Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(92)

“Yeah, or maybe they would have just kept coming after you, expecting more. I meant for you to have that money, not your family.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just didn’t know what else to do.” I squeezed his hand. “I admit, also, that I might have been a little skeeved out by knowing who the money came from.”

“Um . . . last I checked, it came from me.”

“Wanna guess who bought those paintings?”

“Oh, are you shitting me?” He sighed. “Okay, now I just feel dirty.”

“Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction. I don’t know why it disturbs me, but it does.”

“It disturbs you because it’s f*cking over the line. There’s something very intimate about those paintings. It means he’s not nearly as over it as you are, and that’s kind of stalkery. I mean, really, who pays thousands of dollars for art of their ex-fling?”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t have thought Brendan was that type. He was a normal guy, not like that at all. Now I’m wondering exactly what his purpose was in coming out to his family.”

“You may need to take the initiative, nip any idea that you guys might get back together in the bud.”

I blew out a slow breath as he pulled into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

“Okay. In the meantime”—Jace laid his fingers alongside my jaw and turned my face gently to look at him—“that money came from me to help you. He couldn’t have known when he bought the paintings that I’d give the money to you. This isn’t him trying to make you feel obligated or to control you. All right?”

“Right.” I nodded once, resolutely, and Jace kissed me, then got out of the car to check us in.





For a moment we all stop and look to you

Our lost one who

We will not forget

But we must keep moving through

The bitter truth

—Casey Stratton, “The Bitter Truth”

My mom was awake, if groggy and in a lot of pain, when we got back to the hospital.

“Hi, baby.” She smiled happily when I took her hand and leaned down to kiss her cheek. Her voice was slightly slurred, but that was something that had begun to happen long before her suicide attempt and/or stroke—a reminder of the brain damage that came with long-term alcohol abuse.

“Hi, Mom,” I murmured. Seeing her smile at me like that, knowing that—whatever her faults—she did love me as much as she was capable of loving anyone, and that being with me made her happy, made it very hard to remember all the reasons she wasn’t good for me.

“How are you?”

“I’m okay.” I smiled. “I brought someone with me. Mom, this is my boyfriend, Jace. Jace, this is Frederica, my mom.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Carlisle,” Jace said very properly, and Mom squeezed my fingers, grinning.

“Kefler. I got remarried.” Mom couldn’t manage to lift her other hand to shake his without too much pain, but she grinned at me. “I like him. Very cute.”

“So help me God, woman, if you say something inappropriate, I will smother you with a pillow.”

I smiled to take the sting off my words. Jace’s eyes widened, but Mom just laughed, or tried to, though her busted ribs made it impossible. She was, after all, the woman who had blurted things like I’d like to lick his teeth! to me about attractive men ever since I was a child. One time, when she was drunk, she’d told me that of all our fathers, Tonya’s was the only one she’d actually loved, but she could never have remained with him because he’d had the world’s smallest dick. It was from her that I’d learned the adage, Men have two heads. One they think with, the other they use as a hat rack. I think I’d been about ten or twelve when she’d dropped that one on me.

I might have been joking about the pillow part, but suspecting she might get inappropriate? Not out of bounds in the slightest.

“So, what have you been up to, baby?” she asked, not relinquishing my fingers. Her hand was too warm and puffy, the skin oddly smooth and shiny. Jace took a seat near the window.

I sat on the edge of her bed and held her hand and talked to her about my summer in Saugatuck, about the art gallery and the body art studio, about Robin and Geoff, Ling and Zhen, and how I’d picked Jace up on the beach.

“I thought I picked you up!” he protested, relaxing when he saw there wasn’t likely to be any overt conflict here.

“So, you’re going back to college?” she asked when I was done catching her up.

I nodded, meeting Jace’s eyes. We hadn’t yet discussed how things would change between us when I went back to Allendale. It was only about forty-five minutes farther away than Saugatuck for him, but still, we were going to have more of a separation between us.

“Yes, in a few weeks. I’m all registered for classes. I’m changing my major to music education.”

“Music education?” She frowned. “Why not performance?”

“Because,” I sighed tragically. “I have this unfortunate addiction: I like regular meals.”

She gave me a narrow look. “Smart-ass. I don’t know why you went to college to begin with. You should have gone to New York, gone straight to Broadway. Or at least gone to Juilliard.”