Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“Oh, no, no, no!” Cadence exclaimed as her malfunctioning dishwasher spewed another gush of water… right onto her kitchen floor. “Please stop doing that!”
The dishwasher let out some more water in response. She supposed that it would have been more surprising if the dishwasher has listened.
At least this disaster had waited until Isabelle was at school. The only thing that could have made this whole ordeal worse would have been fighting a six-year-old who, Cadence could only assume, would see this as an opportunity to go swimming indoors.
“Okay,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Okay. Come on, Cadence. You can do this. You’re a strong, capable woman.”
And yeah, she was… but she was a strong, capable woman who had never dealt with the water supply in this house. That had always been Tyler’s job.
For a moment, even the thought made her feel so overwhelmed that tears threatened to prick at the corner of her eyes.
She and Tyler had had years to figure out their strategy for dividing and conquering household tasks.
Given Tyler’s expertise, he’d been the obvious choice when it came to handyman tasks.
She was regretting that now. She should have learned from him while she had the chance.
Except… she had learned something, hadn’t she? She thought back to the last time this dishwasher had caused her problems, although that incident had been entirely man-made…
There had never been a resolution to the mystery of “who put the dish soap in the dishwasher?” Tyler maintained that Cadence had been the one to make the slip, and Cadence had retorted that just because she had been six months pregnant with Isabelle and maybe a touch absentminded didn’t mean that she had been the culprit.
But the whodunnit had proven less important than the resulting deluge of soap suds across their kitchen floor.
Cadence, emotional during her pregnancy, had been overwhelmed by the mess, nearly driven to tears.
Just to make her laugh, Tyler had gotten down in the suds and slipped and slid around.
Once he’d eased her safely to the floor, as her round belly had kept her off balance in those days, she too had played around in the suds.
A ghost of a smile passed over her face as she thought back to that day, although it quickly faded into melancholy, as so often happened when she thought back to happier times with her husband. When had that happiness started to fade?
She shook off the lingering memory, keeping only the one piece of information she needed: what Tyler had done to switch off the water. She quicky rummaged for the knob and turned it as tightly as she could and…
Thank goodness. The water stopped spurting onto her kitchen floor.
She went to go find her mop, relieved that at least there wasn’t more water churning in at every second. She would call a plumber and ask them to check on the dishwasher, or maybe she would ask Eleanor if Garrett thought he could take a shot at fixing it.
She could do this. She could.
And if she shed a few tears while she mopped up the floors… Well, nobody needed to know. There was water everywhere, after all.
Besides, the thing that truly mattered was composing herself by the time she picked up Isabelle.
She wanted to do everything in her power to make sure that Izzy never questioned that both her parents were there for her.
She didn’t want to do anything that would add to her daughter’s pain during this extremely difficult time.
By the time she got to Izzy’s summer school, Cadence had her game face fixed firmly in place.
She was even a few minutes early, so when she got there, the kids were still occupied in their afternoon “beat the heat” activity, in which a large tarp had been sprayed with a hose to make a super-sized slip ‘n slide.
They had a bunch of those ball-shaped sponges, which they were using to fling splashes at each other.
Cadence smiled and found a spot in the shade to sit and wait. She didn’t mind Izzy getting a few extra minutes of playtime, and she always kept a spare outfit for her daughter in the car. It wasn’t always for water-related mishaps, but with a little kid, you could never be too prepared.
From where she was playing out in the sun, Izzy gave her mother a huge, two-handed wave… right up until one of her classmates snuck up behind her and squeezed the sponge ball over her head. Izzy shrieked in joy and began to chase the other girl, who gave her own thrilled cry as she bolted away.
“Mrs. Meadows, hello!”
Cadence tried not to cringe at the address. Though she had no plans to change her name back to her maiden name, since it was the name she shared with her daughter, being called Mrs. these days reminded her of what she was in the slow process of losing.
But Miss Elsa Priestly, Izzy’s summer school teacher, was of that older generation who always, always, always used proper titles.
Miss Priestly also came from a generation of fierce woman who treated never having been married as a badge of honor, as it had been expected of every woman at that time.
