The words are on the tip of my lips, but I hold them back. Already the physical relationship between us is shaken. I know that Cora only agreed to come and stay with me for lack of choice. I was the most comfortable option. Adeline’s home is noisy with the twins tearing around the house all day. At Riley’s, Cora will feel out of place. It’s uncomfortable living with a couple.
Before my sister Fran got married, she stayed with Tessa and me for four months, and she said they were the four worst months of her life. It was the one time when she really felt her singlehood. She said if Tessa and I were not in each other’s arms, we were staring at each other. She would go to bed depressed every night and sleep wondering if she would ever fall in love.
So yeah, Cora would not go and stay with Riley and Leo unless she had no other option. The same reason applied to staying at her mom’s. From what she told me, Ian has more or less moved in with her mother.
“That was awesome,” she says almost shyly, her warm breath fanning my chest.
“I’m glad. It was great for me too.”
“I’m beginning to come to terms with being homeless,” Cora says with a laugh.
She says it like a joke, but I detect the fear in her voice. “You’re not homeless. Your building will be renovated soon enough, and you’ll be back home. I’m hoping that by then, I can convince you to stay longer.”
“Don’t joke about that,” she says.
I’m not joking. I think it, but I don’t say it. It’s a frightening thought and the first time that it’s sprouted in my mind.
“Losing my home and business is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me.” She slides off my chest, rolls onto her back, and stares up at the ceiling. “I felt so frightened and out of control.”
“I know what you mean,” I tell her. “It’s a frightening thing to feel. I felt it for months after Tessa died.”
“One moment, your wife was alive, and in the next, she was gone. I can’t imagine how you managed to come to terms with that,” Cora said. “I’ve lost my home and business temporarily, and I feel like my life has ground to a stop.”
“There’s no scale to the things that make you feel as if the world has tilted. You’ll feel better as the days go by. The human spirit and survival instinct are very strong. Plus, you have a lot of us here for you.”
She turns her head and smiles. “Thank you. I’ll be all right, and as everyone keeps saying, what matters is that our little munchkin is okay.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Munchkin?”
She laughs and pats her belly. “Yeah, since I can’t decide on the gender I want.”
I reach out and stroke her belly. “You realize that you have no say?”
She smiles mysteriously in response as if she knows something that I don’t. A loud sound comes from her belly, and we both laugh.
“Luckily, dinner is ready,” I tell her.
She lifts the comforter and looks down at her naked body. “I’m going to have to borrow one of your shirts.”
“I have a better idea, which I’m sure you’ll like more. Go to the closet.”
She looks at me questioningly.
“Go on.” I nudge her, and she gets up and goes to the walk-in closet. I’m smiling even before I hear her reaction.
She’s quiet, and I’m about to follow her in when she peeks out. “Are those my clothes?”
“Yes. I got your sizes from Riley. I’m not sure I got everything you need. Let me know what I missed, and I’ll go grab it tomorrow.”
She looks over her shoulders and then back at me. She covers her mouth. “I think I’m going to cry. No one has ever done something so thoughtful and so nice for me.”
“You’re welcome.”
She looks over her shoulders again. “You must have spent a fortune. I want to pay you back.”
“No, wipe that thought away from your mind. You’re my lover and baby mama. I’d do anything for you, Cora. I mean it.”
She stares at me solemnly. “Thank you.” She turns back, and I hear the rustle of clothes. I dress too and make her bed.
“I’ll leave you to dress and go and warm up dinner,” I tell Cora.
Downstairs, I warm up leftover dinner from lunch and serve it onto plates. Cora comes down just when I’m placing them on the table. She models a pair of shorts and a tank top.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her following her with my gaze. “You’ve got perfect legs, and figure, and ass.”
She laughs. “I’m glad you think so. You thought of everything.”
“I had help. From the store assistant.”
“What did you tell her happened to my entire wardrobe?” Without ceremony, she takes a bite of her food and fills her mouth with it. I love that about Cora. When she’s hungry, she eats. No wrestling with her hunger.
“They’re trained not to ask.”
“If I were her, I’d still want to know, training or not,” Cora says.
I laugh. It’s nice and natural having her in my house. The house feels more lived in. As if a family lives here. I like that thought.
The topic moves on to our families.
“It was nice of your family to come and see me at the hospital,” Cora says and starts to giggle. “Everyone offered me a place to stay, including your parents.”
“They love you, and so do I.”
She doesn’t bat an eyelash. I might as well have told her the color of her hair for all the attention she paid to it. I slowly exhale. I’d have hated it if she’d made a big deal of it.
“Thanks. I’ve had a lot of support, and I appreciate it,” Cora says.
We eat in comfortable silence for a while, and then Cora looks at me grinning. I like her this way. Playful, relaxed, and just plain happy.
“Do you realize that we are both out of jobs?”
“You just had to remind me, huh?” I make a mock stern face, then relax. “Seriously though, we’ve worked hard for years. This is a good opportunity to relax and plan the way forward.”
She nods. “That sounds good. Plan for the future.”
