Chapter 54
Chapter Fifty-Four
Hayden
Returning to Sumac Falls to find that my mother-in-law had already moved into her new house was a pleasant surprise. Discovering my wife had moved all of my belongings into Gin’s old room was much less pleasant.
“I don’t like it,” I say, standing in the open doorway of the bedroom that was ours, but is apparently just hers now.
“So you’ve said. Twice.” Cara’s standing in the hall, arms crossed. “But we don’t need to pretend to be a real married couple if there’s nobody in the house to know.”
It’s a valid point. And I can’t argue with it because I don’t want to tell her that, even in my condo in Boston, I have trouble sleeping without her warmth next to me. I don’t want her to know how many hours I spend lying awake, wishing I was in her bed.
But I still don’t like it.
“Penny will be confused,” I tell her, knowing my dog would be okay with me throwing her under the bus in this instance. “She’s gotten used to sleeping with both of us.”
“She’ll be fine. She still sleeps alone with you in Boston.” She shakes her head and heads down the hall, but she stops at the top of the stairs to look back. “We need to leave in ten minutes.”
“Right,” I mutter, and I hear her laughter as she goes downstairs.
To make the evening even more fun, we’re having dinner with my family tonight. Honestly, without Gin and her pickles present, it shouldn’t be too bad. Aaron and Hope both like Cara, actually, and Colleen’s seemingly warming to the idea of our marriage.
It’s seeing Cara with Daisy and AJ that’ll get me. Every time I think about my brother’s kids now, I build this vision of the future in my head. Family cookouts. Cousins playing together in the yard. Cara and Hope laughing while Aaron and I argue over who’s better at grilling burgers.
And then I have to remind myself none of it’s real.
I move Penny’s booster seat to the backseat before we leave. She’s mad about it, but doesn’t refuse to get in the car because it’s for Cara, who is her second favorite human.
At least I hope she’s her second favorite. Sometimes I wonder.
We’re halfway to Colleen’s when Cara turns to say something to Penny and sees the box sitting on the seat beside the dog. “What’s in the box?”
“Wedding photos.”
“Oh.” She snaps back around in her seat, staring out the windshield. “That’s fun.”
“I got them by email, too, but I’d prefer to show them to the family without getting fingerprints all over my laptop. I did forward the link to the online album to your email, though, so you’ll have them.”
“Why are we showing them to the family at all?”
“Because it would be strange not to. Going through the wedding proofs and everybody picking the ones we want high-res copies of for framing is part of the fun.”
“I don’t see anything fun about encouraging our mothers to choose their favorite wedding photo of us to hang on their wall.”
She sounds like she’s going to cry and we’re almost to Colleen’s, so I reach over and cover her hand with mine.
“I know, Cara. I don’t love it, either. But my mother and Hope have both asked me about them, multiple times.
Maybe I can drag my feet on actually getting the prints.
Hell, maybe I can make up a story about data corruption and how all the photos were lost. I’ll figure it out, but right now, we’ll just get through this. ”
“You could have come up with the data corruption story instead of bringing the photo book,” she mutters.
“Contrary to what you seem to think, I’m not that great at lying.”
She barks a humorless laugh. “I’ve seen no evidence that you’re not great at it.”
So we walk into my mother’s house annoyed with each other—me carrying an anxious dog and Cara carrying a box she wants nothing to do with.
Of course Colleen zeroes in on the photographer’s name on the side of the box immediately. “They’re here!”
We manage to talk her into eating first, since the meat’s already on the grill. The tension doesn’t ease between Cara and I, and she spends most of her time talking with Daisy and AJ or cuddling Penny. Nobody seems to notice, though Hope sends me a few questioning looks. I just smile.
When it can’t be put off any longer without Colleen spontaneously combusting, we all gather in the living room to look at the proofs of the wedding photos.
My mother plops herself right in the middle of the couch with the book, with Daisy under her arm.
Hope sits on one side, and Aaron looks between me and Cara.
“I have the digital album,” I tell him. “I’ll follow along on my phone.”
“Me too, since I’ve already seen them,” Cara lies, earning an arched eyebrow from me. She gives me one of her own while pulling out her phone. “You can all look at them together.”
There’s a lot of oohing and aahing from the couch, but I can’t resist watching Cara’s face as she slides from photo to photo.
I know it’s hard because I’ve already done it three times.
Each trip through the album broke my heart a little more, but I saved a few of them to my phone, even though they’re not the final product.
“A Sharpie could fix this one right up,” I hear my mother say, and I know she’s come to the one of us with both of our mothers.
“Mom,” I snap, and her head jerks up, as though she’d forgotten Cara and I are in the room.
