Do You Take This Man (88)

She was right, but the idea of opening up, of talking about my feelings and risking him shutting me down again, made my skin crawl. Being mad was easier. “What would I even say?”

“I don’t know. ‘I love you and I want more than just your body’? ‘I’m sorry I made you think I didn’t care’?”

I laughed. “I don’t love him.”

She didn’t respond but met my eyes through the screen, one eyebrow slightly raised, the same way I’d looked at her when she and Wes were first getting together.

“I don’t,” I repeated, butterflies in my stomach flitting about aggressively. “And I don’t like that you’re trying to lawyer me.”

“Is it working?”

I tapped my fingernails on the desk and then flattened them, looking at the polish, my signature color and the one he’d committed to memory. I glanced around my office at where the carnations had sat for weeks on my desk. “It might be working. So, what do I actually say?”





Chapter 46


Lear





THE PUZZLE PIECES were spread across the table between us, and I mindlessly tried to sort the edge pieces by color, making piles, while my head was everywhere besides Uncle Harold’s dining room. It was on RJ and Sarah and the envelope I hadn’t opened and the feelings I’d kept bottled up that were threatening to explode.

“Somethin’ on your mind, son?”

“What?” I looked up, pulled from my thoughts. “No, nothing. Why?”

He pointed a gnarled finger toward my pile of pieces. “You seem distracted.”

I glanced down at the table where he pointed—I’d begun piecing together green edge pieces, part of the grass, and had wedged a bright orange and pink in with them. “Oh, yeah.” I shifted the piece away and looked down, searching for a green one to take its place. “I guess I have a little on my mind.”

“Penny’s running you ragged at work?”

“Would she run me any other way?”

He chuckled, moving his own pieces around, his section of the puzzle coming together a lot faster than mine. “No, I don’t suppose she would. We don’t get too many shrinking violets in our family. My Bette taught the girls to speak up.”

I flashed him a quick smile I was sure he didn’t buy, but we fell back into silence, the room filled only with the sounds of sliding puzzle pieces on the lacquered wood of the table.

“Been about a year since everything happened in California, hasn’t it?”

Hairs rose on the back of my neck. “Yeah,” I said. “About a year.” Cait and Penny kept pushing me to talk to a therapist. If Aunt Bette were there, she would have had me talking months earlier, but Harold just waited. It surprised me when he changed topics.

“I ever tell you how scared your dad was before Caitlin was born?” He didn’t look up, just spoke while moving the pieces around. “Never seen a man so worked up. You know your grandpa, well, he wasn’t that great a father. The times were different, but your dad . . .” He smiled, a wistful expression, his eyes crinkling at the edges with memory. “Well, he worried a lot, wanted to make sure he could do right by your mama and you kids. I think maybe you get that from him—wanting to make things easy for other people.”

“I don’t remember him being a worrier,” I said, mirroring Harold, moving my pieces around like this was a conversation we always had.

“Course you don’t. Sometimes we don’t see things in people they don’t want us to see, and he was good at keeping it hidden.”

I nodded. “What made you think of that?”

Harold lifted the water glass to his lips and then met my eyes, his gaze unrelenting for a moment. I was fourteen again and waiting for the punishment to come, knowing I’d messed up. Looking away wasn’t an option. “?’Cause you got the protective and worryin’ parts down but never had time to learn the hiding part from him—you’re not good at it. So, you gonna tell me what’s really bothering you, or are we gonna keep dancing?”

We held the gaze for another moment, and my stomach churned. “You sayin’ I’m not a good dancer, Uncle Harold?”

His laugh bounced off the walls and shook his thin frame. “I’m sure you don’t embarrass yourself, if I taught you anything.”

“Haven’t done much dancing lately.” The chorus to “Can’t Help Falling in Love” threatened to take up residence in my head. I took a swig from my beer, returning to the puzzle. The picture was of a lake, a boat floating in the middle and sunlight dappling the surface. “The kid’s birthday was about a week ago,” I finally said, not looking up. “It’s . . . been on my mind.”

“That makes sense.” He moved a few pieces into place and reached across the table. I thought he was going to take a piece he wanted, but he rested his hand on mine instead. “I’ve been around a lot of years. There’s no shame in missing someone, missing something you thought would last.”

I swallowed. “I know.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with bein’ sad. Maybe you should talk to one of those counselors. I did after your aunt died. It was kinda good to talk about things.”