Trinity Falls
Page 10
Megan’s voice softened. “You don’t know that. Until you’ve walked in her shoes, you don’t know what you would have done. And I hope you never find out.”
Ean turned away. Silence stretched between them. Megan considered his back. What could she do to ease the tightness in those broad shoulders? She wanted to touch him, but would he rather have some space?
He rubbed the back of his neck. “What do I do now?”
“Talk with her. As you said, this is all just speculation. If you confront her with it, she won’t lie to you.”
Ean faced her. “It won’t be easy. The last time we talked about Dad, it didn’t go well.”
“You said you came back for answers. This is your chance.”
Ean nodded, staring into the middle distance. A soul-deep sigh lifted his chest. He exhaled before pinning her with his olive gaze. “What about us?”
Her heart tripped, then continued a steady beat. “We’ll talk after you speak with Doreen.”
The next day, Ean slowed to a walk when he reached his mother’s house at the end of his morning run. He strode to the corner as part of his cooldown. Megan hadn’t been on the jogging trail this morning. Was she avoiding him?
“Ean, how was your run?”
He looked up at Ms. Helen’s house. She’d stepped out onto her porch. The older woman was nearly lost in the oversized purple winter coat. Whose coat was it?
“It was fine, thank you, Ms. Helen. How’s your magazine?” Ean crossed the street. He nodded toward the women’s magazine she held against her chest.
“I just got to the column on personal revelations. This young actress is talking about her big reveal.”
“Sounds interesting.” Ean glanced at Ms. Helen’s sesquicentennial banner.
“When are you going to have your big reveal, Ean?” Ms. Helen held the door open so he could join her inside.
“Excuse me?” He shed his jogging shoes before crossing her threshold.
Ms. Helen smoothed her graying hair back toward the thick bun at the nape of her thin neck. “Now, I don’t mean to pry into other folks’ business.”
It was a struggle not to laugh. “I know, Ms. Helen.”
“But you’ve been back more than a month now. When are you going to start looking for work, son? I know you didn’t come home to live off your mama.”
Ean smiled at her chastising tone. “That’s not my intention at all.”
“I knew that. Your parents brought you up right.” Ms. Helen nodded as though satisfied that he’d confirmed her opinion of him. “So what are you going to do, young man?”
Ean had been wondering the same thing. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Ms. Helen.”
Her frown deepened the wrinkles across her brow. “What’s there to think about? You’ve got to find a job. And you should find another place to live, too. Your mother has needs, and having a grown son living at home with her probably isn’t helping her to meet those needs, if you get my meaning.”
Ean’s gaze dropped to the publication in Ms. Helen’s hands. What was in that magazine? “I’m trying to decide where to apply for work.”
Ms. Helen grunted. She settled into the teakwood chair in front of her window. “Seems to me you would’ve given some thought to that before you came home.” Her tone was dry enough to start a campfire.
“I did, ma’am. But to tell you the truth, my priority was coming home. I knew I’d figure out everything else later.”
“Later is now, Ean. What have you figured out?”
Not much. In fact, he had more questions now than before he’d come home. “A lot of the bigger companies that would have law departments are headquartered farther away than I’d want to drive.”
She snorted. “The way I’ve heard it, people in New York are used to traveling long distances to work.”
Ms. Helen had always had a way of dismissing excuses.
He nodded. “That’s true.”
“Besides, what makes you think you’d have to travel?”
“There aren’t any law firms in Trinity Falls.”
“So what?” Ms. Helen kissed her teeth. “Does that mean people in Trinity Falls don’t need lawyers? There are businesspeople here who have contracts you can charge them to read. People need wills. Are we supposed to drive into the city just to pay you to write them for us?”
“You shouldn’t have to.” The lightbulb was flickering on. He was an idiot for not realizing it sooner.
“You don’t have to work for someone. So there aren’t any law firms in Trinity Falls. Start one yourself. And we’d trust you to do a good job for us and not rip us off.”
“Ms. Helen, you’re a genius.”
She sucked her teeth again. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Her voice was gruff, but Ean saw the blush of pleasure on her thin cheeks.
He rose from the chair. “Thanks for your help, Ms. Helen.”
“You’re welcome, baby. But don’t forget, you’ve got to move out of your mama’s house. Get your own place—the sooner, the better. I don’t mean to embarrass you, but a woman has needs.”
Ean waved as he let himself out of her house, then put his shoes back on. He didn’t want her to embarrass him, either. Ms. Helen meant well, but he didn’t want to discuss his mother’s needs. A conversation like that would scar him for life.
CHAPTER 13
Ean entered his mother’s house. He removed his running shoes before walking to the kitchen. He filled a glass with cold tap water and drained it in one long gulp. He refilled the glass and drank it more slowly as he padded up the stairs. His thoughts raced with Ms. Helen’s suggestion that he start his own law firm. There was office space for rent in the Trinity Falls Town Center. He’d contact the center’s rental office after breakfast.
