What She’s Having (Big Love from Galway #2)

Chapter 1

Joe

“You’re a good son, Joe. I just…really wanted grandkids.”

Okay. I guess we’re done reading. I shove in the bookmark and set aside her battered copy of Wuthering Heights . Not that I mind—Heathcliff’s an ass, which probably explains my mom’s attraction to him—but I’m tired of this particular conversation.

Her voice isn’t as thready or dreamy as when she’s just cranked up the meds though.

“You okay, Ma?”

She lifts one hand an inch off the bed. Waves it dismissively. “Why didn’t you ever settle down?”

“Restless, I guess.” Not entirely true until recently. I’ve been in Fort Collins ten years, long enough to make a success of the restaurant and open a second in Loveland. Long enough for Dad to die and Mom to get sick.

She shakes her head, grimacing, her face grayer, her papery wrinkles deeper than last week. Deeper than yesterday. “No, no. In a relationship. There something you want to tell me?”

She means am I gay. We both know where she got that idea. Dad was fixated on it.

“Still not gay, Ma.”

Her eyes open, pierce me. “Would you tell me if you were, Joey? Honestly. It’s okay.”

“Yeah, I would.”

“Then why? Girls always liked you.”

I shrug and look away. “Haven’t found anybody I want that with.”

“In a few years, you’ll be forty and I won’t be around. I don’t want you to be alone, Joe.” She scratches at the sheet with a fingernail like she does when she’s worried, and I pick up her hand.

“Better alone than in a bad relationship, Ma.” That may be a little too much truth, given her choices.

Her grip weakens. “Hasn’t there ever been anybody though?”

I look into her watery eyes. “Not for twenty years, Ma. And I was wrong about her.”

Her voice drops so low I can barely hear her. “You mean that girl in North Carolina.”

I jerk my head in a nod. July. Girl as warm as her name.

Well, until she wasn’t.

But suddenly I’m back at Galway Lake, her smile is shining down on me, the sun is making the water and the paler strands of her hair sparkle, and I’m hit in the gut again with a rush of want and lust and yearning so strong it almost knocks me out of my chair.

Twenty fucking years and it’s still that strong.

Last time I looked her up online, it seemed she’d gotten her dream. Opened a restaurant on the old town square. Filled it with loyal townies and tourists who give rave reviews. No pictures on the website of July herself, but the place and the menu look great.

I promised to help her try out recipes for that menu back when we were kids and the restaurant was just a gleam in her eye. Guess she didn’t need me.

I couldn’t find her on social media except for the restaurant’s Facebook page. Couldn’t find a personal phone number for her, but her address is the same as the restaurant, and her last name hasn’t changed.

Not that any of this matters. I’m not going to contact her. I’ll never see her again. It’s not like she’d remember me anyway.

Mom makes a tiny sound, and when I look, her face is streaming with tears.

“Ma, what’s wrong? What hurts?” I twist around, praying to see the hospice worker, Frances, in the kitchen, but she’s gone on her break. I’m half out of my chair, fumbling in my pocket for my phone, when Mom speaks again.

“’S’okay.” She gestures to the tissues on the bedside table.

I pluck a bunch of them and dab at her face, her fragile state a terrifying reality in a way it wasn’t a few minutes ago.

She takes the tissues and squeezes them into a ball, gripping them like she needs to hold on to something. “Honey.” Her voice is a rasp. “Go in my closet. Top shelf. Back left. Shoebox.”

“Sure, Ma. Be right back.”

The sweet powdery scent of her perfume hits me when I pull open the closet door, and I get a glimpse into the not-too-distant future when I’ll be doing this again to clean out her things. Something heavy and burning rises in my throat. I choke it down.

Her shoes are lined neatly on the floor beneath her hanging clothes. The box at the back of the top shelf is nearly hidden behind a pile of scarves—handy for covering bruises—and gloves. I pull it down. The label shows a pair of tan dress shoes, size seven, but the box feels too heavy for that.

