Well Matched (Well Met #3)(87)

“Yeah. I just got home.” I cleared my throat hard, but my voice was rough and there was no fooling my younger sister.

“Hey. Don’t worry, she’s gonna do great. She’s eighteen—all grown up now.”

“Not till next week.” A fresh sob escaped from my throat. “I’m going to miss her birthday. I’m going to miss all her birthdays from here on out, aren’t I?” That revelation was a fresh stab to my heart. This whole empty nest thing was overrated as hell.

“Okay. Stay right there. I’m ordering a pizza now, and I’ve been saving a bottle of wine for this very occasion. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Shut the hell up. Of course I do. Do you want me to invite Stacey over too? She should be getting home from Faire right about now.”

“No . . .” But I regretted the word as soon as I said it. I was used to saying no, to not wanting to get people involved in my business, in my emotions. But Stacey wasn’t just “people.” She was a friend. A good one. She was optimism personified, and a hug from her was like serotonin.

Besides, hiding my feelings from my friends had become overrated too. That was how I’d lost Mitch, wasn’t it? Maybe it was a habit I should let go.

So I took a deep, shaking breath. “Yeah. See if Stacey wants to come.”

“You got it. Now, sit tight.” She hung up before I could protest further. I stared straight ahead through my windshield at the back wall of my garage. All my emotions had been cried away and all I felt was numb. All those years of my life I’d put aside to raise Caitlin, and now I was alone. The kind of alone that wine and pizza and girl time wasn’t going to fix. But it was nice of Emily to try.

Eventually, I dragged myself into the house, taking the remains of my makeup off before Emily saw the ridiculous mascara tracks on my cheeks. I’d wallow with her and Stacey tonight. But tomorrow I needed to get back to work. I had a project to finish, and a house to get on the market.



* * *



? ? ?

I was busy for a few weekends, but before I knew it, the day had arrived. The day I’d been working toward all summer, not to mention the better part of my adult life.

My nest was empty.

The house was done.

I sat at the dining room table on a Saturday morning in late September, sipping from a mug of coffee in my empty house. Everything was so quiet. Even when Caitlin had been out of the house, her presence had still been here, in a backpack she left on the couch or some books on the table. But now even that was gone, and for the first time in my life I truly lived alone. Something I’d craved for years.

I hated it.

It was the house, I told myself. All this time spent painting the walls in neutral colors, replacing carpets and cabinet fronts, had transformed the inside to a place that I barely recognized. All those memories my daughter and I had made in this house, gone. Which had been the point, after all—paint over the memories, paint over the personality, make the whole place a blank slate for the next family to move in. They could make new memories here, while I started over somewhere else.

But this blank slate already had new memories imprinted on it. The living room walls reminded me of that week in June when Mitch and I had done all that painting together. You’ve got me now, he’d said as he’d fetched the ladder from the garage early in the day, and dinner from the Thai place that night. Superhero movies and sex on my living room floor. The Eggshell paint made me remember how I’d justified it to Mitch: fine, I’d said. It’s fine. I’d sounded so defeated then. But now when I looked at these walls, I saw myself looking up that ladder, watching Mitch cut in the top edges near the ceiling. He was laughing at something he’d said—he always laughed the loudest at his own jokes—and his merriment had made me laugh more than the joke itself.

I picked up my mug of coffee and strolled to the back of the house. Past Caitlin’s room, where the rest of her childhood was neatly put away. The guest room was anonymous again—I’d thought of it as Emily’s room for so long, but now it could be anyone’s. My running medals had stayed packed away.

But that room, that hallway . . . when I closed my eyes I saw Mitch helping me heft lengths of rolled-up carpet into giant garbage bags. I remembered waiting for someone in the neighborhood to call the HOA to report me for being a serial killer. I smiled now at the memory and went back to the kitchen to refill my coffee.

I wasn’t intending to text Mitch just then. But this house was so quiet and so empty, and I missed the way he took up space in my life. Before I could think about it my phone was in my hand and I was tapping out a text. Hi. Thank you again for helping me paint. The place really does look great. I’d been so caught up in memories of the summer that my brain had been back there, and it wasn’t until I hit Send that I remembered that this wasn’t something I got to do. He wasn’t a part of my life anymore, and I wasn’t a part of his.

A few minutes later, after I’d put my coffee mug in the dishwasher and wiped down the counters, my phone buzzed. I grabbed for it a little too eagerly, and my heart beat a little too quickly when I saw Mitch had texted back. No problem.

Okay, that wasn’t much to go on. But maybe it was a start? Maybe we could start talking again? Worth a try. How’s your football team this year? Less hopeless? Got anyone who can throw? The questions brought me back to that evening at his grandparents’ house, when I’d been by his side, defending him to the entire Malone clan. I missed them all. Hell, even that douchey cousin of his.