She reached over and scooped some laundry to fold.
“Are you going to talk about what’s true? Like you weren’t part of that deception with my parents?”
She finished her towel and added it to my stack. “I didn’t agree with their decision to not tell you, and I was honest with them about that. In fact, your father wasn’t so convinced that not saying anything was the right thing to do. But your mother was insistent. I had to respect their right to make that decision,” she said.
“Then why are you here? You’re going to pat me on the head and tell me it’s all going to work out? To apologize to my parents? That God has a special plan for my life? Because He doesn’t. And if this is His idea of being special, forget it. I’ll take average. Mediocre. Anything but special.”
My grandmother and I called a temporary truce. Her closing remark was something along the lines of not ignoring my faith or not having faith just because “your mother sleeps with a Bible under her pillow and expects it’ll move her to the front of the line at the Second Coming.”
We made a deal that if I ran errands for her, thereby getting myself out of the house, we could pretend that today was “just another day.” She never asked what I meant earlier by getting out of the house, and I decided it was a topic best left until after the papers were signed.
She handed me a grocery list, tickets for her clothes the cleaner was holding hostage, and her credit card with instructions to come back with a full tank of gas and lunch for both of us, which didn’t come between two slices of bread.
Almost two hours later, I opened my front door and was stunned. The bags holding our lunches almost slipped through my hands from the shock of what I’d come home to.
I smelled something foreign.
Lemon and ginger and clean house.
During the time I’d been away, Ruthie cleaned my entire house. Including folding all of Wyatt’s clothes, then placing them in orderly rows in the closet.
For the first time in months, my wood floors gleamed, my kitchen sparkled, even the granite countertops winked at me. And the dust mites seemed to have been evicted.
All of the groceries I carted in, she had intended for my pantry and refrigerator, not hers.
Looking at her, I understood where my mother inherited her capacity to look like she’d just stepped out of a model shoot, even though she’d been toiling in the trenches. The only evidence that Ruthie had moved from her place on the sofa where I’d left her were a few damp tendrils framing her face and her sleeves rolled to her elbows.
I didn’t cry.
I sobbed.
Because when someone knew that all the chaos in your spirit was reflected in the mess that surrounded you and quietly restored your dignity, how else could you thank them?
Ruthie and I demolished our lunches of ribs and green salads with smoked-tomato-and-onion dressing, but left room for the raspberry frangipane tarts I couldn’t resist picking up from Angelo Brocato’s Bakery. I reached in the cabinet for dessert plates and, thanks to my pods, brewed two cups of coffee for us.
“I had to go into the bakery,” I confessed, setting her mug on the table. “There wasn’t a line.” I knew she’d laugh along with me.
Opened over a hundred years ago, the bakery was home to generations of loyal customers who didn’t mind standing outside on sultry summer days or nights for pastries and specialty gelatos, like St. Joseph Chocolate Almond.
I apologized to Ruthie for dumping my anger at my parents, and Wyatt, for that matter, on her. My grandmother was my soul supporter; she listened to my childish rants, my teenage rages, and now, my adult drama.
“I don’t want to know what I’d do if I couldn’t talk to you,” I said. “You’ve been a friend with benefits. Except that the benefit is you’re my grandmother.”
“Glad you clarified that. I almost had the vapors,” she said, her hand patting her chest. “Oh, before I forget, I brought you a little happy.” She found her purse and picked out a small box wrapped with brown paper and twine. “And don’t tell me that I didn’t need to do this. I know I didn’t need to; I wanted to.”
Inside was a sterling silver bangle bracelet engraved with my first name. “It’s lovely. Thank you.” I started to wiggle it on when she placed her hand over mine and stopped me.
“Before you do that,” she said, “read the inside, then let me explain.”
That was curious, but then so was Ruthie. I turned the bracelet and read aloud, “‘Be still, and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10.’” I didn’t verbalize my confusion as to why my grandmother chose a Bible verse, but I guessed she expected that response.