I take it to her fast in case it’s my last-ever chance to help. Settle it gently between her hands.

She shakes her head. “For you.” Her voice is heavy. Dread? Exhaustion? Both?

What terrible piece of our past is she dredging up now? Family photos? Dad’s wallet? Locks of his hair? Fine, but I’m burning those motherfuckers as soon as she’s not around to know.

I sink back into my chair and, at her nod, slide the box onto my knee and ease the lid off, bracing for anything.

Envelopes. Tightly packed, the once-white paper yellowing. Shit. I’d do almost anything for her, but if she expects me to read love letters to or from my dad, I’m gonna have to draw the line. That wouldn’t disappoint her as much as not having grandkids, right?

Ma gestures at the box. “Go on. Look at them.”

I sigh. Work my fingers into the mass of envelopes to close around the first one. Ease it out. “Ma, I don’t—”

The envelope comes free and her dread becomes mine.

July Tate. 210 Mockingbird Circle. Galway, North Carolina.

The handwriting is mine.

The envelope is unopened. Unpostmarked.

I reach back into the box and pull out another envelope. And another and another. All the same plain white stationery I used when I was sixteen and found myself in Germany against my will.

I count them. One hundred never-sent, never-received, never-read letters in all.

Things I thought I knew—things I had resigned myself to, beliefs I’d used to chart the course of more than half my life—crumble and smear around me like fresh ash, singeing me.

The eyes I raise to her are murderous, and Ma flinches. She’s seen that face too many times, though never on me.

“I’m sorry, Joey,” she whispers, and the tears start again.

I rise with the box, cramming the envelopes in every which way, and bolt out of the room. It’s the only not-terrible thing I can do.

I throw it on my dresser like it’s poisonous. Strip off my jeans and yank on running gear. As soon as Frances gets back from break, I’m out the door and headed for the Poudre Trail, Evanescence and my own blood pounding in my ears.

My letters—all those letters—never went out.

July never got my letters.

Miles and miles later, I slip back into my house, not bothering to shower before I go to the room that’s been Ma’s since her diagnosis.

Frances looks up with a tiny smile and gathers her knitting, retreating to the kitchen, leaving me her seat. This is our routine. Usually I read out loud for a while, whatever Ma wants. Tonight I settle into the chair and study her as she sleeps.

She’s not that old—not seventy yet—but she’s shrunk and paled and faded out before the life has even left her body. A horrible, wasting end to a wasted life. She wouldn’t say so, but it’s true. Outliving her monster of a husband but missing out on the joy of grandchildren…

Because she played some role in making it so.

I had tried to grasp all the implications as I ran. If I had known my letters hadn’t been sent, I could have found some other way to contact July to let her know what happened. Where I went. Why I didn’t have any choice. I could have left Germany as soon as I turned eighteen. Could’ve been back in Galway these past eighteen years, maybe with the girl I’ve spent that time hating instead.

She might’ve waited for me for two years.

I wouldn’t have felt my hope and my future cracking and peeling away a little more each day, leaving me an empty, bitter, faithless husk convinced that love doesn’t really exist and that I’d been a fool to believe, even for one perfect summer, that it did.

And what about July? How must she have felt, having me stand her up the day after we…? Having me disappear and never contact her again?

My mom murmurs something, her head moving restlessly.

I pick up her hand. Stare down at the pale skin, the veins that have been poked too many times lately. Sigh, rub my thumb over her frail knuckles as her eyes open.

“Ma.” My voice is gravel. “It’s okay. Tell me.”

***

July

“Oh, hey, July.” Sonya pauses just inside the kitchen doorway, two servings of perfectly-plated-if-I-do-say-so-myself eggs Benedict in her hands. “Tom Reid was in. Said to tell you to come over tonight if you want to talk about the team.” She winks and pushes on through the swinging door to the noisy dining room.

Donna snorts but doesn’t raise her gaze from the soup she’s seasoning.

