by Alie Garnett
“She must have loved art school.” He could see her there, talking colors with her like-minded friends.
“She quit after three weeks. No explanation. Then Mom had Violet, and Agatha was her nanny until Violet went to school. Agatha bartended at night usually.” Lucy shifted her ingredients around.
“What are we talking about?” Harper interrupted as she came into the room, carrying more food.
“Just telling Chris about Agatha and art school,” Lucy told her sister.
“I don’t remember her going to art school,” Harper said.
“You were in France. It only lasted a few weeks. Then she was home,” Lucy said.
“See? I missed too much being over there,” Harper complained.
“Did Agatha say why she didn’t go to graduation?” he asked innocently.
“Nope, but that does sound like Agatha to quit school with only a week to go. They had to mail her a diploma,” Lucy said with a laugh.
“You’re right,” said Harper. “I didn’t come home for her graduation. I came home when Violet was born.” She laughed at her sister’s antics.
“Did Agatha miscarry the day Violet was born?” Violet’s story had bothered him for weeks now, and he had to ask.
“What?” Lucy turned to him in shock.
“No!” Harper stated. “Who told you that?”
“Violet said something about it. It seemed so real the way she talked about the baby,” Chris stated. Her conviction was what had made him feel it was true.
“Violet is nine and has no idea what a miscarriage is. Also, if it happened the day she was born, she would have no clue,” Lucy stated.
“That’s what I was hoping. I didn’t want Agatha to have gone through that,” he answered with relief. Lucy was right; Violet would have no idea, and there was no way Agatha was pregnant nine years ago. He knew her nine years ago.
“What did Violet say?” Harper grabbed a towel and wiped her hands as she rounded the island and sat on a stool farthest from his.
“Nothing really. Just that her invisible friend is Agatha’s baby and that she was mad her mom told her about Poppy in front of him because he disappeared.”
“I think she made it all up,” Harper stated. “Kids tell stories.”
“I hope so,” Chris said.
The room fell silent, and Harper got back up to help her sister. Within minutes they were discussing the event they were planning the next day, forgetting that he was even there. He let them and just listened for any word of Agatha, but there were none.
Not wanting to be in the way, he said goodbye and reminded them that he wanted to talk to Agatha. Both said they would say something to her, but he didn’t know them well enough to know if they would or not.
It was two hours later that he remembered the valentine. Running upstairs, he grabbed it and took it across the street. Both sisters were sitting in the living room watching TV, not cooking at all anymore. But the house smelled like chocolate and lemon. It was heavenly.
“Can one of you do me a favor?” he asked. He hadn’t knocked, and they hadn’t cared.
“What?” Lucy tipped her head back and looked up at him like an annoyed sister would.
“Can you give Agatha this? But tell her that I want it back one day. No burning it, no throwing it, no ripping it up,” he said.
Lucy sat up and looked at him.
“We’re mean people, but not that mean. What is it?” Harper asked.
Handing the card to them, he watched them both look at it and then at him. “You kept this?”
“Yes, she made it. It’s special. Nobody had given me a handmade valentine before.”
“We’ll get it back to you,” Lucy swore and wiped a tear from her eye.
“Thank you. I know she thinks I don’t remember her, but I do. I remember so much. I just want to tell her,” he said and walked away. All he could do was hope that they passed the message on to their sister.
He was quickly running out of options on getting her back. If her sisters wouldn’t help, he knew he had no chance with her. Once his house was complete, he would have no reason to stay and wait for her. Time would be up.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Poppy was finally asleep. Sure, the borrowed bed had blue sheets and blankets, but she didn’t care—a nursery was a nursery. Running a hand over the baby-soft curls on Poppy’s head, she missed the man who gave her the curls.
Yesterday, Harper had told her that Chris wanted to talk to her, but she didn’t push her to call him. She just had a message. She also asked if Chris made fun of her in kindergarten, but Agatha couldn’t remember anything that far back.
Leaving her baby in the nursery, she went to her assigned bedroom, far away from the master. It was up to Buzz and Jonas to get Poppy if she woke up in the night. They needed the practice, and she didn’t want to be close enough to hear anything.
Sitting back in her bed, she grabbed the sketchpad she had brought. Though she couldn’t draw her books in it, she could sketch how she wanted her next book to go. Creating ideas for her next story wasn’t as easy as one would think, especially after she’d just finished one.
As she erased a skunk, her bedroom door burst open. Expecting to see Buzz, she was surprised when Harper and Lucy walked into the room, Buzz following behind.
“We have to talk, Agatha,” Harper stated angrily.
“What did I do?” she asked. She had done a lot in the last few weeks, and more over the last few years. Pinning down what she had done wrong in their eyes this time was going to be hard.
“First, Chris gave us this today to give to you. A peace offering.” Lucy handed her the piece of paper she had been holding carefully.
Looking at the paper, Agatha was confused for a half a second, and then realized it was the valentine she had given him years before. Somebunny did love him. She had. At the time, she was sure he had thrown it away. She watched him throw all his valentines away that afternoon, but he had kept hers.
“Thanks,” she mumbled as she stared at it in disbelief.
