Truth of the Matter

by Beck, Jamie

  “He did a great job,” I reply before gulping down the rest of my drink.

  “It’s nice to have a handyman in the family.” She slaps his shoulder; then her attention is pulled. “There’s Trudy. Let me go catch up,” she says to Dan. Then to me: “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too.” I wave as she dashes over to hug Trudy.

  Small towns.

  The crowd around us fades into the background, almost like we are surrounded by a moat. My heart expands, pounding against my ribs for another chance.

  “How are you?” A loaded question that can be either trivial or monumental depending on who is asking and how much they care.

  “Busy. Joe has the flu, so I’m working overtime trying to finish up two projects by Christmas.”

  “Hopefully he’ll recover quickly.”

  Dan nods. We’re drowning in awkward silence while I muster the courage to ask if he’s still interested in getting to know me on a deeper level.

  “Katy seems better. Brave collage she put up at the school,” Dan volleys.

  “You were right about her. She’s tougher than I thought.” I draw a breath for courage. “I’ve wanted to call you, but I didn’t know what to say or if it mattered . . . Then when I saw you at the high school, I thought you were on a date.”

  He smiles. “It’s okay. You needed space. I get it.”

  “I did. Need space, I mean. But things are better.” I look him fully in the eyes.

  “I’m glad.” He gestures toward my painting. “Looks like you’re getting back into the swing of things.”

  “It’s been a good way to channel my emotions.”

  “My house could use some new art,” he says as he steps toward my painting.

  I detect his approval from the hint of a smile and the way his eyes move across the canvas. With my hands clasped behind my back, still holding the empty flute, I say, “Maybe I could come over to see your house sometime . . . and help you find the right piece.”

  I hold my breath, flushing.

  He turns his head to meet my gaze and touches my arm. “I’d love that.”

  “So would I.” I’m about to ask when, but his sister returns.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Dan, but we’ve got to run. Mom’s already grabbed us a table at East Beach Café with my kids.” She tugs at him. “Again, it was nice to meet you, Anne.”

  “Enjoy your dinner.” I wave.

  “Congratulations on the show.” Dan leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek and murmurs, “I’ll call you.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  He holds the door for his sister but glances over his shoulder and winks at me before they leave. I let out the breath I’ve been holding and spin on my heel to take it all in. Me, alone, looking good and at my first art show in more than a decade, with a handsome man interested in getting to know me better.

  I’m no longer Anne Chase, nor am I Anne Sullivan the art student, or even Annie, who used to summer here. I’m a reincarnated version of those three women on the verge of a fresh new life. One that I will craft by myself, for myself. One that my daughter can look up to as we make our way into the future.

  With a satisfied smile, I text Katy and make my way toward Sugar Momma’s as the first snowflakes gently fall from the sky.

  AN EXCERPT FROM

  FOR ALL SHE KNOWS

  A POTOMAC POINT NOVEL

  EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS IS AN EARLY EXCERPT AND MAY NOT REFLECT THE FINISHED BOOK

  CHAPTER ONE

  GRACE

  Sunday in late January, 12:15 a.m.

  Shock Trauma Hospital near Baltimore

  Everyone warned me that the day would come when I’d regret befriending Mimi Gillette. But despite our many differences, Mimi and I had clicked from the moment we first met in our sons’ toddler playgroup years ago. Sure, she could be flamboyant, and I didn’t agree with her stance on teen drinking, but she had a huge heart—even after her ex-husband ground it beneath his bootheel and left her to raise their son alone. And so I’d tuned out public opinion, blind to the fact that such neglect could lead to my own son’s life-changing injuries.

  I should’ve known, though. Kids often pay the price for their parents’ mistakes.

  Curling forward, I hugged my calves and drew deep breaths. Do not panic before knowing all the facts.

  With my eyes closed, I recalled the scene in Mimi’s basement and felt sick again. Since becoming a mother, it had been unlike me to be nonchalant about anything, including friends. This kind of tragedy had been my worst fear since becoming a mother, so I’d conscientiously managed my family to prevent one. We lived in a close-knit community with low crime rates. Encouraged nonviolent extracurriculars, such as theater and academic clubs. Sat down to family dinners on a nightly basis so that my husband, Sam, and I could keep connected to our kids and head off bad decisions. We even attended church most Sundays, where I regularly prayed to God to safeguard us against evil.

  Whenever another incident of online bullying or a random school shooting sent me into a tailspin of worry about our kids’ fates, Sam and Mimi would tell me to relax. Like many others, they relied on the odds to assure them that those awful things would never claim one of our own.

  But I knew.

  I always knew that someday the scales would be rebalanced, because it had never seemed fair that my life had been so easy while others endured endless struggles.

  Mimi didn’t sympathize with my sense of dread about that invisible “other shoe” dropping, probably because she’d been ducking them left and right for most of her life. Yet despite facing one catastrophe after another, she rallied in the face of the insurmountable. It was impossible not to admire a woman who rolled up her sleeves and worked her butt off to overcome whatever was thrown at her, which was why I’d never acquiesced to the gossips and naysayers.