“‘Talk about the team.’ That what the kids are calling it these days?” My friend Andi’s poking around in the bags of quiche and fruit and cinnamon rolls we’ve fixed for her women’s shelter board meeting this morning. Light’s doing that annoying thing it always does around her, glinting off her shiny hair and her smile, and airbrushing her skin.

I shake my head and grin, not confirming or denying a damn thing.

Tina’s frowning. “He can’t even be bothered to ask you himself?”

“The man lacks subtlety, it’s true.” No point telling them to mind their own business. I slip omelets onto three plates and add fruit garnishes and croissants.

“That’s not all he lacks,” Tina mutters, sliding a hot tray of cinnamon rolls out of the oven.

“What y’all got against him? He’s not a bad guy.” I’m just curious. It doesn’t really matter. Things’ll never be serious between Tom and me.

Donna levels a look at me as she adds cumin and stirs the soup, her dark hands quick and sure. “He’s gonna always want to be taken care of. Never do any caring in return.”

Tina nods, fanning the hot rolls, then reaches for the glaze she’s made. “That’s it exactly. You deserve more, July.”

At first glance they’re an unlikely couple, Donna a lean, serious, quiet Black woman almost as tall as me, and Tina a bubbly, little, white, ginger busybody. But when you see the way they look at each other, the way they back each other up, it suddenly makes perfect sense. They balance each other in every way.

Last Halloween they came in wearing complementary T-shirts: Melanin and Mela-none . I amused myself all day imagining Tina talking Donna into that, probably after Donna talked Tina down from something wackier.

Tina’s the finest baker in town, and Donna is the most creative cook I’ve ever seen. I’m lucky to have them working with me and luckier still to have them as friends.

“You have somebody better in mind? Galway’s not exactly overflowing with prospects.” Not that I’m looking. I line up the next few orders.

Sonya comes back for the omelets, and I set about making veggie hash and eggs over easy.

“That’s ’cause you intimidate the weak ones and let the good ones marry other people.” Tina brushes the rolls with her secret-recipe glaze. Even I don’t know what all’s in it, but some people drive thirty mountain miles for her cinnamon rolls.

“I think your heart’s not in it.” Donna’s finished with the soup and is juicing oranges.

Tina wrinkles her nose. “Is sex with him even any good? I can’t imagine that it would be.”

I laugh. “I am not gonna talk about that.”

But she’s got a point. It’s not very good. Tom is…someone who will never break my heart and will never have his broken by me. I don’t put much energy into it, and neither does he. He’s just somebody to spend a couple of hours with when I’ve got downtime I don’t know what to do with.

Because sometimes, if I spend too many nights alone, I start to think about what’s missing. And it’s pathetic that twenty years after the fact, I’m still feeling it.

Especially over somebody who didn’t deserve it.

It’s just…he was just so believable .

“Seriously though, don’t you want somebody of your own? Somebody permanent?” Tina’s moved on to the sourdough, punching it down, forming it into mini baguettes for the lunch crowd.

“Babe.” Donna’s voice is soft as she touches Tina’s shoulder.

Tina glances up at me. Must see something in my face, because she nods at Donna and falls silent.

“I used to. There was somebody in high school. I was young and thought… Well. It was really hard when he left.” I wipe down my workspace. “Never felt like making that mistake again.”

But at night sometimes, he comes to me in my dreams, his smile quicksilver, his eyes bright and changing like a mountain river slipping around rocks, his voice dipping low so only I can hear.

“Boy was a fool to leave you.” Donna covers the fresh juice and stalks over to the walk-in with it. Comes back with the roasted chickens for her chicken salad. Her knife flashes quick and sharp as she cuts up the meat.

“Maybe we should find somebody to fix her up with.” Andi again, piping up oh so helpfully from behind her bags.

I roll my eyes as I slice open fresh biscuits to layer with pancetta and cheeses and caramelized onion. “Oh, you’re a fine one to talk, Ms. Always-been-single-always-gonna-be-single-don’t-even-try-to-change-my-mind.”