Twenty minutes later, showered and dressed, Ean jogged back downstairs. In the threshold, he stopped short at the sight of his mother sitting at the small honey wood kitchen table. She was reading the paper and sipping coffee. A red velour robe was wrapped around her. Fluffy brown slippers protected her feet.
How much longer could he delay a confrontation about his father’s illness? He’d wanted to ask her last night, but couldn’t find the courage.
“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” Ean walked to the fridge and pulled out the pitcher of ice water.
Doreen lowered the newspaper. “Yes, I did. How was your run?”
“Good.” Ean refilled his water glass. Was it his imagination or did their conversation sound stilted? “Can I make you breakfast?”
Doreen’s eyes widened. “I’d like that.”
“Don’t look so shocked.” Ean tossed her a wry smile. “It’s not as though I’ve never cooked for you before.”
“And every time is a pleasant surprise.” Doreen shifted in her chair to face him. “Do you need any help?”
“No, thanks.” With his back to her, this seemed like the perfect time to introduce a difficult conversation. “Mom, Dad told you not to tell me he was dying, didn’t he?”
Silence dropped into the room. He felt Doreen’s tension beating against him like a blast of frozen air.
“What makes you ask that?” Her tone was brittle.
Ean pulled the pans from one cupboard and ingredients from another. “Why did you let me blame you for not telling me?”
Doreen was silent for so long, he thought his mother would ignore his question. “Your father and I had been together for more than forty years, you know.”
“I know, Mom.” Ean worried at the husky note in her voice. Was she going to cry? If she did, then so would he.
Doreen exhaled a shaky breath. “He meant everything to me. He gave me everything I needed to be the person I wanted to be.”
Memories of his parents talking, laughing and dancing to music only they could hear played across his mind like a favorite film. He recalled their public displays of affection that had grossed him out as an adolescent and had filled him with envy as an adult.
“I know, Mom.” Ean poured a glass of ice water from the refrigerator and offered it to his mother.
“Thank you.” Doreen’s voice was a whisper.
His throat was too tight to respond. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, after all. Ean gulped his own drink.
Doreen continued. “We were lovers, spouses, parents, friends.” She hesitated. Her voice grew huskier. “The hardest role I had to play was caregiver.”
Ean returned to the stove and set his glass on the counter. He lifted an egg, intending to break it into the pan, but he couldn’t do it. He set the egg back into the carton.
“Why didn’t he want me to know he was sick?” He spoke with his back to his mother.
“Watching him die was unbearable for me. I tried not to let him see how much I was hurting—for him, for myself, for you. But he knew. And it was intolerable for him. He didn’t want you to go through that.”
His eyes stung, thinking about the two people he loved most in the world in so much pain. He turned to face Doreen. “But I should have been there with you.”
Doreen raised her gaze to his. Her eyes were wet with unshed tears. Her voice was raw with sorrow. “This wasn’t about you or me, Ean. This was your father’s dying wish. And as much as it hurt me, I respected that.”
And he had to respect it, too. That didn’t mean he had to like it. “I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye.” The cold water did little to ease the burning in his throat.
“Yes, you did. Every time he spoke with you, you ended the call with ‘I love you.’ What more was there to say?”
How was he to know that, to his father, “I love you” meant “good-bye”?
“He’d sounded so weak and tired on the phone. I kept asking him about it. He said he would be OK.”
“He is.” The muscles in Doreen’s throat worked as she drank more water. “It gives me comfort knowing he’s in a better place—that he’s not in pain any longer.”
“I’ll have to take comfort from that, too.” How much longer before that comfort replaced his guilt and grief? Ean carried their empty glasses to the sink. “I’m sorry I blamed you, Mom.”
“Better that you were angry with me than your father. We have the time to reconcile. Your father didn’t.”
He washed the glasses and set them on the drain to dry. “I understand why Dad made his choice, but I still don’t like it.”
Doreen stood. “I would be upset, too.”
Ean crossed to her, wrapping her in his embrace. “I wish I’d been there with you, Mom.”
She hugged him tighter. “You were, baby. You were with me when I needed you most, and I’m glad you’re here with me now.”
And he’d continue to be there with her, giving her the love and support she’d given him all of his life. Now that they’d cleared the air, they could start this new phase of their relationship—whatever it might be.
CHAPTER 14
Quincy tensed when Ramona took the stool beside him at Books & Bakery’s food counter early Tuesday morning. Thinking about his last exchange with Ean almost cost him his appetite. How long had Ramona known he’d been in love with her? Why hadn’t she ever said anything? Why, after fourteen years, couldn’t he fall in love with someone—anyone—else?
“Good morning, Quincy.” Her greeting was like salt in a wound.
“Ramona.” He kept his attention on his breakfast of scrambled eggs, turkey bacon and wheat toast. If it killed him, he’d act as though nothing had changed.
Ramona leaned into the counter to see Darius seated on Quincy’s other side. “How are things at the paper, Darius? Still making up what you don’t know?”
Darius chuckled. “Why don’t you tell me what I got wrong, Mayor?”
“You didn’t get anything wrong, Darius.” Quincy’s protective reflexes, honed since their days on their elementary school playground, kicked in. “But it sounds like you hit a nerve.”
