Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Cara
I asked Hayden for a few days to work on Gin, but we’re on day three now and she’s still barely speaking to me. Her silence and pinched expression every time she sees me makes it hard to have any conversation at all, never mind a productive one.
Usually her displeasure with me burns itself out in forty-eight hours or less, but when I got home from work today, she was clearly still in a mood. Now I’m clearing the table after another uncomfortable supper, not sure how to break the ice.
She didn’t even share the leftover chicken parm with me Sunday night, because she knew Hayden paid for it.
That’s next-level petty, even for her, and it’s triggering something more like actual anger than the usual annoyance in me.
I don’t care how many generations of Gambles and Reillys haven’t gotten along—there’s no reason for her to hate Hayden so much.
She hasn’t had a conversation with him as a grown man and never—as far as I know—had a conversation with him when we were growing up.
My phone—sitting faceup on the counter—chimes and the text message is so short, the entire thing shows in the preview when I pick it up.
MEL
WTF?
I realize, in all the turmoil, I lost track of when Mel was due back from camping. I should have sent a message, letting it hang there so she’d get it the second she had cell signal again.
It’s unthinkable I forgot to update the one person I’ve been telling every single thing in my life since third grade.
Melinda Pearson and I ran with a tight group of four girls right up through graduation.
Two went off to college and never came back.
Mel went off to college, but she did come back.
She married a mechanic and they’re the only reason my car passes inspection every year.
He gives a really good wife’s-best-friend discount.
Truthfully, I didn’t entirely forget. The fact I need to update Mel on the unexpected developments in my life has crossed my mind several times, but I didn’t tell her I was having dinner with Hayden, whether she could read it right away or not.
I’m not sure what my best friend’s reaction is going to be when I tell her I’m basically touching a hot stove that’s burned me before.
Another text message comes through while I’m trying to pull up the app to respond to the first one.
MEL
My mom went into Sherry’s to buy Harry 7.0 and overheard your mom telling Sherry that you went on a date with HAYDEN FREAKIN’ REILLY.
I smile as I type.
CARA
Harry 6.0 didn’t make it very long.
Harry was the name given to the cactus Mel’s dad gifted her mom for their anniversary three years ago.
When he teased her about hoping something that didn’t require much care might survive her, Mel’s mom swore Harry the Cactus would outlive him.
Unfortunately, making the vow didn’t come with a miraculously green thumb, so she kept having to replace Harry with a fresh alive version, hoping her husband wouldn’t notice.
Emily and Bob Pearson have always been like bonus parents for me, which might be another reason I haven’t updated Mel. They’ve been dropping a lot of hints lately about how I should find somebody other than my mother to share my life with, and I don’t want them getting their hopes up.
Mel responds to my text with a flurry of emojis that translates roughly to yelling about how she’s so annoyed with me right now, she’d probably throw her phone at me if we were together. Since she’s the type to actually get in her car and drive to wherever I am to do just that, I cave.
CARA
It wasn’t a date. It was more like a business meeting.
MEL
I’m too busy to call or to text all the thoughts in my head right now. Basically, LIAR. Spill.
I definitely don’t want her to call, since Gin—who’s washing the dishes I cleared—would be able to hear my side of the conversation. I type out an overview of everything that’s happened so far, ending with a plea not to call because my mom’s nearby and not happy about it.
After a few seconds, her response comes through.
MEL
Is he still hot?
CARA
Yes. And he has an adorable dog.
MEL
NO. That’s very bad. Do you remember when you cried so hard you blew a blood vessel in your eye and looked like something out of a horror movie? You’re not doing that again.
CARA
I just want him to buy the house, Mel.
MEL
Gin will never.
She’s not wrong, but I’m not ready to give up hope yet.
CARA
Maybe not, but I got free Chicken Parmesan out of it. And cheesecake.
MEL
If anything else happens, you better tell me IMMEDIATELY.
CARA
I will. Gotta go.
“Who was that?” Gin demands when I slide the phone into my pocket so I can wipe down the stove.
“Mel,” I say, even though I’m not a teenager and it’s none of her business who I’m talking to. But I’d like to put an end to her sulking, not make it worse.
She makes a sound that implies she doesn’t believe me. “I don’t like you running around with that Reilly boy.”
I laugh, even though I know it’s the wrong thing to do. “First of all, he’s not a boy. And secondly, I’m not going to refuse to talk to a man I like because my great-great-grandfather stole his great-great-grandfather’s girlfriend. It’s ridiculous.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“Then explain to me why you won’t sell a house we can’t afford to keep up anymore to Hayden Reilly even though his offer is more than generous. There has to be a reason beyond a very old family grudge and a promise you made to Dad even he knew you wouldn’t be able to keep.”
“Cara, why can’t you leave this alone?”
“Because we sell the house or we lose the house, Mom.” I’m done dancing around the subject.
“We can barely pay our bills now, even though we keep the heat so low in the winter, we have to wear heavy cardigans and wool socks. And it’s decaying.
The house is falling apart and someday it’ll reach a point where we can’t live in it anymore, but it’ll be too decrepit to sell.
Assuming we haven’t lost it for back taxes by then. ”
Gin looks startled by my tone—or maybe by the hard facts—and I have to fight back guilt.
There’s no reason for me to feel guilty.
It would be worse to let my mother keep pretending everything is okay until the moment we actually lose everything.
Making her understand our circumstances are dire is the right thing to do.
“What’s your plan, Mom?” I ask, wanting to dump some of the emotional and mental responsibility back on her shoulders. “Are you hoping we’ll win the lottery? That’ll be tough since we can’t spare the cost of the tickets and you have to play to win. How do you see this playing out?”
Gin lifts her chin. “In a perfect world, you’ll marry some guy from Sumac Falls. You’ll live here and fix it up and fill it with children, and I’ll have a little mother-in-law’s space until I die. Then it’ll be yours.”
I don’t even know how to respond to that.
We can’t even use the third floor because we can’t afford to heat it, and we have a window we can’t open because we’re afraid too much pressure will make it fall out of the wall.
But she thinks somebody’s going to want to marry me enough to put all of his money into updating this house?
To say nothing of renovating some part of it into a little apartment for his mother-in-law?
I know most of the men in Sumac Falls and I’m more likely to win the lottery. And since I wasn’t kidding about not spending my money on buying tickets, that says a lot.
“That’s not going to happen,” I say firmly.
“I’ve lived here my entire life and I’ve yet to meet a man I want to marry.
I don’t have the time or energy to date.
And even if I do somehow meet a guy I’m interested in, do you really think he’s going to want to sink his money into this house and supporting you?
“It could happen.”
There’s a tightness in her face and body that actually scares me.
The conviction in her eyes makes me aware of just how many years have slipped by while I’ve told myself she’d come around.
At first, I believed my parents would see their friends downsizing and embrace letting go of the generational debris.
That didn’t happen. After my dad passed, I thought in time the grief would fade and take the weight of her promise with it. That also didn’t happen.
At some point, it just became the way it was—Gin in denial and me so busy trying to get through each day, I don’t even think about the future anymore. And now I know she’s never going to change. If I don’t do something, this is going to be how I spend the rest of my life.
“Mom, can you—”
“Enough, Carolina.” She dries her hands and then tosses the towel on the counter instead of pulling it back through the metal loop screwed into the cabinet door. “I’m going for a walk, and when I get back, I don’t want to hear another word about this. I’m not selling this house. Period. Ever.”