“It’s no trouble—we can fix you both up!” Tina’s mainly messing with us, but there is some matchmaker in her.

“No.” Andi and I say it with equal conviction.

“Seriously, y’all are at a disadvantage, looking for good men. Maybe you should give up on them, like Donna and I did.” She smiles across the worktable at her sweetie, whose face softens adorably.

Andi sets her jaw and shakes her head. “No partner for me. July’s the one we’re helping here.”

I wave my spatula at them, even Donna, who didn’t really say much but is clearly in league with the others. “You’re fired. And you’re fired. And you’re fired.” The swinging door opens. It’s Sonya, so I fire her too.

Tina raises her brows and bobbles her head as she forms another mini baguette. “I mean, Oprah gave out cars…”

Andi leans against the doorframe and studies her nails. “I mean, I don’t work here.”

Sonya looks at Donna. “What are we up to?”

Donna does the math. “Six, just this morning.”

Sonya whistles. “Wow! Usually she only fires us six or seven times in a whole week.”

“Y’all are extra deserving of unemployment today.”

Friends like these are a blessing. I do have just about everything in the world. I do.

The rest of the day passes with no one bringing up topics I need to leave buried. Mealtime rushes give way to prep and cleanup before the next rush. My brother brings our pregnant little sister in for lunch. Half the town wants to chat when I go out to tell them hi. A volunteer picks up the lunches I’ve made for the free-clinic staff. I talk and laugh and tease and fix meal after meal after meal, my hands working on their own while my mind is other places.

Like how glad I am that Tina didn’t ask if I’ve ever tried to find out what Joe’s doing now. So I didn’t have to lie and I didn’t have to admit that yeah, I’ve mustered my pitiful online detective skills to search for him a half a million times over the years. Haven’t found anything; Joe Anderson is a very common name, and I can’t even narrow the search to a particular country. Thousands of hits, even if I look for someone our age.

And I’m too proud and too stubborn to ask anybody else to help me. Partly because I don’t want to have to explain the backstory to somebody who doesn’t know it. And anybody who does know what happened would worry and look at me like I’m sick again. I couldn’t stand that.

So I shove down the memories, bury them in work and laughter and friends and family, and I stay at the restaurant until closing. And then I drag my tired body upstairs to my apartment and drop into bed to lose myself in sleep.

But he comes to me in my dreams again. We’re at the lake, sitting on our rock. I’m leaning back against his chest, and he’s got his arms around me, tanned forearms resting on his upraised knees. His nose is in my hair, and he’s been teasing me—I don’t remember about what—but then his voice gets quiet. “I’m full with you,” he says. “All my empty places fill up when I’m with you.” And I don’t ask because I know just what he means.

***

I can pinpoint the moment this day turned to shit. It was when I glanced out toward the square, spied a guy who, from the back, looked like Joe Anderson, and promptly dropped a bowlful of pasta in the middle of the Kennedys’ table, spattering every single family member with alfredo sauce, crabmeat, and broccoli.

Should’ve cut my losses and gone straight to sleep after work, but no, I’m a glutton for punishment.

Come over , Tom texted an hour ago. I’ll order Chinese delivery.

One so-so meal and a less-than-adequate attempt at sex later, I’m frustrated and pissed and still thinking of that Joe-looking guy as I push Tom off me and reach for my clothes.

“Sorry,” Tom says, not sounding sorry at all. He’s gotten what he wanted. “Tax season really takes it out of me. You want me to…?” He gestures at my crotch.

I don’t even want to know what he’s suggesting. “No, Tom, I think I’m done here. This wasn’t worth my trip.” Normally I’d be nicer, more patient, but dammit . My time would’ve been better spent cleaning up the broken glass vase I knocked off my dresser on the way out the door earlier or mopping up the coffee I spilled on the passenger seat of my car.

All because of one lean, unruly-haired man who moved with Joe’s loose stride as he crossed the street to the square tonight during dinner rush.