“For almost my entire life, I’ve held on to those words when I had nothing else to hold on to. They make me remember I’m not God, and I’m also not the boss of Him. They’re God’s way of telling me, ‘Sit down, Ruthie, be quiet.’ Mind you, I still have to take some personal initiative. The good news is it doesn’t all depend on me. When I run out of me, there’s God saying, ‘Chill out. I got this one.’ I’m not trying to push God on you. I just want to push Him in front of you. I wasted too many years thinking God had an A-list, and they were all partying on an island I’d never heard of and never been invited to. Took me a while to realize the invitation had been there all along. I just needed to open it.” She kissed me on my forehead. “I wanted you to have and be a part of something important to me.”
“Knowing all that makes this even more special,” I said as I slid the bracelet over my hand and onto my wrist. “Are you sure this is the same God my mother talks about? This isn’t some new and improved God 2.0?”
“I’m not exactly sure what that point system means,” Ruthie said, picking up our plates and mugs from lunch and setting them in the sink, “but I am sure that it’s not God who changes.”
CHAPTER 13
Ruthie left, and I celebrated my picture-perfect, lemon-ginger-scented house by taking a guilt-free nap, then returned Mia’s call.
A phone conversation with Mia when Lily was tired reminded me of trying to talk to my father during football games.
Pointless.
By the time the commercials interrupted the action, giving me a few minutes of opportunity, I’d either forgotten what I wanted to talk about or it had lost its urgency.
Only Lily didn’t understand the concept of commercial breaks. Her breaks between fussing were arbitrary and allowed us barely sixty seconds of talking. Between the whining, rants, and sighs—and those were mostly all Mia—we patched together a conversation.
“We’ve been interviewing nannies, and a Mrs. Doubtfire’s nowhere to be found. Some of them want more money than Bryce and I both earn. One of them asked if we had a summer home and would we provide an annual bonus. Bryce wants to install nanny cams in almost every room in the house and hire someone to do a background check. I’m beginning to wonder if I can work from home or not work at all.” Mia paused. “Hold on. Lily’s opened the refrigerator, and she’s dragging her stool in that direction. This can’t be good.”
From what I could discern on my end, it wasn’t. Mia spat out no like bullets out of a machine gun, while Lily requested almost every item on the shelves in front of her. I considered hanging up and trying again later when I heard, “Look, Lily, it’s Daddy!” Judging by her voice, Mia sounded more delighted than Lily.
Bryce’s arrival rescued both of them. He promised we’d be interruption-free if Mia would take over later so he could go for a run.
“No problem. Thank you. Kiss. Kiss,” Mia said in what I recognized as her mommy voice. I wasn’t sure if that voice was delivered along with the baby, but it had been around since Lily’s birth. A door closed, followed by a heavy sigh. “Okay, they’re off. Now, what’s going on?”
I filled her in on my trip to Wyatt’s accident site, the drama of the baby gift, listing the house, and the surprise of Evan’s brother delivering dinner. “I’m thinking maybe I need to drive back to the town, you know, where I picked up the accident report�
�”
“And what? Walk into places, show pictures of Wyatt and ask, ‘Do you know this man?’ You don’t have time for that. Plus, in a few months you’re going to be waddling in with your pregnant self . . . I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mia said.
“I know. I can’t even drag myself to get a manicure.” I examined my ragged cuticles and fingernails, remembering Amanda’s magazine-ready hands. “I just don’t even know where to start getting answers. Do you think maybe Colin might know something?” I hated hearing myself ask that question. “I don’t mean like he’s hiding anything. Just, well, he probably knows people Wyatt knew that I don’t . . .”
“If Colin knew anything about that baby gift, he would’ve told me or Bryce. He wouldn’t have wanted you to find out about that from a stranger. I’ll ask him again if you want me to, but he wouldn’t keep secrets like that from us or from you.”
