Chapter 59
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Cara
Sleep-deprived and heartbroken, I get through the next day on caffeine, belly rubs, and sloppy kisses.
While I haven’t been taking clients on Fridays, I had one appointment on the books I hadn’t rescheduled—they were heading on a long road trip—and I was happy to have a reason to get out of bed.
Thankfully, I’d been too numb to cry, so I was able to smile convincingly enough at the human who walked through the door. But my furry client sensed my sadness and gave me extra love.
And I’ve only looked at the wedding photo I’d downloaded to my phone six times. Maybe seven. I can’t bring myself to delete it, but I had to stop myself from locking my door and crying all over my phone all day.
Now it’s time to close up and go home to the empty house that somehow I ended up the only person living in. Beyond the fact that was the opposite of the plan, it’s depressing as hell.
I drove today because I couldn’t summon the energy to walk, even knowing it would have helped me feel better, so I sit in my car and debate my options.
I can go to the diner and drown my sorrows with ice cream. But Lorene will ask me where Hayden is and I might burst into tears.
I can go home and make a dinner for one.
And that’s how I end up pulling into my mother’s driveway. I’d been angry with her when we parted ways, but it wasn’t the first time I’d gotten upset with her and it won’t be the last. She’s still all I have.
Her little house looks so cheerful, with hanging baskets of flowers and colorful quilts draped over the two wooden rockers on the porch. If nothing else, this disaster got my mother out of that house before it fell down around her.
Gin opens the door while I’m debating if I can just walk in or if I should knock first. “Cara!”
She pulls me into a hug that’s over so fast, I don’t even get a sense of whether she’s just happy to see me after our disagreement, or if she’d somehow heard Hayden spent the night at Colleen’s.
That would explain the smile on her face. I guess we’re going with the traditional Gamble way of dealing with problems—pretending they’re not happening.
Walking into Gin’s new home is still a strange experience for me, even though I’ve been over several times since helping her move in.
Freed from the accumulated “treasures” of multiple generations, my mother has found her own style.
It’s simple and bright, without a lot of clutter, and I’m actually a little jealous.
Okay, a lot jealous. She has a shiny new life, while I’m still stuck in the old one.
“So what’s going on with you?” she asks as we walk toward her small kitchen table. I don’t know why, but we never sit on the living room furniture when I visit. We hang out in the kitchen.
“Nothing, Mom. Everything’s fine.”
She turns to face me and her eyes narrow. “I can hear it in your voice, Cara. You’re still upset. I’m sorry your father and I handled things so badly when you were a teenager. Did you have a fight with Hayden?”
I want to deny it. My emotions are too raw right now to share with anybody, especially Gin. But I guess showing cracks in the marriage helps lay the foundation for what’s to come.
“We had an argument and he slept at his mom’s house last night,” I tell her. “It wasn’t that big a deal.”
“Sleeping on the couch isn’t a big deal. Going home to his mother is a very big deal. What did you fight about? It can’t be about that high school nonsense. That was years ago, and he wasn’t at fault. Your father was.”
I scramble to come up with something besides the truth. “I was already upset when I left here, and then he wanted me to cancel my appointments for the week and go to Boston with him, and I refused.”
“Good for you. He might have money to throw around, but that’s not only your business, but commitments you’ve made to your community.”
Oh, now she respects my business choices. “We’ll get past it, I’m sure.”
Fortunately, she’s setting two glasses of lemonade on the table and can’t see my face. I know Hayden and I are not going to get past the bomb that had been dropped between us, and it takes me a second to shove down the urge to cry.
But after we sit down, her gaze goes right back to my face. “It’s awfully early in the marriage for this big of an issue between you, honey.”
“We had talked about it before, but I think there was something going on—a client dinner or something—that he wanted me in Boston for.”
“You know, you rushed to the altar, and if you’re realizing it was a mistake, then leave him.
” Gin’s lips press tightly together for a few seconds, and then she waves her hand.
“Let him keep the house, but make sure he buys you out of your half for a fair price so you can find a new place of your own.”
I’m too stunned to speak. I’d sold my marital soul for this outcome, but I’m still shocked to hear those words come out of Gin’s mouth. Except for the part where my heart gets broken, Hayden’s plan actually worked.