We finish eating, and this time, Cora won’t hear of me doing the dishes alone, so we do it together. Afterward, we settle in the living room and watch documentaries on Netflix.
This could grow on me. It’s nice to be part of a couple again.
Chapter 31
Cora
The doorbell rings, and I hurry to open it. It’s the third time that I’ve been alone in the house since I moved in. I open the door for my mom, and we hug and kiss. She has a look of wonder as she takes in her surroundings.
“Thomas has a beautiful home,” she says.
I shut the door. “That he does.”
She follows me into the kitchen, where fresh coffee is waiting for us. My tolerance for coffee has come back, though I’m limiting myself to one cup a day.
“Would you look at that kitchen,” my mother exclaims as she sits down at the table. “Is this where he lived with his late wife?”
I’d told my mother and Adeline about Thomas losing his wife so early on in their marriage.
“That was my first question, too, when I moved in. The answer is no, even though it doesn’t really matter. It was a long time ago, and part of his history that you can’t erase.”
I carry our mugs of coffee to the table and sit down.
“I love how mature you are about it. But then again, you’ve always been older than your age. You’ve handled it with more maturity than I have, I’m afraid.”
I take my first sip and let out a soft sigh of ecstasy. It feels like I haven’t drunk coffee in years, and I had a cup yesterday.
“What do you mean?”
Mom sighs and looks down before looking up again. “It’s taken some time to come to terms with the fact that there was another woman in Ian’s life whom he loved very much, sort of like your Thomas.”
That sentence is wrong on so many levels. How I wish that he were my Thomas. “I know what you mean, though. It was tough at first know
ing there was another woman who had Thomas’s heart.” That much is the truth. “But over time, it ceases to matter.”
I came to terms with this even before Thomas told me about Tessa’s unfaithfulness. Loving another person doesn’t diminish a person’s capability to love another. In Thomas’s case, it did diminish, but that was because it was his choice not to open his heart up to love again.
I never told anyone about Tessa’s affair, and I never will. Thomas told me that in confidence, and besides, it wouldn’t even be fair to spread nasty stuff about someone who is not even there to defend themselves.
As far as I know, he didn’t tell Fran or Martin and has no plans too. He managed to push that whole heartbreaking business to the back of his mind, and I’m proud of him for that.
“That is true. I’m getting there slowly. I was used to being the one and only woman in your father’s life,” she says wistfully.
I cover her hand with mine. “Soon, that won’t bother you one bit, I promise.”
She smiles. “Thank you, and I think you’re a wonderful woman. Thomas is lucky to have you.”
I smile in response. I came clean to Adeline, but I wouldn’t dare to do so with my mother. She’ll make a great deal out of it, which is understandable, but I don’t want to deal with that.
Mom’s face lights up. “You won’t believe who came around for a quick visit.” At my blank face, she continues, “Emma! I can’t tell you how happy I was to have her for one night. She went back the following day.”
Emma is Riley’s mom. “Yeah? How is she?”
“She’s good and loving the change of being away. She sent her regards and warm wishes.”
I’m curious about what she had to say about my mother’s affair with Ian. I’m sure she was as scandalized as Adeline and I were. “Did she meet Ian?”
“She did, and they hit it off. That made me happy. Emma is my oldest friend, and I’d have hated it if she had hated him.”
So much for Riley’s mom getting scandalized.
Mom sighs. “We women really short-change ourselves. Emma confided in me about a man she met two years after she lost her husband. She fell for him hard, but nothing happened. She wasn’t brave enough to pursue it, and she was frightened of what her children would say.”
My jaw drops. “Really? I can’t imagine Riley’s mother embroiled in a hot, passionate affair.” I giggle.
My mother glares at me.
I grow serious. “Not you, though.”
“That’s not a nice thing to say. Of course, I worried about your reaction, and I was right to. Look at your sister. She and I rarely talk, and when we do, we argue. Your brother and Laura are the only ones who are supportive,” she says.
With the hindsight of time, I see now that Adeline and I might have come on too strongly against Ian. We could have toned it down a bit and tried to get to know him first.
Besides, our mother is an adult and has always been level-headed. Guilt floods me. “Didn’t I have a visit with Ian?”
She stares at me. “Yeah, you did,” she finally says.
I fidget in my seat as I recall how Adeline and I behaved toward Ian. It bordered on immaturity, and I’m sure it hurt our mother a lot.
“How are Caleb and Laura?” I haven’t spoken to either of them since I left the hospital. Thomas and I have taken to living in our own cocoon. I have to admit that it’s been nice not to have anywhere to go or anything to do. As Thomas pointed out, we’ve worked hard all our lives, and having some downtime to plan the future is a good thing.
Not that I’ve been planning the future.
“They’re well. I spoke with them yesterday,” Mom says. “More importantly, how are you?” She peers into my face as if my well-being is written across it.
“I’ve been good. It’s been nice to just relax.”
“Aren’t you getting tired of staying in the house all day?” Mom asks. It’s a weird question from someone who spent almost a decade retired.
