by Lucy Score
Aldo watched his friend for a beat, shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Maybe I should talk to Harper?” Gloria ventured.
But Aldo was closing his hand over hers. “Come with me.”
He pulled her away from the table, telling everyone they were going to browse the desserts, and proceeded to drag her straight out the back door.
Once on the porch, he took his time backing her against the wall. Gloria suddenly couldn’t remember what they were talking about. “What’s this for?” she asked, when he kissed her sweetly.
“To soften the blow when I tell you that you’re not responsible for the mood of the room.”
“What are you talking about? I just have a bad feeling about what’s going on between them.”
“Glo, listen to me.” He put his hands on her shoulders, squeezed gently. “Whatever’s going on, it’s not your job to fix it or make it better. It’s not your job to make everybody happy.”
“That’s not what… Well, hell.” That’s exactly what she’d been doing. What she always did.
“I get it,” Aldo pressed on. “You take responsibility for how other people feel because those feelings were taken out on you again and again. But you aren’t responsible for other people’s happiness. You’re in charge of your own, and you’re doing a damn good job with it. But you can’t go in that house and make Harper and Luke happy.”
“But there’s something clearly going on with them,” she argued. Aldo was taking apart the way she lived her life, the way she interacted with everyone she met. She thought back, recalling her parents’ fights. Remembering how she’d draw them special pictures of their family, holding hands and smiling like she wanted them to. If she could just get better grades or score that goal in soccer…they’d be happy. They’d be proud. If she could just get dinner on the table faster or fold the laundry the way he liked it, he’d be happy.
“Honey.” Aldo cupped her face. “None of it’s your fault. And it’s not your job to fix it.”
She closed her eyes and let out a long slow breath. “That’s a lot to process.”
“When you try to fix things for other people, you’re basically saying you don’t believe in their ability to fix it themselves. You’re telling them you don’t believe in them. Respect them. Trust them.”
“But what if they don’t fix it? What if they keep making mistakes?” Luke’s words in the dining room came back to her.
“That’s on them. What are they going to learn if they just do what you tell them to do?”
“Huh.” Gloria blinked, processed. “That makes an odd amount of sense.”
He laughed.
“You can’t control everything and everyone. You can’t make everything perfect and everyone happy. You can be happy and make good choices for yourself.”
She felt the weight of a thousand burdens slide off her shoulders and land on the porch boards at her feet. “I really don’t have to fix everything?”
He shook his head. “Only the things you break.”
72
They unanimously decided to leave the dishes for later and run off some of the food with a friendly game of football. As with all Garrison games, the friendly pick-up fun quickly turned into a skirmish.
Aldo was used to the way things operated. He hoped that a quick game of flag football would help pull Harper and Luke out of whatever funk they were in. Not just because he didn’t want to see them at odds with each other but because it bothered Gloria. If he wasn’t careful, he’d start running in front of Gloria trying to neaten and tidy everything and everyone up.
Aldo, Gloria, Luke, and Harper squared off in the backyard against Ty, Sophie, and James. He and Luke quickly fell back into the groove of calling plays and dodging defenders. Gloria and Harper were laughing at Sophie’s trash talk.
Claire was safely out of earshot, so the siblings let loose all the “fucks” they’d kept bottled up during the nice family meal. With the trash talking, the action intensified, too. After Luke criticized Harper’s lackluster defense, she jumped on James’s back and hung on for dear life as he caught the long bomb Ty threw.
James, always one to show off, spun her around to his front and tossed Harper over his shoulder, running the length of the “field” with Harper laughing and threatening to throw up on him.
The fun ended there. When James put Harper on her feet, Luke hit him full speed.
“What the hell, man?” James shoved back. In the span of a second, they were on the ground wrestling.
“Fuck,” Aldo muttered.
“Luke!” Harper’s sharp tone didn’t register to the grown men acting like idiots grappling on the ground.
Sophie smacked Ty in the chest. “What are you waiting for, Mr. Law and Order? Get in there and break it up.”
“Soph,” he said mournfully. “I just ate three plates of turkey in there. I can’t bend over.”
Aldo took one look at Gloria’s stricken face and waded in. “Knock it off,” he ordered, dragging Luke off his brother and shoving him toward the patio. “Cool off before you make a bigger ass of yourself.”
“What’s your problem?” James called after his brother, looking more confused than pissed off. Aldo pulled him to his feet.
Harper crossed her arms against the November chill, and Gloria put an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “He’s been drinking. A lot,” Harper told them. “I don’t know what’s going on with him.”
Sophie shook her head. “You better find out before Mom catches wind of this. She’ll want to hook him up with a therapist next.”
“That’s way worse than a spanking,” Aldo said, winking at Gloria. If it worked for her and him, it would probably work for Luke. Maybe he’d feel him out, browbeat him if necessary. But for now, he was taking Gloria home.
“Best Thanksgiving ever,” Gloria said, reaching up to spoon feed Aldo a bite of pumpkin pie. He reciprocated by spraying a dollop of whipped cream directly into her mouth. Ivan pranced over, swatted at the pie plate, and then flopped over to bite the rug.