“Our last name and that old house were all we had for so many years. And then it was all I had,” Gin continued. “You know how, when you’re driving in a winter storm and you hold the steering wheel so tight, you have a hard time letting go of it because your fingers are so stiff from clenching it?”
“I do.”
“From the day I married Marcus, I had to hold onto that house. For decades I held on so tight, I just couldn’t relax my grip and let it go.”
“It’s okay to move on, Mom. You’re so much happier now.”
“But you’re not.” She locks her gaze with mine, sorrow written all over her expression. “I’m sorry I couldn’t let go even when it was dragging us both down, Carolina. And if this marriage isn’t what you want, walk away. I don’t care who owns that damn house anymore.”
“Thank you.” I reach out and take her hand. She squeezes my fingers in return. “I don’t know what’s going to happen going forward, but you and I are going to be okay.”
“Of course we will. We always are.”
I laugh, and then catch her looking at the clock on the stove for a third time. “Do you have plans tonight, Mom?”
“Just a casual get-together a few houses down. We all bring something to throw on the grill or a side dish, and then we play cornhole. Have you ever played that?”
I shake my head, smiling because it’s hard to imagine my mom throwing beanbags at a hole in a board, but I can tell by the way her face lights up that she enjoys it. “I’ll get out of the way. I just wanted to stop by and say hi.”
Gin sighs. “I do miss living with you, honey.”
“Me too,” and it’s the truth. It was my mom and I against the world for a long time, and even though we were losing, we were together every day. “I told Mel I’d stop by, anyway.”
That wasn’t true, but I could tell she was about to invite me to join her at the cookout, and I might be able to fake it for a few minutes, but I’m not good company.
Despite knowing that, and the fact I hadn’t told her I was coming, I drive to Mel’s house next. My emotional mask is slipping, and she’s the only person who knows the truth, even if I haven’t outright confirmed it for her.
Lucas answers the door, and he smiles before stepping back to wave me in. “We just finished eating, but there’s some left over if you’re hungry.”
“No, thank you.”
I don’t know if it’s my expression or my voice, but Lucas nods once, as if to himself. “It’s my turn to wash tonight, so I’ll tell Mel you’re here. Have a seat.”
I sit on the couch, pulling my feet up so I can hug my knees. A moment later, Mel comes out of the kitchen, and I can tell by her face she knows something’s wrong. I also know they don’t take turns cleaning the kitchen after supper. They always do it together.
“Hey,” she says softly, sitting next to me. “I heard Hayden slept at Colleen’s last night and I thought it was all part of some master plan but I guess I was wrong.”
“The plan went great. Except for the part where I fell in love with him.”
Mel sighs dramatically, looking up at the ceiling for a second. “I told you not to fall in love with your husband, Cara.”
“I know.”
“Tell me everything.”
So I do. With two short breaks to find a box of tissues and then to get some water, I confess the entire plan to Mel. And then I tell her about the night Hayden didn’t stand me up.
“I wouldn’t have gone along with it if I’d known his primary motivation was revenge on my dad,” I end with.
“I know it doesn’t make sense. I mean, I always questioned his excuse that he just wanted to restore it because he likes old houses.
But this is so much more personal than an old feud and the Gambles not liking the Reillys. He wanted to hurt us.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, holding out the supermarket bag she’d snagged for the used tissues and handing me a fresh one from the box. “What happens now?”
“I don’t know. But I got over him once. I can do it again.”
“Now that he’s got his revenge house, he won’t need to keep up the fake marriage bit, so he’ll probably go back to Boston. It’ll be a lot easier to get over him once he’s gone.”
My shoulders twitch in a really pathetic shrug. “What really hurts is that I don’t think it’s fake for him, either. Not anymore. He loves me too, Mel. I believe that.”
“Then he should have respected you enough to tell you the truth about homecoming night. Even if he wasn’t man enough to tell you then, he’s grown now. There’s no excuse for that.”
“I know. But I love him,” I manage to say before a fresh wave of sobbing hits me.
Mel wraps her arms around me, holding me close, which is how I can hear her mutter into my hair. “After all this, how the hell did you end up being the one stuck living in that house?”