Regretting You(11)

Jenny is finished cutting the tomatoes. She plates them and starts slicing up an onion. “It’s not like we just met. You liked Jonah just fine when I dated him in high school. I don’t understand why you have an issue with it now.”

I pull back. “Uh . . . let’s see. He dumped you, moved to Minnesota the next day, disappeared for seventeen years, and now he suddenly wants to commit to you for the rest of his life? I think it’s odd that you think my reaction is odd.”

“We have a child together, Morgan. Is that not the same reason you’ve been married to Chris for seventeen years?”

There she goes, bringing up another good point.

Her phone rings, so she wipes her hands and pulls it out of her pocket. “Speaking of your child.” She answers her cell. “Hey, Clara.”

She has it on speakerphone, so it stings when I hear Clara say, “You aren’t with my mother, are you?”

Jenny’s eyes widen in my direction. She begins backing toward the kitchen door. “Nope.” Jenny takes the phone off speaker and disappears into the living room.

It doesn’t bother me that Clara always calls my sister for advice, rather than asking me. The problem is Jenny has no idea how to give Clara advice. She spent her twenties partying, struggling through nursing school, and coming to me when she needed a place to stay.

Usually when Clara calls Jenny with something important that Jenny doesn’t know how to answer, she’ll make an excuse to hang up, and then she’ll call me and relay everything. I’ll tell her what to tell Clara; then she’ll call Clara back and relay the advice like it came from her.

I like the setup, although I’d much rather Clara just ask me. But I get it. I’m her mom. Jenny is the cool aunt. Clara doesn’t want me to know about certain things, and I get that. She’d die if she knew that I was aware of some of her secrets. Like when she asked Jenny to make her an appointment to get on birth control a few months ago, just in case.

I hop off the counter and continue slicing the onion. The kitchen door swings open, and Jonah walks in. He nudges his head toward the cutting board. “Jenny told me I have to take over because you aren’t allowed to do anything.”

I roll my eyes and drop the knife, moving out of his way.

I stare at his left hand, wondering what a wedding ring is going to look like on his ring finger. It’s hard for me to imagine Jonah Sullivan committing to someone. I still can’t believe he’s back in our lives, and now he’s here, in my kitchen, chopping onions on a cutting board that was given to me and Chris at the wedding Jonah didn’t even attend.

“You okay?”

I look up at Jonah. His head is tilted, his cobalt eyes full of curiosity as he waits for me to answer him. Everything inside of me feels like it thickens—my blood, my saliva, my resentment.

“Yeah.” I flash a quick smile. “I’m fine.”

I need to give my focus to something else—anything else. I walk to the refrigerator and open it, pretending to look for something. I’ve successfully avoided one-on-one conversation with him since he moved back. I don’t feel like making it a thing right now. Especially on my birthday.

The kitchen door swings open, and Chris walks in with a pan of burgers fresh off the grill. I close the refrigerator and stare at the kitchen door, which continues to swing back and forth behind him.

I hate that door more than I hate any other part of this house.

I’m grateful for the house, don’t get me wrong. Chris’s parents gave it to us as a wedding present when they moved to Florida. But it’s the same house Chris grew up in, and his father, and his grandfather. The house is a historical landmark, complete with the little white sign out front. It was built in 1918 and reminds me daily that it’s over a century old. The creaky floorboards, the plumbing that’s constantly in need of repair. Even after we remodeled six years ago, the age still screams out any chance it gets.

Chris wanted to keep the original floor plan after the remodel, so even though a lot of the fixtures are new, it doesn’t help that every room in this house is secluded and closed off from every other room. I wanted an open floor plan. Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe in this house with all these walls.

I certainly can’t eavesdrop on Jenny and Clara’s conversation like I’d like to.

Chris sets the pan of burgers on the stove. “Gotta grab the rest, and then it’ll be ready. Is Clara almost home?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Ask Jenny.”

Chris raises his eyebrows, sensing my jealousy. He exits the kitchen, and the door continues to swing. Jonah stops it with his foot and then goes back to cutting up the vegetables.

Even though the four of us used to be best friends, sometimes Jonah seems like a stranger to me. He looks mostly the same, but there are subtle differences. When we were teens, his hair was longer. So long he’d sometimes pull it back in a ponytail. It’s short now and a richer brown. He lost some of the honey-colored streaks that would show up by the end of every summer, but the darker color just brings out the blue in his eyes even more. His eyes have always been kind, even when he was angry. The only time you could tell he was upset was when his angular jawline would tense.

Chris is his opposite. He has blond hair and emerald eyes and a jawline he doesn’t keep hidden behind stubble. Chris’s job requires him to be clean cut, so his smooth skin makes him appear years younger than he actually is. And he has this adorable dimple that appears in the center of his chin when he smiles. I love it when he smiles, even after all these years of marriage.