The fire burned low where they lounged naked under blankets and pillows in front of it. The November chill and Harper and Luke’s problems were far, far away. He himself had also come quite far, he realized, noting his prosthesis propped against the ottoman.
“Agreed,” Aldo said, sliding a hand down Gloria’s bare back. He wondered if he’d ever have his fill of touching her. Of learning her body. His fingers found the small scar on the curve of her hip and danced over it before skating back up her ribs.
“I wondered what your plan was when you asked me to make pie and then told me to leave it here,” Gloria said, stretching her arms over her head and sighing.
“From now on, this is how I want to end every Thanksgiving,” Aldo announced. “A new tradition.”
“Is that so?” Gloria purred. She reached out to ruffle Ivan’s fur and snickered when the cat tried to eat her hand. Ivan puffed up and then turned tail, running up the stairs and sounding like a small pony.
“I think it would be a little easier if you lived here though. Or we could move into your apartment. Or buy a different house,” Aldo mused.
Gloria went still and quiet in his arms.
“I’m trying to be really suave and romantic and ask you to move in with me,” he said after a few more seconds of silence.
“Me? Us? Move in together?”
“You don’t have to decide now. You can think about it.” This was not how he’d pictured it going. He should have practiced what he was going to say, not blurted it out between gobs of whipped cream.
“Yes.”
“Yes, you want to think about it?”
“No, yes I want to move in with you.”
“Wait, there was a no and a yes in there.” It was very important that Gloria clarify exactly what she meant.
She twisted in his arms, pressing her breasts to his chest as they tipped backwards. “Yes, I want to move in with you. I love you. I love this house. I even love that monste
r parading as a kitten.”
Holding her to him, he rolled her onto her back. “You’re not just saying that to make me happy, are you?”
She grinned at him, and his heart picked up the pace. He was going to marry this woman and make a family with her here within the walls he’d built and she’d painted. But first, he was going to lick whipped cream off every inch of her body.
73
“Luke broke up with Harper, and no one knows where she is.”
Sophie’s announcement upon sweeping into Blooms had the effect of a record scratch to Gloria. All the glow of Thanksgiving and Aldo’s invitation to move in disappeared like a bubble popping.
“I’m going to have to call you back,” Della, her boss, said into the phone.
“What? What happened?” Gloria asked. “Things seemed strained yesterday but not this bad.”
“According to my chickenshit asshat of a brother, it wasn’t working out, and they wanted different things.”
“Oh my God. This is awful,” Gloria said. “And he doesn’t know where she is?”
“He basically kicked her out last night. On Thanksgiving! We need to find her. Once we do, I’m going to kill my brother and make Harper fall in love with James so I can keep her in the family.”
Gloria fished her phone out of her apron pocket. No messages from Harper.
“I’ll call Hannah. Maybe Harper went there,” she told Sophie.
“Good thinking. I’m going to do another loop around town. See if she ran out of gas in any parking lots.” It was how Harper came to Benevolence and how she’d happened to save Gloria’s life. Now it was Gloria’s turn to find her friend and help her.
“Della?” Gloria turned to her boss.
“You go on now. Go help your friend. I’ll close up tonight.”
“Thank you,” Gloria said, already dialing Hannah’s number.
Hannah hadn’t heard from Harper in a few days and was as shocked about the breakup as the rest of them. After making Hannah promise to call her if she heard anything, Gloria got in her car to do what Sophie was doing.
She fired off a quick text to Aldo and prayed that he’d at least heard from Harper in the last twenty-four hours.
When her phone rang, she answered it immediately. “Hello?”
“Gloria? Hi, it’s Joni. Harper gave me your number.”
“Harper?”
“I didn’t want you all to worry. She’s here at my house. She’s going to stay with me until… Well, until she figures out what she wants to do.”
Gloria closed her eyes, allowing the panic to seep from her body. “Is she okay?”
“Oh, honey. She’s hanging in there. She’s, well, devastated is a strong word. But she’d hung a lot of hopes and dreams on Luke.”
“She loves him,” Gloria said, half to herself.
“And I’ll be honest. I think he loves her, too.”
If they loved each other, how could it not be enough?
“Is there anything she needs?” Gloria asked, clearing her throat.
“She showed up with one little bag. So I imagine she’ll need a few things from home…Luke’s house. But for now, she’s okay. She hasn’t gotten out of bed yet. Poor thing. But she didn’t want you worrying about her.”
“Tell her it’s not working. I’m very worried.”
Joni chuckled. “I’ll pass that message along. She told me to tell you that she’ll let you know when she’s ready to talk.”
“Okay. Please tell her I love her and I’m here for her. Anything she needs. No matter what.”
With no one to search for, Gloria adjusted her course, steering her car toward Chickenshit Luke’s house.
“I’m not fixing things,” she told herself as she pulled into the driveway and stomped on the brake behind his pickup truck.
Her phone was ringing. Aldo. But she ignored it for now.
