In a Book Club Far Away(93)

“I can’t even think.” Regina brushed past her.

“Where are you going to stay?”

“I don’t know, an Airbnb or a hotel somewhere? There’s surely something open.” She wheeled her suitcase out of the room and walked down the steps. “I need to figure out the rest of the logistics tomorrow. I’ll text to let you know where I am, and to let her know, too, because I know she’s going to worry.”

“Okay,” Sophie said, and with a nod to Henry, made way for him to catch up.

“I’m sorry for saddling you with the cleanup,” Regina said.

Sophie smiled at both the thoughtfulness and the silliness of it all. “You threw the best party, in the shortest amount of time, with the least amount of help. You made that little one’s year, and even if Adelaide didn’t say it, I know she’s grateful. So I think the least we can do is clean up.”

Regina nodded, took two steps, then looked back. “I’m sorry for everything, Soph.”

“I’m sorry, too.”





CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Regina




Regina stuffed the suitcase into her trunk, and when she finally sank into Baby’s driver’s seat, the gravity of her conversation with Sophie caught up with her. She’d been so engrossed with the party and making sure people enjoyed themselves that she’d had very little time to think about what came next.

She leaned to the passenger-side door and opened it to Henry, who had been standing on the sidewalk, patiently.

He held up two hands. “I’m sorry to sneak up on you. I just wanted to make sure that—”

She gestured with her head. “C’mon in.”

The car rocked as Henry got into the passenger seat and closed the door. The car tipped like it was on water.

“I neglected to give introductions the first day I arrived, but Henry, meet Baby. Baby, meet Henry. Baby was my first car and still is my only car. I bought her with my own money. She was a scrap heap when I got her, and now… now she is magnificent, though slightly temperamental.”

“She’s pretty.”

“She is. But do you know why I love her so much and why she matters to me?” She turned her face to the right. “Because she’s mine alone. My name’s the only one on the registration. When I first took her home, my family thought she wouldn’t last. But all she needed was a little love and someone to trust.” She paused, feeling her heart crack open again, a decade later. “Isn’t that all anyone needs? People who love them? Who are willing to see them through the bad times?”

She rested her hands on the steering wheel, bent her head to lean her forehead against it. She shut her eyes. “Can you believe she said, ‘Don’t be rash’? What a total Sophie thing to say. But then I think: Am I rash? Did I not think in there? Was I part of the problem a decade ago, when I didn’t listen to Sophie? And what am I supposed to do with all of this information? Am I just supposed to forgive someone who’s lied to me for the last ten years?”

She turned her head to the side. Henry stared back at her intently.

“What are your thoughts?”

“I… I don’t know. But it’s obvious that those two care about you. A lot. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s because you were together at an impressionable time in your lives, or at your most vulnerable maybe? But a deep undercurrent runs through the three of you. For the three of you to have been in the middle of a fight, and with no one else at the party noticing it—that says something. Anyway, I can’t even imagine what you’re going through, but I can’t let you stay at a hotel when I have a perfectly good place.” He held up his hands. “Not for anything but a place to sleep tonight, if you wish. I promise.”

“I know. I trust you.” The words came out of her mouth before she thought twice. And she realized she meant it. She’d trusted him all along. “Listen, I know that we need to have our own conversation, about us.”

He turned in his seat. “You and I have spoken or messaged almost every day the last eighteen months, Regina. You and I are good. Right now is not about us. This is about you and your friends.”

“How are you like this?”

An eyebrow rose. “Like what?”

“So good, and understanding. And nice.”

“Is that good? Should I be an asshole?”

She laughed. “No. But you make it so easy, which makes it all so hard, too.” Her mind was ping-ponging from Sophie and Adelaide to Henry, and to her business, and…

“Argh.” She laid her forehead on the steering wheel once more.

“Hey, it’s okay.” He placed a hand on her back.

“Is it?” She looked up ahead, to the bumper of the car in front of her, as if to find her answers there.

By the time she’d left Millersville, her friendship with Sophie had been in ashes. She’d remained friends with Adelaide, and to this day she swore it was Adelaide who’d helped her survive her first postpartum week, until her mother had been able to take over. In the years following, it was Adelaide she had turned to. “I don’t want to lose Adelaide. Sophie, too.”

He offered his hand; she set hers on top of his and held it firmly, as if it was a lifeline. “Deep friendships are complicated,” he said.