changed her major.
She switched to a different school that specialized in the culinary arts but kept in touch with Joanie.
She always said when your heart finds its person, it knows.
Whether that person is a lifelong best friend or a great love doesn’t matter.
In her case, it turned out Joanie was her lifelong friend.
I don’t think I knew about France, though.
“I remember the first time your dad walked through those tavern doors. Thought my heart would leap right out of my chest. He walked in like he knew the world would stop and stare, and loved every minute of it.” She smiles at the memory and lifts her tea to her lips.
I try to imagine my dad as a young man, but all I can see anymore are those last days.
“We were three peas in a pod—Joanie, your dad, and me. All summer. He helped his father with his construction business. We waited tables at the tavern. On our days off, we’d swim in the lake, take the boat out, or ride our bikes to the next town over for a night out.
Your dad and I began to steal some time to be alone together.
We’d look at the stars, take long walks.
Over time, the affection we felt for each other turned into love, though neither of us wanted to admit that. ”
Liv finds her way into my mind again, the way she has more often than I care to admit these last few days. Ma stares into her tea, her fingers rubbing mindlessly across the glazed ceramic mug.
“By the end of the summer, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to France anymore. My heart wasn’t in it the way it had been before. I kept waiting for your father to ask me to stay, but he never did.” She shakes her head as if still in disbelief over how things played out back then.
“Listen, I came to talk to you about that review. It’s serious.” I angle my body to face hers, knee propped up on the leg of the stool.
“I’d bet money that girl would have stayed if you'd just told her you wanted her to.”
“What?” I jerk back.
“Oh please. I suspected you were sneaking around with Miss Weston. Boy, you’ve never spent so much time in this house. Not to mention that window over there shows me everything and anything I need to know about what’s happening. I saw the two of you. There’s something there, and you let it go.”
My hand involuntarily pushes through my hair. I should have known. Nothing gets past Mae Huffman.
“I’m sorry for sneaking around.”
“I know why you did it. Not much good that did, though, huh?” The corner of her mouth lifts, one hand coming down on my knee, patting it gently.
“Listen, son. I know you feel burned by Samantha, and I know you feel you need to be here, and I never want you to think I don’t want you here.” Her words are coming out rushed.
“More than anything, I just want you to be happy and, honey, I haven’t seen you so happy as I have this last week, in…” Her eyes meet the ceiling, lips pursed in thought. “Years.”
“I hear what you’re saying, Ma, I do, but I made a promise to Dad—”
“Nonsense.”
“What? He said to me—”
“I know what he said to you, Luke. I just didn’t think you’d take it so damn literally.” Ma raises and drops her hands. “Just because your father said you needed to help take care of us didn’t mean you were supposed to be stuck here for life.”
“I’m not stuck. I can’t leave you all here to keep this place running while I go chase some girl. I don’t even like the city! I’m hap—”
She holds up a finger, stopping me in my tracks.
“You are stuck, son. So stuck, you let the woman who lights you up from the inside out walk right out of this house. For goodness’ sake, you didn’t even fight for her to stay because you thought she wouldn’t, and thought you couldn’t follow her.
Your dad didn’t mean you had to stay here, he just wanted you to remember that we were here.
Check in on us from time to time, come visit, that sort of thing.
And as far as hating the city, I think we both know you’d find a way to love it if it meant you were with the person you’re supposed to be with. ”
Ma slides her tea aside and grabs my hand, cupping it between hers.
I shake my head, peering out the window, unable to meet her knowing stare.
She’s right, and we both know it. I almost said it, almost asked if she’d consider any possibility of finding a way for us to explore what we started.
But the words never left my mouth, out of fear that Liv might reject me, reject Maple Cove, and the life I have here. The same way Samantha did.
“When your soul finds what your soul needs…” Ma begins.
“Then you grab hold, and you never let it go,” I finish, reciting the words she’s shared with me time and time again since I was a boy.
“Luke.” She pats my knee. “This will be okay. Do you hear me? We will be just fine.”
“What about the review?”
“I don’t know. I’m more worried about you than some silly girl’s words on our review page.
Anybody with eyes can see that’s the only one like it, so it’s not my concern just yet.
Right now, your happiness is my primary concern.
” She pulls me in for a hug only a mother can give, full of love, reassurance, and steady strength.
“I love you, Ma.”
“Mmm hmm. I love you, too. I think it’s time you figure out how to get your girl back.”
“Did you see?” Josh says, striding into the house with his cellphone screen pointing toward me. I glance at him and then resume pacing in my mother’s living room.
“Yeah, at this point it seems like everyone saw it.” I rub my eyes.
“So, what do we do?” He shoves his hands into his gray chino shorts.
“I’m not sure. Some kind of damage control has to happen though.”
Josh nods and waits, as if sensing I have more to say.
“Ma knows… or has always known about Liv and me.”
“Yikes. What’d she say? Was she mad?”
“I don’t know if mad is the right word. She seemed… disappointed? But not for the reason we’d expect.” I stop pacing and rest my hip against the back of the couch. “Ma thinks I should have asked Liv to stay, or fought harder for her.” I didn’t fight at all. I just let her go.
“Hell yeah you should have. You’re an idiot for not at least asking.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“I’m not trying to be. I think you’re an idiot for not asking Liv if she’d be willing to make something work.
You clearly have feelings for her—big enough to walk around here like a grumpy-ass troll all week because you miss her and don’t want to admit it.
She is not Samantha. For one, she’s cool as hell, and Samantha sucked. ”
I roll my eyes, turning my back to him.
“I think Liv really loved it here. I bet she could envision a life here and maybe even with you if you had just said something about it to her. But nope, you—”
“Alright, alright. I get it.” I turn back, holding my hands up in surrender.
It’s true, Liv woke something inside of me that sat dormant for a long time, and dammit, I do miss her. I miss her smile, the way everything made her blush, her laugh, and the way the stars amazed her like she was seeing them for the first time.
When she was around, I saw my world through a different lens. I miss how she fit in my arms so perfectly, and I’m angry I didn’t get to have more of that with her before she left.
Josh snaps his fingers and points at me. “You know, I think I have an idea. I’ve read enough of Fran’s books to know that this requires some sort of grand gesture. Maybe you can deal with the review and have your grand gesture at the same time,” Josh says.
“Grand gesture?” I frown.
“Trust me.” He smiles.