“Sorry,” she says, sounding sincere, but thankfully, Cara’s pretending she didn’t hear any of it.
I know when they reach the photo that’s my favorite because Colleen and Hope both gasp, and my mother touches her fingers to her lips.
It was the first one I saved to my phone, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve looked at it.
I’d probably make it my lockscreen wallpaper if I was younger and didn’t have my phone out in professional settings so often.
A moment later, Cara catches up on her phone because I hear her sharp intake of breath. She looks at me, and even though the shimmer of tears in her eyes breaks my heart, I give her a warm smile before turning to my family.
“Our favorite, obviously.”
The photographer caught us dancing, framed by the flowers adorning the gazebo’s arch.
Cara’s head is back, as if she’s laughing, and I barely recognize the soft, warm expression on my face as I smile at her.
We’re in each other’s arms, the rest of the world forgotten, and we look like two people genuinely in love.
“That’s the one,” Colleen says. “That’s the one I want for framing. An 11x13.”
“Hey,” Aaron says. “You framed an 8x10 of me and Hope’s wedding portrait.”
“I’m the oldest,” I say just to annoy him. “Mine should be bigger.”
“I framed the size you gave me,” Colleen tells my brother. Then she turns to me. “Fine. I’ll take an 8x10, then, so they match. My two happily married sons and their beautiful brides.”
It hurts so much I can’t look at Cara, and I’m not surprised when she gets up and offers to take Penny out for potties.
Penny looks confused because she didn’t ask for that, but she loves Cara enough to follow her out to the backyard.
I want to go with them, but instead I give Cara her space and keep my eyes on my phone while my family flips through the rest of the book.
“I’m going to go through it again later,” Colleen says. “I need a notebook so I can mark down which other ones I want prints of.”
“No problem,” I tell her. “You can keep it for the week and then we’ll give it to Gin so she can choose her favorites.”
Colleen’s lips purse, but she keeps her opinion on that to herself. Unable to stand it anymore, I get up and go to the kitchen so I can check on Cara. I can see her out the window, playing fetch with Penny in the shade of an old elm.
It’s Penny’s version of fetch, of course. She loves sticks, like any dog, but she doesn’t like the sticks thrown very far. And she’s really only in it for the belly rubs and chin scratches she gets when she brings the stick back.
But the important thing is that Cara is laughing. If my mother’s reaction to that picture had made her cry, there’s no evidence from this distance.
I didn’t hear Colleen follow me, but suddenly she’s at my side, watching my wife play with my dog. “I’m so glad you two came over tonight. I enjoy having you so close by.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Her frown and the way she tilts her head cues me in to the fact I spoke too quickly, without thinking. For a second, I try to come up with a way to walk the statement back.
But then it hits me—like it or not, it’s time to start showing some cracks in my hasty marriage.
After an intense few weeks of convincing our family and friends we were so madly in love we wouldn’t delay the wedding, and then the fake domestic bliss, it’s time to start convincing those same people we might have made a mistake.
“You know I have no desire to live in Sumac Falls, Mom. I don’t think you’re alone in hoping I’ll change my mind, but I’ve been clear about it. My home is in Boston.”
“I wish you’d just try it. You’ve always looked for the worst in this town.”
“The worst isn’t hard to find.”
“Not if it’s all you’re looking for,” she shoots back.
“You focus so much on the people that didn’t like you—or didn’t like our family, actually—that you don’t leave room for the good memories.
Especially the way this community rallied around us when your dad died.
I couldn’t have gotten through it without help. ”
“You were strong,” I tell her, because that’s what I remember. “You got me and Aaron through it, too.”
“I was strong because I had so many friends propping me up. And it wasn’t just the casseroles, Hayden. They say it takes a village, and the village of Sumac Falls made sure I knew I wasn’t alone.”
“I bet the Gamble family didn’t show up.”
“That’s one family. Plus, rumor had it at the time that Gin Gamble was spotted dropping some dollar bills into the collection jar the market put out to fund a gift certificate for us.
” I must not do a good job of hiding my surprise, because Colleen laughs.
“That’s my point. Even people who enjoy watching you fall down will give you a hand up if you actually hit rock bottom. ”
I nod, but I don’t add to the conversation. It feels cruel to let her believe there’s a chance I’ll settle down with Cara in Sumac Falls and raise a family here. But the alternative is telling her the truth, which I can’t do.
The emotional fallout from my driving need to own the Gamble house is starting to weigh on me. I’m hurting people I care about—including Cara—and for the first time since I walked into her shop for a nail appointment Penny didn’t need, I can’t wait to get back to Boston.