“Well, I am starting to become jittery,” I say, admitting to my mom something I wasn’t even ready to admit to myself. “Especially with Thomas busy with his interviews.”
“I can imagine. This house is beautiful, but you’d get tired of admiring it after a day or two.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not bringing this up for no reason. We open the bar in a few days; I’m sure you know that.”
I’m embarrassed because I forgot all about the opening day at the bar. She sent me a text telling me about it.
She grins. “Can you imagine The Caroline will soon be operational? I can’t tell you how excited both Ian and I are. We’re not getting any sleep from anxiety and excitement.”
Her enthusiasm is catching. My mother’s life is more exciting than mine right now. She’s living her life and enjoying every moment of it.
“I’m happy for you, Mom.”
“Anyway, I thought you might come and work as a server for a few hours a day. The pay is not what you’re used to, of course, but it’s not about the money. It’s just something to get you out of the house and mixing with people again.”
I take a moment to take in Mom’s offer.
***
“Can you imagine me as a server in a bar?” I ask Thomas later as we’re having dinner.
“Actually, I can,” Thomas says. “You’re good with people.”
I have to admit that the idea has been growing on me since Mom left. I’ve been mulling it over in my mind since then. I didn’t give her an answer, just told her that I’d sleep on it. Her response had been that there’s a training tomorrow, and if I’m interested, I should just show up. I still haven’t decided what to do.
“I hope the hours are short. I don’t want you on your feet for too long,” Thomas says.
“Just four hours a day. Ten to two.”
“Good.”
I grin. It seems like the decision is made. “How did the interview go?” It’s an elimination process, and they are down to three candidates now.
“It went well, but it’s going to be a tight race. The other guys are hugely qualified.” Thomas looks nervous.
“You really want it, don’t you?” I ask.
He nods. “I’ve missed working in a large hospital, plus I like the variety.”
“You’ll get it. There’s something about you that screams responsible and serious.”
“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” Thomas says.
I made a simple dinner of pasta and a salad, and when we’re done, we clean up the dishes together.
Afterward, we settle down in the living room, Thomas with one of those large medical books of his and me with a laptop to get some waitressing tips.
We go to bed at ten, and upstairs, we pause between our two rooms to say goodnight.
Thomas holds me tight and then whispers into my ear in a tortured voice, “I promised myself I would not do this, but I can’t help it, and I’ll only ask once. Do you want to come and sleep in my bed?”
I have to laugh at how unsure he sounds. Pleasure swamps me at the knowledge that he has been wanting me in his bed but was uncomfortable to ask. It’s cute and sweet.
“I’d love to. It’s lonely sleeping on my own in that large bed,” I say. “I’ll just brush my teeth and change.”
I’m grinning as I get ready. All this week, Thomas and I have been sleeping separately. Of course, we’ve had sex every night, and each time, Thomas has gone back to his room after.
I’ve held back from asking him to spend the night for the same reason he left. Clad in my nightshirt, I turn off the light and pad across the hallway to his room. He’s already in bed, and he grins when he sees me.
He throws the covers back, and I slip in. I lie down on his chest and run my hands over his muscles.
“This is perfect,” he says and then plants a kiss at the back of my head. “You are perfect.”
I still can’t understand how Tessa found another man more attractive than her husband. Of course, I
get that it’s more than just the physical aspect, but I’ve never met a man who exhibits as much masculinity as Thomas does. How would someone be satisfied by less than that? Plus, he’s very loving and expressive. I can only imagine how he must have been with his wife. He holds himself back with me, seeing that our relationship is different. And, of course, there was the fact that he loved her.
Thomas is super protective of me as the woman carrying his child. How protective was he with Tessa?
Pangs of longing come over me. A longing to be loved by him. I swallow hard and try to empty my mind of such thoughts. No point in longing for something that will never happen.
He rubs my back in that soothing way that he does, and soon, my eyelids grow heavy. I fall asleep in his arms with a smile on my face.
Chapter 32
Cora
I show up ten minutes early for training, and as soon as I walk into The Caroline, the change astounds me, and I pause at the door to admire the decor. It’s rustic-themed, and you get the feeling that you’ve just stepped back in time. There is a lot of wood complemented by warm, earthy colors like orange and cream and yellows. It makes you want to grab a seat and relax.
“Hi there,” a tall man says from behind the bar. “I’m Tom, the bartender.”
I walk up to the bar with a smile. I offer my hand across the counter, and he takes it. “And I’m Cora. I’m here for the service training.”
“It’s happening in a few minutes. You can pop into the office and let Ian or Caroline know that you’ve arrived. They are the owners. You’ll like them.” He gives me the directions to the office.
I walk into a hallway and then past the kitchen, where tantalizing smells are coming from the industrial-sized stove. I wave at a uniformed chef, and he shoots me a smile. Voices meet me as I enter a smaller hallway with three doors. The last one is open, and I knock on it.
My mom calls for me to enter. It’s a medium-sized office, and she and Ian are seated behind the desk staring at the computer. My mom’s face lights up.
“I’m glad you came, honey,” she says. She hasn’t called me that in years.
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