“Are you still that somebunny, Agatha?” Harper sat on the bed.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not what he wants; never have been. And now he knows who I am.” She put the card in her sketchpad and closed it.
“He seems to still like you, Agatha. He said he loved you today.” Lucy crawled under the covers next to her, leaned against the headboard, and put an arm around Agatha.
“Once his friends find out, he’ll forget about what he said,” Agatha told them.
“Not this time. He isn’t a kid anymore, Agatha,” Harper stated, sitting down but still a bit angry with her.
“I can’t do it again,” Agatha replied, fighting back tears. She didn’t want to cry in front of her sisters.
“Maybe you won’t have to. Maybe he won’t break your heart this time.” Lucy squeezed her.
“He already did,” Agatha whispered.
“I don’t know. I think you ran off on him. I think his heart is broken too,” Harper stated.
“He’ll get on with his life; he always does,” Agatha told her. This had happened before.
“Not this time. Cliff wants to buy Chris’s house, and his only reaction was sadness. That house is his only connection to you.” Harper squeezed her foot.
“At least he’ll be gone soon.” Agatha’s heart hurt saying the words.
“Why did you quit high school, Agatha?” Harper folded her arms.
“Because I was done. I just stayed home that day; it was the last week anyway. I wasn’t good at it and didn’t want to pretend to care anymore. A week wasn’t going to make a difference,” Agatha repeated the same thing she had told her mom so many years before.
“That’s not what I remember. I remember you went to school that morning, and then you left. Your friend, Dayle, asked where you had gone, and I said you were at school, but she said you never came to class,” Buzz said.
“It’s been a few years. I can’t remember all
the details,” Agatha lied. There were just too many sisters in this little room asking her questions she didn’t want to answer.
“Stop it, Agatha. Why did you quit school?” Harper asked again. As the oldest, she was always in charge of the interrogations. It was a job Agatha longed for.
“Was it because of Chris?” Lucy asked carefully.
Agatha was silent under the pressure, too silent.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Buzz said with a smirk before pushing Agatha toward Lucy and sliding under the covers herself. Now there were three sisters leaning against the headboard, focused on Agatha. Somehow, Agatha knew that none of them would be her ally in this interrogation.
“No,” Agatha deflected again.
“Yes. Tell.” Harper pinched her leg, hard.
Pulling her leg to her chest she then admitted, “We danced at a party, and his friends made fun of me.”
“Why would they make fun of you? Wouldn’t his friends make fun of him?” Lucy asked.
She glared at her sister. “I am the artsy weirdo, Lucy. Not him.”
“But they were his friends, so they were making fun of him for being with you. He was their target. Besides, his friends making fun of you isn’t his fault,” Harper said as she frowned at her.
“It doesn’t matter.” Agatha pulled her other leg up so that Harper couldn’t pinch that one either.
“So one dance and poof, he’s an asshole.” Buzz made a hand motion like something exploded.
“Yes.”
“Liar. What else happened?” Harper stated, inching her hand toward Agatha’s feet.
“Nothing,” Agatha said, trying to move her feet farther from her sister’s pinchy fingers.
Harper stopped moving her hands and stared at her little sister for a moment, then stated in excitement, “You had sex with him. At the party?”
“No,” Agatha lied badly.
“No wonder he poofed into an asshole,” Buzz said, ignoring her.
“Was he your first?” Lucy asked with interest.
“Not talking about it,” Agatha stated.
“Okay, so he was her first. It must have been at that party, and he was bad at it. Really bad,” Lucy stated, nodding with enthusiasm.
“He wasn’t bad,” Agatha admitted before slapping her hand to her mouth. Suddenly, she was not very good at keeping her own secrets.
“How did he poof into an asshole then?” Buzz asked.
“He said that he wanted to date me. Nothing was set up, but we were going to be a couple,” Agatha admitted the truth. Even to her, it sounded childish, but she had been a child when it happened.
“Yup, that’s an asshole thing to do. That’s why I didn’t date high schoolers in high school,” Lucy told the group with a giggle.
Harper turned to her. “Yes, you did, all the time.”
“The poof, Agatha?” Buzz turned back to her.
“On Monday, he was talking to his friends, and they were asking about me. They heard we were together, and he told them I was—” She stopped. She didn’t want to hear the words again.
“What?” Lucy pulled her closer to her.
“That I was good enough to fuck, but he would never date me.” Agatha let the tears fall at the words that had destroyed her years before, words that still hung between them. Because no matter what happened between them over the last few months, they had never been on a date. Everything that had happened had been behind closed doors.
Chapter Thirty-Four
By morning there were more cars in front of Agatha’s house. He saw a Land Rover and the white Jeep, so he knew it must be Lucy and Harper. Once again, Chris decided to go over to see if Agatha would talk to him. His morning call to her went unanswered, as had his one the night before.
In the house, he headed for the voices in the kitchen. Harper was the first to notice him. She was elbows deep in the bowl of something slimy and brown and was not happy to see him at all.
“Get out of here, asshole,” she spat out as she pulled a piece of something from the bowl and slammed it on the baking pan in front of her. Splattering herself with the slime as she did it.