  In any case, most of us feared things we hadn’t experienced, and I’d had very little experience with real pain before tonight. A shudder racked me at the memory of Carter’s tears, then I swallowed another surge of bile.

  “Excuse me.” I reached out for the young nurse cutting through the waiting room on his way toward the nurses’ station, despite his focus on the iPad in his hand. “My son, Carter Phillips, was rushed into MRIs a while ago, but I haven’t heard any updates. It’s been more than an hour.”

  “Let me check for you.” Despite being harried, he flashed a sympathetic smile before continuing toward the nurses’ station.

  “Thank you,” I called after him.

  The thought that my firstborn might never walk again made my body prickle with heat and my vision blur. I pinched my cheek and blinked in a vain attempt to pull myself together.

  The clock read twelve thirty. My God, every minute seemed an eternity.

  Across the waiting room, our daughter, Kim, was half-asleep in her pink-and-black leopard-print pj’s and slippers, her lanky ten-year-old body strewn across Sam’s lap. When we’d gotten Mimi’s phone call, I’d charged over to her house to catch up with the EMTs—still in my Ugg slippers and yoga pants—while Sam had stayed behind, waiting for the girls at Kim’s birthday sleepover to be picked up by shocked parents. Now he was stroking Kim’s hair, staring into space, probably praying like me.

  Our eyes met, but I glanced away.

  “Grace,” came his deep voice.

  “Not now.” I crossed my arms and closed my eyes, wishing that when I opened them again, this would be nothing more than a terrible nightmare. Sweat seeped from every pore.

  “You can’t stay mad forever. We have to come together for Carter,” he said.

  “It’s been three hours—hardly forever. If you’d only listened to me this morning, we wouldn’t even be here.” Until then, we’d always presented a united front to our kids.

  His cheeks colored as if I’d slapped them. “Blame won’t help anyone.”

  Of course he’d say that now, when his judgment had been as poor as Mimi’s. Bad enough that Carter might lose the
use of his legs. The possibility that I might never forgive Sam hollowed out my heart, because he’d been my everything since we’d met in college.

  I tugged hard at the hair in my fists, but no self-inflicted pain would reverse time. Darkness wrapped around me, suffocating me in self-loathing because, deep down, I knew that everything would also be different if I hadn’t lacked the courage of my convictions.

  Every sound in the waiting room reverberated in my head, making me nauseated and twitchy. I sprang from my chair and paced, picturing my sweet boy in a wheelchair. What’s that like? How will we manage rehab and school? How do we make the house accessible?

  Answers were unlikely to help me accept whatever fate had in store. Impossible—just like forgiveness. I needed to find strength, because I couldn’t help Carter accept paralysis with fortitude if I crumpled into a heap of bones on the floor. My thoughts and my body seemed disconnected and disjointed, as if I’d stepped through an invisible hole in the universe that made everything unfamiliar. Tonight’s outcome remained a mystery, but I knew that—whatever happened next—I’d never be the same person I’d been mere hours ago.

  This was too big. Too much. I covered my mouth with both hands to keep a scream from erupting, then bent forward again—hands on my knees—burdened by the history and decisions that had caused this catastrophe.

  Looking back, the first big turn of the wheel that had led us here was when Mimi’s ex, Dirk, left her four years ago. Her distraught expression that afternoon had pained me.

  “This shouldn’t hurt so much. It’s nothing new, this nonsense with Miranda Wright. But now he’s leaving me to follow her up to Annapolis. Rowan’s upstairs crying. He needs a father, Grace. Even an average one like Dirk is better than an absent one. How will I get him through puberty on my own?” Mimi had blubbered while tossing used tissues around like a tornado.

  Her son, Rowan, had a good heart but had always lacked impulse control and any interest in school. Nothing I’d ever suggested had helped motivate him to hit the books. He’d rather climb a tree or go for a sail or work out on the field. We all favored pastimes that played to our strengths. Rowan had gone on to become an all-star wide receiver for the high school football team at only fifteen. He was also as handsome as his mother was pretty.

  “Honey, it’ll be okay,” I’d said. “Sam and I will help. Sam can toss a football or talk about responsibility, and whatever else you need. Rowan can come home with Carter after school until he’s old enough to be alone. Honestly, this could be the best thing for both of you. Once you get over the sting, you’ll be better off. There are good men out there, Mimi. We’ll find you someone who treats you with respect. Someone who you don’t consider another child.”

  That’s how Mimi had referred to Dirk whenever he’d drunk too much or taken “mental health days” from work—which led him to getting fired. Still, she had a soft spot for bad boys like her ex, almost like she thought her love would reform them.

  Personally, I’d always suspected that Dirk envied Mimi’s successful career. Becoming a hairstylist had been a perfect fit for a chatterbox with an eye for making people look their best, especially after she opened her own salon. His getting fired had put a strain on their finances, which kept her from reinvesting her profits and expanding. Odds were that her complaints about doing all the work inside and outside the house made it easier for him to follow his wandering eye into another woman’s bed.