I heard an unfamiliar defensiveness in Mia’s voice. Maybe my desperation sounded like mistrust. “You’re right. Sometimes I just need to hear myself ask the obvious.”
“Look, if you really want answers, why don’t you stop trying to do this on your own and hire a private investigator?”
“I doubt Richard Castle’s available to take my case. Don’t you?” One of those times I hoped humor would mask my fear.
“I’m serious, Livvy. What you’re doing isn’t working, and you’re making yourself crazy. Crazier. What do you have to lose?”
Everything.
As long as I didn’t know the truth, I could delude myself into believing any number of scenarios. But once I did, that was it. Kind of like being pregnant. You either are or you aren’t. There’s no “sort of” pregnant. And there’s no “sort of” truth. I was already living with one. I didn’t know if I was ready for the other.
“Money?” I squeaked out.
“Hmmm. Guess you’ll have to decide how much the truth is worth.”
More than I was willing to pay emotionally. That was a truth I was sure of.
Selling our house felt like selling Wyatt’s dream.
We used the money we’d saved for him to enroll in culinary school to buy the house. But our intention was that the house would be an investment, one that we could sell to redeem that dream when the time came.
That time almost came.
But now it never would.
Even before we talked marriage, we talked cooking schools so Wyatt could one day open his own restaurant. The highly regarded International Culinary Center in New York cost as much as a mid-level priced BMW. And that was for six hundred hours. When we tripped across the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at a university in Thibodaux, we laughed. At first. Then we realized that if a woman one year shy of being one hundred can graduate from college, surely Wyatt had a chance to finish what he’d started before his parents passed away.
He was in the middle of his freshman year at the University of New Orleans when his parents died driving home from visiting friends in north Louisiana. Wyatt’s GPA plummeted, and he lost the tuition opportunity program that made it possible for him to attend college. His father, a housepainter, and his mother, a bank teller, had struggled financially. The only insurance policy his mother had was a small one from work, barely enough to cover funeral expenses.
That’s when Colin swooped in to save him by getting him a job as a waiter at Jean Lafitte’s in the French Quarter. But it was in the kitchen watching the chefs that Wyatt found his passion. Or, as he would always tell me, his “first passion,” the one that led him to me.
Amanda and I sat side by side at my kitchen table, each of us with a cup of coffee, a peach scone, and determination.
“You’re ready?” She handed me a pen.
“Let’s do this,” I said, took a deep breath, looked at my new bracelet, and signed.
She slid papers out of her folder one by one.
Slide. Sign. Slide. Sign. Slide.
“So . . . how far along are you?” she asked me.
I kept signing. “Not far enough. I have no idea where I want to live, and I haven’t even thought about packing.”
“Oh, of course . . .”
I looked up, and she blushed.
“That’s not what you meant, was it?” I handed her the last sheet.
She made a ceremony out of making sure the papers were aligned. “Olivia, I’m so sorry. That was intrusive of me—”
“How did you know?” I smiled so she’d know she hadn’t upset me.
Amanda’s shoulders relaxed as she leaned against the back of the chair. “It’s always been something I sense. I’ve been wrong, but usually it’s because the woman I ask doesn’t even know yet. But as soon as we sat here, I felt positive you were pregnant, and since the feeling didn’t go away . . .” She clasped my hands in hers. “For whatever it’s worth, I always knew my sister was pregnant before she did. And you look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“For . . . ?”
“For not telling me everything was going to be okay or saying ‘omigod, whatareyougoing-todo’ or ‘God never gives you a cross so big, blahblahblah.’”
She laughed. “I’m going to give you permission to borrow my sister’s answer to the ‘cross so big.’ Brelyn flashes her sweetest smile and says, ‘You’re so right, and I’m guessing He must have sent you to help me carry it.’” Amanda shook her head. “I always regret I’m not around when she says it.”
“That one’s worth writing down,” I said.
“I’m certain she wouldn’t mind sharing it,” she said.