“You heard her,” Lucy said as she peeled potatoes.
“Did you talk to her?” he demanded It looked like everybody was in a bad mood today.
“Yes, and you are a fucking asshole. Leave.” Lucy actually through a potato at his head, a whole potato.
“Can I at least know why I’m an asshole?” He put up his arms to fend off another flying vegetable.
“Something about my sister not being good enough for your friends!” Harper reached into the bowl, and he hoped she wasn’t in the throwing mood as well.
“I messed up! I was eighteen! I didn’t know her address, and she never came back to school so that I could apologize.” This time he let a potato hit him in the chest in hopes that the chicken Harper was mixing didn’t come his way.
“So you admit you said it. Did you mean it?” Lucy demanded, another potato in her hand.
“No! I liked her for years. She was the one who didn’t notice me. We weren’t friends or anything, but I knew her and liked her,” he admitted, and this time, no potato came his way.
“Prove it,” Harper said.
“How?” he asked. It wasn’t like he had anything in writing.
“Anything,” Lucy said, tossing a potato in the air and catching it.
“Okay. When we were in the fifth grade, she had a Smurf backpack, and I wrote my initials on it in blue. I didn’t think it would be so obvious since I wrote in blue marker, but it was. She never knew it was me who did it.” He shrugged. It wasn’t as if they would believe him, and the backpack was in a landfill somewhere by now.
Harper quickly went to the sink and washed her hands. “Why did you write your initials on it?”
“Because we had the same initials. I was going to write CL + CL but accidentally wrote CAL. I didn’t know her middle name and chickened out on writing the rest.” He watched the blonde leave the room, still drying her hands.
“Okay, what else?” Lucy asked, not caring that her sister had left.
“I was going to ask her to the big fall fifth-grade dance but also chickened out on that,” Chris said, wishing he had not been such an idiot back then. He wouldn’t be standing there trying to prove he had feelings for Agatha if he had just not been so scared then.
Harper rushed back into the kitchen and tossed a blue bag on the table and said, “Prove it.”
Looking down at the bag, he actually questioned whether he had done what he remembered doing. After all, it had been over half a lifetime ago. Grabbing the bag, he flipped it over and was relieved his younger self had made such a bold statement.
Pointing to the letters, Chris wondered why this was important. He didn’t even know if Agatha ever knew what he’d written. A few weeks later, she’d come to school with a red backpack. He had never seen the blue one again. Until now.
“Right here.” He pointed the letters out, still just as visible as when he had written them.
Lucy picked it up and kind of squinted at it and asked, “Is he right?”
“Yes, but I didn’t need the backpack to prove it. The bag was mine. I beat the tar out of her for writing on it after she swore she didn’t. Agatha can’t not draw on things. But in my defense, CAL are also her initials, just not the correct order.” Harper plunged her hands back into the bowl of slime.
“Did you talk to her?” he asked once again, hoping that this was proof enough to get past these two gatekeepers. He wanted to talk to Agatha, not her sisters. He wanted to prove to her that he’d always liked her, not just now.
“Yes, and you are an asshole,” Lucy said, going back to her peeling.
“I know that, but I need to talk to her and explain that I love her.”
“She thinks once your friends know about her, you’ll dump her again,” Harper stated, slapping another chicken into the slime.
“No, I want to marry her.” It was the t
ruth. It had just taken her leaving to get him to admit how much he wanted her and for how long.
“What?” Harper asked, dropping a chicken on her shoe. She kicked it off and looked at the slimy thing.
“I never want to be without her. I want her and Poppy in my life forever.”
“But Poppy isn’t your kid.” Harper looked at her sister warily. Tough crowd.
“I don’t care; she is Agatha’s kid, and I knew the night she brought Poppy home that if I wanted Agatha, I had to take Poppy too. I knew I wanted Agatha, so accepting the kid was easy. It doesn’t hurt that she looks just like her gorgeous mother,” Chris said.
Both women were staring at him like he had grown another head. Did they not think he would want the baby? Did they think that low of him?
“So, she thinks I care what my friends think? That it would change my feelings for her?” he asked.
“Yes,” Lucy admitted, turning from her sister finally.
“Does she still work for you? Can you get her to work for you?” he asked the two.
“We can.” Harper crossed her arms.
“Then I want to hire you,” he stated. An idea started forming in his mind.
“When?” Harper pulled her hands away and looked at her slimy shirt and jeans as if she had forgotten how dirty her hands were.
“I need a week,” he said. “Call me when you have an open date. Serve anything or nothing. I don’t care. I just want her there.”
Chris hurried out of the house. He was on a mission, a mission to get the love of his life back.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Saturday morning dawned like any other, except they had gathered at Harper’s, they were not eating leftovers, and nobody was in their pajamas. Oh, and the fact that there were three husbands in the living room.
Sadly, all combined, the breakfast felt completely different and completely off. Today there were four babies present, three of which were in the living room; only Poppy was welcome in the kitchen. Agatha assumed it was because she was a girl and not because they were treating Agatha differently because her baby’s father was not there.