Well Matched (Well Met #3)(14)

“You’re selling the house?”

“Honey.” I didn’t understand why she looked so stricken. “You were there the night the agent came by. We talked about this.”

“Yeah, I know, but . . .” She blinked a few times, quickly, and my heart sank. “I thought we were just talking. I didn’t know you were really going to do it.”

“Well, I am.” I didn’t know any nicer way to say it. I thought she knew my plans already. “You know that once you’re off to college, this house will be too big for me all by myself.”

That didn’t make her look any happier. “But this is home. And I won’t be gone forever. I’ll be coming home, you know. Like for Christmas and stuff. Where will you . . . where am I gonna go?”

“Caitlin.” I started to reach for her, but the look on her face said that it wouldn’t be a great idea. “I’m not vanishing in the night without a forwarding address. You’ll know where I’ll be. And you’ll always have a place wherever I am. But I . . .” Hate small towns. I couldn’t say that, not to my daughter. I couldn’t tell her that the only reason we’d lived here for so long was that she’d been happy here. That was no kind of guilt to put on a kid. “I’d love to live closer to work,” I finally said. Better.

Her face darkened. “Whatever. I’m going to have some lunch.” She turned away from me and headed inside, leaving me in the semidarkness of the garage, my first home improvement project finished. I should be feeling accomplished: something to check off the list. But my insides felt all jumbled in conflicted directions, and I didn’t know what it was going to take to straighten them out.



* * *



? ? ?

Caitlin wasn’t happy at all.

For almost all of her life it had been the two of us versus the world, which made the whole mother-daughter dynamic a little more casual than it probably should have been. I turned on the authority when I needed to, but for the most part we lived in a harmonious household. Two really good friends, with a significant age, income, and authority gap.

But that wasn’t the case now. Now that Caitlin knew I was going through with selling the house, she’d become withdrawn. She didn’t act out, she didn’t pitch a fit. No, our disagreements took place in loud silence. Homework that used to be done at the dining room table while I did the dishes in the evening was now done in her bedroom with the door closed. Mealtime conversation was kept to a bare minimum without any of Caitlin’s usually bubbly commentary on her classmates and things happening at school or in town. After a couple of days I realized I missed her, as though she’d already left for college.

I coped the only way I knew how: I threw myself into this whole home renovation thing. That next Saturday afternoon I went to the family-owned hardware store downtown—those were few and far between these days, and if my little home project could help support Willow Creek’s economy, even better. Afterward I swung by the bookstore with a handful of paint chips to enlist the help of my sister.

Emily looked at all the chips spread out on the counter and shook her head. “This is a trick, right? These are all the same color.”

“Nope. This one is Eggshell.” I tapped a fingernail on the chip on the left. “This one’s Ecru, and that one’s Vanilla.”

She shook her head again. “They all look . . . I dunno, off-white.”

“Exactly.” I nodded vigorously. “Neutral colors.”

“Yeah.” Her nod was as listless as mine was energetic. She sighed and looked up at me. “So you’re really doing this?”

“What, painting the house?”

“No, dummy. Moving.”

“Well, yeah.” Irritation tingled through my blood. Was I going to get this shit from Emily too? Why did this seem so hard for everyone to believe? “I’ve been planning this forever.”

“How’s Caitlin taking it?”

I didn’t like the answer to that question, but Em would see through any lie. “Not great.” That was an understatement. I’d gotten the silent treatment most of this week at dinner, and Caitlin had spent the rest of the time in her room.

“I can imagine.” Emily sounded sympathetic, but it made my hackles rise. Whose side was she on? And why were there sides in the first place?

I gathered the paint chips and tapped them on the counter, neatening the stack, giving my hands something to do. “What do you want me to do? Wait for her to graduate from college? The only time she’ll be here is during breaks and over the summer if I’m lucky. Am I supposed to sit around this house, this town, on my own for four more years?” The thought was excruciating. I’d put my own life on hold the minute I became a single mother. How much longer was I going to have to wait?

“No. Hey. No.” Emily reached across the counter and laid her hand over mine. “You gave up what you wanted to do, and how you wanted to live, to put your kid first. I know that. You deserve to let your own life begin. I’m not saying you shouldn’t.” She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back before letting go.

“Well, the first step to doing that is getting the walls painted. Which is going to take forever to do on my own, so I should probably figure out this paint and get started.”

“On your own?” Emily tilted her head like a confused puppy. “You’re not on your own.”