She scanned everything I’d signed. Her manicured nails, the color of raspberry sherbet, scurried down each page and stopped at my signature. “Okay, we’re all set. The sign’s in my car, and I’ll put it up on the way out.”
We stood, and she hugged me.
“And Olivia,” she said, her hands on my shoulders, “I really believe it’s true . . . what my sister says about people coming along to help. They’re not always who we expect them to be, but they show up.”
It had been weeks since I had a reason to look in the mirror to do more than brush my teeth. I finished my makeup and stepped back. “Well, there you are.” After feeling invisible for so long, it was almost startling to see the transformation.
I hadn’t cut my shoulder-length hair before the wedding so my stylist could perform his updo magic: a side braid with a bun, twisted tresses, and tendrils. I kept my head down so long while he worked, I thought I’d be staring at my navel for life. Now my hair was even longer, and it framed my face like curtains. With my highlights fading, the color reminded me of the brown paper bags my mother had used for my school lunches. I pulled it all into a low ponytail, trying to put my professional on for my appointment with Cara. And, lucky me, to be able to wear leggings with a ruffled tunic. Totally in fashion and totally hiding the baby bump.
I managed to have myself business-ready two hours after Amanda hammered down the For Sale sign in the front yard. Any other day walking outside and watching cars crawl by my house, passengers staring out their windows, I’d be flattered or neurotic, depending on my appearance. This afternoon, I would have been more surprised not to see a few house-hungry buyers cruising the street. One car had parked across the street, and a couple stood on the sidewalk and waved to me as I slipped into my car.
Virtual Strategies’ office had been carved out of a renovated old warehouse repurposed into commercial units. With exposed brick walls, concrete floors, industrial lighting, and office furniture the color of Skittles, the space elicited the wow factor that Cara and Alice counted on.
The last time I’d been here was the week before the wedding, my arms and Wyatt’s cradling wedding presents from the office shower as we walked to the Jeep. Later, my grandmother had tried to return the gifts, but they weren’t having it. Alice told her I could return them all for gift cards, toss the breakables off the roof, whatever I wanted to do with them. Except give them back.
I was supposed
to return post-honeymoon. Somewhat tanned, armed with hundreds of boring photos, and officially Mrs. Wyatt Hammond.
Instead, I came back zero out of three.
CHAPTER 14
Cara twirled from side to side in her green ergonomic desk chair. In her tan linen dress, she looked like a tall, thin reed pressed against someone’s lawn. With the intensity of a five-year-old, she poked through the chocolate stash she hid in her desk to avoid the tirades from the office anti-sugar groupies and looked as delighted as one when she found a Tootsie Roll. “Want one? They’re my new drug of choice.”
“No, but thanks. So, my new job title would be Reputation Manager?” I crossed my legs and tapped my foot on the floor, regretting I hadn’t stopped in the bathroom. How could something not quite the size of a kumquat be the boss of my bladder? “Is this a title you and Alice invented to legitimize my salary?”
“We’re a start-up, remember? Eliminating a salary would make more sense for us right now than inventing a reason for one. Here’s the thing we’re finding out. Since most of our clients are fledgling businesses like ours, they don’t have the time to monitor all the social media that can impact their bottom line. But they can’t ignore it, especially if it’s a hit to their business they can’t recover from. After we do our work establishing their brand, giving them a public face, somebody needs to make sure it’s kept clean.”
“Like the vacation rental owners who were posting on Facebook about their house being haunted, then asking us why the number of inquiries was decreasing?”
“Yes!” She’d found another Tootsie Roll, so I wasn’t sure if she was agreeing with me or cheering for her success. “Exactly. Would that make you want to stay there?”
I shook my head. “No. No. And no.”
“Here’s the best part. You can work from home for as long as you need. Most of this work involves you and your laptop. At first, you’ll probably want to meet with the business owners, maybe even schedule a workshop with their employees about social media. If we absolutely need you here, we’ll let you know.”
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