  In the end, he’d left Mimi alone to raise their son as the middle-school years hit. And as much as she adored Rowan, when she’d had a second glass of wine, she’d confide in me her worries that he’d turn out like his dad—a car salesman who wasn’t keen on taking responsibility for much, including child support. But the kind of trouble that culminated tonight began when Mimi started overcompensating for Dirk’s absence by letting Rowan run wild and call the shots. By the end of his freshman year of high school, her permissiveness was legendary.

  Some of the other moms would question me or expect me to say something, as if it were my business to tell Mimi how to parent. I defended her right to raise her son as she saw fit, never dreaming her choices would end up hurting Carter. Another example of my own weakness—the legacy of my childhood conditioning.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. Mimi again. I couldn’t deal with her now. Didn’t care about her apologies or her distress. The cops might still have been at her house, for all I knew or cared. I’d demand justice for Carter eventually, but at the moment, all I wanted was for somebody to tell us that our son would recover and walk.

  I collapsed back onto my seat.

  Sam slid out from beneath Kim and stretched. “I’m going for coffee. Do you want one?”

  “No thank you.” I still wouldn’t meet his gaze but crossed the room to sit with Kim while he was gone.

  That my daughter could sleep in this brightly lit, hardly peaceful waiting room astounded me. I toyed with a curl of her blonde hair, wanting to cradle her to my chest and squeeze her tight, as if my arms would keep her safe in a way that I’d failed to do for Carter.

  Oh God, how was this happening? A tear rolled down my cheek. I leaned forward to stop myself from throwing up, then rocked in my seat, desperate for positive thoughts. None came. Or if they did, they got crowded out by recriminations and the frustration of my own impotence.

  The more I thought about it, tonight’s skirmish had really heated up weeks ago, when parents started arguing over the superintendent’s proposed capital expenditures to upgrade the school’s sports facilities instead of its science labs. A boon to students like Rowan, an athlete with a spotty academic record. But Carter—an aspiring chemical engineer who never set foot on a field (and all the other students like him)—would see no benefit from that use of tax dollars.

  In other words, I was vehemently opposed. Last month’s PTC meeting got so contentious, the next day kids started taking sides, too. But for once in my life, I took a stand and spoke out at the public hearing this past Monday night.

  To think that, when Mimi and I had bumped into each other in the produce aisle at Stewart’s Grocery Mart on that afternoon, my biggest worry had been whether our friendship would survive if I won that debate.

  “Mrs. Phillips?” A doctor whose name I couldn’t remember how to pronounce looked down at Kim and me just as Sam returned to the waiting room. “I have an update.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As always, I have many people to thank for helping me bring this book to all of you—not the least of whom are my family and friends for their continued love, encouragement, and support.

  Thanks, also, to my agent, Jill Marsal, as well as to my patient editors, Chris Werner and Tiffany Yates Martin, whose keen eyes made this book so much stronger. And none of my work would find its way to readers without the entire Montlake family working so hard on my behalf.

  Unlike many of my previous books, base elements of this story grew out of personal experiences with depression, anxiety, and the confusion otherwise known as motherhood. Most of the research undertaken for the teen cutting issue in this story was conducted online, without personal interviews. I suppose I should thank Google and YouTube for the copious amount of information one is able to uncover in an instant. Honestly, I am awed by authors who wrote books before the internet existed. The time and effort it must’ve taken to research anything is staggering. But I would like to thank Maddee James, a graphic designer with a keen eye for art, for pointing me toward some sources that helped me create Anne’s character.

  I also need to thank my critique partners, Linda Avellar, Barbara Josselsohn, and Ginger McKnight, for their guidance. Additionally, a big thanks to my beta reader, Katherine Ong, for her feedback on the early draft, as well as hugs for writers Tracy Brogan, Virginia Kantra, Sonali Dev, Priscilla Oliveras, Falguni Kothari, and Barbara O’Neal, for taking time to talk through plot knots or providing feedback on a chapter or two. It seems that every book I write is really a group project! I also offer a heartfelt sec
ond thank-you to Barbara O’Neal for the beautiful praise she bestowed on this book. Her approval means so much to me.

  I couldn’t produce any of my work without the MTBs, who help me plot and keep my spirits up when doubt grabs hold, or my Fiction From the Heart sisters, who inspire me on a daily basis.

  And I can’t leave out the wonderful members of my CTRWA chapter. Year after year, all the CTRWA members provide endless hours of support, feedback, and guidance. I love and thank them for that.

  Finally, and most important, thank you, readers, for making my work worthwhile. Considering all your options, I’m honored by your choice to spend your time with me.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2016 Lorah Haskins

  Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Jamie Beck’s realistic and heartwarming stories have sold more than two million copies. She is a two-time Booksellers’ Best Award finalist and a National Readers’ Choice Award winner, and critics at Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist have respectively called her work “smart,” “uplifting,” and “entertaining.” In addition to writing novels, she enjoys hitting the slopes in Vermont and Utah and dancing around the kitchen while cooking. Above all, she is a grateful wife and mother to a very patient, supportive family. Fans can get exclusive excerpts and inside scoops and be eligible for birthday gift drawings by subscribing to her newsletter at bit.ly/JBeckNewsletter. She also loves interacting with everyone on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JamieBeckBooks.