The closers are gone by the time I get home, but I must’ve just missed them. The floors are still damp from their final mopping. Instead of heading upstairs, I cross to the restaurant’s front door to see the spot where Not-Joe was earlier.

The square is quiet and dark now, twinkle lights off, only the dimmer, old-fashioned pole lights still on. Nobody out there anymore. Certainly no Joe Anderson.

I’m too young for a midlife crisis, aren’t I? Am I losing it again?

My fingertips find the grooves in the doorframe, grooves I’d first found eight years ago, just before I opened the restaurant. I was touching up paint, and there, a few inches below doorknob level, were three vertical gouges in the wood. To my giddy mind, they seemed like marks made by the claws of a tiny creature stretching up for the handle and admission to a new world just inside the door. My new world. My dream become reality.

I had christened that little creature Hope. Mentally welcomed her back into my life.

And now, years later, I still stroke Hope’s marks whenever I have something I need to think through.

Tonight, I don’t want to think it through alone.

It’s barely past ten. Andi might still be at the shelter. They’re doing volunteer training this week. She stays late for that.

I text and she agrees to meet me at Lindon’s in ten minutes. I beat her there and have her favorite ale—Son of a Peach from RJ Rockers down in Spartanburg—waiting for her when she arrives.

It’s fun to watch Andi cross a room. She’s gorgeous but downplays it for all she’s worth, scraping her dark waves back into a single thick braid, leaving her beautiful face completely bare, hiding her amazing curves under severely tailored slacks, flats, and drab-colored shirts. Still, eyes always follow her. She can’t tamp down her glow.

She cuts straight through the tables to where I’m sitting, drops into the seat across from me with a sigh, and downs half her beer in one long drink.

“Thanks for meeting me. I didn’t feel like going to bed yet.”

She tilts her head and studies me. “What’s up?”

I blow out a breath. Make wet circles on our little table with my bottle. “I’m being haunted by the ghost of relationships past.”

She squints at me. “You mean that guy back in high school?”

“Ridiculous, huh?”

She takes another swallow. “You finally hear from him or something?”

“Nah. But he’s in my head again. In my dreams every night. It’s driving me nuts.” I study my beer, not sure I want to see her expression.

She waits, and when I don’t speak, she prods gently. “Bad dreams? Good dreams?”

I steal a glance at her. There’s no judgment on her face; she’s just watching me. “Good dreams. That’s the problem. Waking up makes me sad. Then tonight I thought I saw him on the square, so apparently he’s taking over my waking hours too.”

“Oh.” She raises and lowers her brows. Makes circles with her own bottle. “I can see why you’d call that haunting.”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “I liked things better the way they were. Peaceful.”

She nods slowly. “What’s really bothering you about it? You seem kinda shook. Not like you.”

“It was exactly like me for a whole year after he left.” I finish my beer. “I can’t do that again.”

Back in high school, I had told her about the bad times. She saw me rebuild myself. Force health and strength back into the body I’d despised and starved half to death.

Her eyes are alert now. “You eating okay?”

“I think so.” So far. But I’m afraid this mental bs will be followed by starvation bs, just like last time.

She meets my gaze steadily. “I think you’ll be okay. Something else probably triggered those memories. They’ll die down, or you’ll figure out what it’s about and how to handle it.”

I frown into my empty bottle. “That makes sense. I have been pretty…frustrated lately. That’s probably it. Reminded me of a time when I had somebody…” Okay, this is a relief. I’m not losing it. This is just some kind of temporary triggering. I can handle that.

She’s grinning her I’m-about-to-be-a-pain-in-the-ass grin as she tilts back her own bottle and drains it.

“What?” May as well ask—she’s going to tell me anyway. There’s a reason I channel Andi for my daily affirmations.

She pulls out her phone, types something into it, and slides it across the table to me.

On the screen is a storefront. An Asheville sex-toy shop storefront.

She taps the screen with one elegant finger. “And if your…dissatisfaction…doesn’t go away, well, we’ll just take a field trip. See if we can’t find you something to distract you from your troubles.”