Despite never being officially wed, however, Miss Priestly had a partner with whom she’d been together for over a decade.
The older couple could often be seen moving around town, hand-in-hand. It was extremely sweet.
“Miss Priestly,” Cadence said warmly. “How good to see you! How are you holding up? These hooligans wearing you out?”
Miss Priestly had taught at Magnolia Shore Elementary School when Cadence was a student. Now, decades later, the woman was semi-retired and only worked during the summers, something she claimed “kept her sharp.”
The woman patted her hair which, as usual, had not a single strand out of place.
“Oh, these youngsters haven’t gotten the best of me in forty years of teaching, Mrs. Meadows. They sure aren’t going to catch up with me now.”
“You really can call me Cadence,” the younger woman offered, even though she knew it was likely pointless. “You knew me when I was… what? Younger than Isabelle?”
“Politeness is a habit that lasts a lifetime,” said the teacher, the same as she had when Cadence had been in her class. “And yes, I believe you were a few years younger than Miss Meadows. I did kindergarten in those years.”
“Me too,” Cadence joked. The older woman laughed.
“I must say, it looks like you’ve been doing some water activities of your own this morning,” Miss Priestly said, gesturing to the damp patches in Cadence’s hair. She’d had time to change clothes before leaving the house but hadn’t bothered drying her hair.
Cadence hoped her smile didn’t look like a wince.
“Ah, yes, we had a little mishap with the dishwasher today, and my husband was always the one who dealt with all the household maintenance stuff. Cooking and cleaning? That I can handle. But plumbing? Appliance repair? That was always Tyler’s deal and it sometimes just…
gets to me, trying to learn to do all these new things at once, the burdens that I used to share, and—”
She cut herself off. She had long since passed over into babbling territory.
“Sorry,” she said, kneading her forehead. “That was… a lot of information.”
Miss Priestly reached over and gave Cadence’s arm a squeeze.
“You are going through the hard part of life right about now, Mrs. Meadows,” she said.
“You know it. I know it. But you have done a good job of keeping that from young Miss Izzy, and that is no small thing. She’s a happy kid, and that comes from you—and her father, I daresay—being good parents, no matter what you’re going through. ”
“Thank you,” Cadence said quietly. If she said anything more, she would cry, and all her good work hiding her distress from Isabelle would be wasted.
“You are welcome,” the teacher said warmly. “Now, not to kick you when you’re down, but I’m guessing you didn’t see or sign Miss Meadows’ beach trip permission slip.”
“You would be guessing correctly,” Cadence said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I am fully at ‘I’d lose my head it if weren’t attached’ status recently, so a piece of paperwork in a six-year-old’s backpack? No chance I know where to find that.”
“Well,” Miss Priestly said, “you are in luck, because I just so happen to have a spare copy right here.” She pulled a folded paper from her pocket. Miraculous, she was still perfectly dry, despite the water chaos still unfolding on the school lawn.
“Amazing, thank you,” Cadence said. “Of course she’s can go.” Her eyes caught on something on the bottom of the page. “Oh, do you still need chaperones?” There was a second section on the page asking for parent signups.
Miss Priestly brightened. “Indeed, I am,” she said. “We’d be happy to have you.”
Cadence quickly signed the second portion of the page too. Finally, this was something uncomplicated that she could do for her daughter. It was the first step in her renewed commitment to be there for Izzy in every way, no matter what life threw at them.
Tyler loved the Riverstone Kitchen… but part of him was starting to hate the Riverstone Kitchen.
“Hey, Tyler,” Jared, the owner called jovially when Tyler came into the building. “I thought it had been a while since I’d seen you.”
Tyler raised an eyebrow. “I think it’s been like a week.”
Jared shrugged. “You know, comparatively,” he said.
Tyler tried not to grimace. He could cook, but cooking for one…
well, it was downright depressing, especially when he had to do it more than half the days.
He put in an effort when Izzy was with him for dinner, but that left him feeling too wrung out to pull something decent together for himself on the nights when he was alone.