Ramona turned on him. “Do you even know what you’re talking about?”
Quincy steeled himself to meet her ebony eyes. “Do you?”
Ramona narrowed her gaze. “This doesn’t concern you.”
That’s where she was wrong. If it involved one of his friends, it definitely concerned him. “Why are you here, Ramona, at eight in the morning? You’re not usually an early riser. Is your conscience giving you a hard time?”
Looking into Ramona’s seductive eyes while speculating on her sleeping habits was a mistake. His body temperature spiked. In his peripheral vision, he caught the stares of the other breakfast patrons. Quincy feigned disdain as he returned his attention to the safety of his bacon and eggs. He took a deep breath to calm his pulse and drew in the warm, mouthwatering fragrance of baking bread wafting from the bakery’s kitchen. And Ramona’s perfume beside him.
“You have a point, Quincy.” Darius’s tone was taunting. “What part of my ace reporting caused you to lose sleep, Mayor?”
“This blowhard doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Ramona jerked her head toward Quincy. Her voice tightened, an indication that her renowned temper was about to snap.
“Blowhard.” Quincy shook off the inappropriate images her insult brought to mind. “If Darius’s reporting had been inaccurate, you’d have confronted him in his office at a much more convenient time for you, like noon.”
Ramona pointed a finger at Darius while the dark inferno of her gaze scorched Quincy. “His irresponsible reporting implied that I was raising fees and taxes on the stores in the shopping center to run them out of business. That sort of reckless writing will hurt my reelection campaign.”
Darius turned away from his plate of steak and eggs. “That reckless reporting came from your quote. You said you were hoping to attract higher-end businesses to the vacant stores in the center.”
Ramona inclined her head. “Yes, that’s what I said. But you took that statement out of context. The way you positioned it in your article made it seem as though I chased those stores out. I didn’t run them out. They left.”
“You’re splitting hairs, Ramona.” Darius shrugged. “Those businesses left because the town’s increased fees and taxes amounted to extortion. You should have thought about how that would play during the election before you asked for the increases.”
Quincy sipped his coffee. “But since she’s running unchallenged, she doesn’t have to worry about how her decisions will affect her reelection.”
“I’m not doing this to hurt the town. I’m trying to help the town.” Ramona spoke as though she believed what she said. “It’s not my fault the original center owners defaulted on the loan the town granted them. Those increased business taxes will generate more revenue for Trinity Falls.”
“Revenue for what?” Megan joined the discussion. She greeted Quincy and Darius as she strode past them to stand behind the counter. “What will the town do with the money?”
“We haven’t identified the use yet.” Ramona flipped her heavy raven locks behind her shoulder.
Quincy recognized the gesture as one she often used when she was uncertain. He softened his response. “That’s backward, isn’t it? You raise taxes to generate revenue for something. You don’t tax your constituents just because.”
Ramona stood, sharing her glare equally with the other three people at the counter before resting it on Darius. “If I can’t get you to curb your reckless reporting, I’m sure your publisher will.”
Quincy watched the irritated swing of her firm hips as she stormed out of the bookstore. Was she on her way to talk to The Trinity Falls Monitor’s publisher? “Do you think Susan Liu will listen to her?”
Darius grunted. “Liu doesn’t listen to anyone.”
Megan caught Quincy’s eyes. “Why don’t you tell her how you feel?” Her question was just above a whisper.
CHAPTER 15
Quincy looked over his shoulder, surprising several other breakfast patrons, who promptly glanced away. He turned back to Megan. “How many people know?”
“She’s smart.”
“She’s conniving.”
“I like her sense of humor.”
“She has one?”
Quincy scowled at him. “Do you want an answer to your question or not?”
Darius held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry.”
Quincy tipped back his head, staring at the off-white ceiling. What was there to love about Ramona? A woman who couldn’t see beyond her own reflection, who used his feelings to taunt him with her other men and who’d barely acknowledged his existence in fourteen years. Why was he lost in love with her?
He must be a masochist.
Quincy addressed Megan. “She makes me feel protective. There’s a vulnerability about her.”
Darius’s eyes widened. “She’s a shark.”
Quincy opened his mouth to blast Darius. Megan’s hand on his shoulder quieted him.
“Ramona and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I agree with everything Quincy’s said.” Megan squeezed Quincy’s shoulder before releasing him. “Darius, you’ve obviously never been in love. Sometimes you can’t explain your feelings. You just feel.”
Quincy couldn’t have put it any better.
“I wish I could stop feeling.” He offered Megan the bill and his credit card, then followed her to the cash register. “I hope the University of Pennsylvania offers me that faculty position.”
Megan ran his credit card through the card reader, then returned it to him with his receipt. “It’s been six years since Ramona and Ean broke up. Why haven’t you asked her out?”
Quincy was shaking his head before he heard the end of Megan’s question. “I’m not competing against Ean. I don’t want to be the runner-up.”
“You’re right. You’re not competing against him. You’re competing against yourself.” Megan held his gaze. “Give yourself a chance, Quincy. Give Ramona a chance.”