She climbed the front porch steps under a full head of steam and barged right in the front door. The dogs came scrambling to greet her from the living room. Warning barks turning to happy yips and the tap dance of dog nails.
Luke was sitting on the couch staring at the TV that wasn’t on. There was a beer in his hand and two more on the coffee table. She shot him a good hard look, letting him know without words exactly what she thought of him, and stormed up the stairs.
“Gloria!” he called after her. “Did you talk to her? Do you know where she is?”
She heard him on the stairs behind her, but she ignored him, veering off into the bedroom he’d shared with her best friend until the night before. She opened a dresser drawer and found only men’s t-shirts. Another one was all sweats and gym shorts. She left the drawers open and stalked to the closet.
“Gloria?” Luke entered the room behind her, and she spun around, finger pointing.
“Don’t talk to me. I don’t like you very much right now.”
“I had to do it, Gloria,” he called after her when she ducked back into the closet. She grabbed a few sweaters and sweatshirts, some bras, and underwear that she found in a drawer. “She’ll understand eventually.”
“You keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night,” she muttered to him, brushing past him to throw her clothing haul on the bed. She stomped into the bathroom and rifled through the vanity, pulling out everything that looked remotely feminine. In an immature and thoroughly satisfying move, she added Luke’s deodorant and toothbrush to the heist.
Back in the bedroom, she crossed to the other dresser in the room and found Harper’s gym clothes and pajamas. The pile on the bed was growing.
Luke walked into the closet and came back with a duffle bag. “Here,” he said.
She snatched it out of his hands and started stuffing clothing inside. “I want to know why,” she said. “Why did you have to hurt my friend like that?”
“If I didn’t hurt her now, imagine how much worse it would be a year from now.”
“She loves you!”
Lola, unhappy with the shouting, stuffed her head under the bed.
“I’m damaged. You don’t love something damaged. You try to fix it. But I can’t be fixed,” Luke snapped. “After Karen… There’s no recovering from something like that. No getting back to normal.”
“Is that why you didn’t tell her about Karen?” Gloria demanded, zipping the bag shut.
“I was selfish. I tried to pretend that I wasn’t this scarred, broken person. Harper brightens every room she walks into, and I fell for that…for a while. But I can’t love her. Not the way a normal man can.”
“Just because you’re damaged doesn’t mean you can’t live happily ever after.” Gloria’s lip was trembling, and she didn’t know why.
“That’s exactly what it means. It means I’m not capable of loving her the way she needs me to. I had to let her go so she can find that with someone who can.”
“That’s bullshit,” Gloria said, fighting back tears that had snuck up on her. “You’re making excuses for being a chickenshit.” She pushed past him, hauling the bag with her into the hallway.
“What is it with women calling me a chickenshit?”
“Get used to it!” she called over her shoulder.
“Just…wait!” he started down the stairs after her. “Is she okay? Is she safe?”
“What do you care?” Gloria demanded, rounding on him at the foot of the stairs.
“Just because I’m a monster doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“She’s safe, no thanks to you.”
“She needs money. Let me give you—”
“Harper doesn’t need your guilty payout. She’s got friends who love her.” And with that, Gloria slammed the door in his face. She didn’t want to let his words dig their barbs into her. Didn’t want to let them damage what she was building with Aldo. But, God. What if Luke was right?
She pushed the ugly doubt away and hurried down the walk.
Back in her car, she saw Aldo was calling again. She hit ‘Ignore’ and dialed Sophie i
nstead.
“Joni called. Harper is with her. And I just broke into your brother’s house, stole a bunch of Harper’s stuff, and called him a chickenshit.”
“Do I need to send Ty over to deal with the body?”
74
Gloria trudged through Aldo’s front door. She stopped short, avoiding Ivan’s mad streak in front of her, a toy mouse half his size bouncing in his mouth.
It had been a long, ugly day. It started around 4 a.m. with a nightmare that hadn’t plagued her in weeks. Glenn chasing her. She was in a dark, unfamiliar house, and every door she tried was locked. She’d terrified herself awake and had been unable to get back to sleep. Her therapist had warned that there would be setbacks along the way. But after months of happiness, of a consistent sense of security, Harper and Luke’s breakup and the ensuing nightmare left her feeling queasy and unsettled.
So she’d gone into work early and promptly screwed up an order that may or may not have ruined a bridal shower. She rounded out the day with a visit to see Harper.
“I’ve had my arm and ribs broken in foster care,” Harper had said. “This hurts more.”
Seeing her friend gaunt and pale with circles the size of hubcaps under her eyes had been her undoing. Gloria had cried in her car for twenty minutes before making the short drive to Aldo’s house. It hadn’t been the cleansing tears that arrived unprovoked in the early weeks after leaving Glenn. No, this was grief.
“Hey, Glo! I know declawing is inhumane, but what about detoothing?” Aldo called from the kitchen.
She was supposed to laugh but didn’t have it in her. She didn’t have anything in her.
With a feeling of detachment, she glanced around the living room. They’d been progressing without her really noticing it. Painting her color choice on the walls, stocking the kitchen with her favorite cookware, rearranging the dining room furniture.