She secures Leia’s braid with an elastic, then smooths a hand over her head. “Do me a favor and check on Grandpa, sweetheart.” She taps Leia’s hip.
“Why? He’s probably fishing.”
“Exactly. Fishing is fun.” Mom winks. “You’ll see. Go now.”
Leia groans but leaves the room. She knows that my mom isn’t really asking. I have the instant urge to yank my little buffer back between me and my mom’s inevitable pep talk.
“Be right back. GRANDPA!” she shouts.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t scream,” my mom calls.
Leia’s footsteps jog down the stairs, and the screen door bangs shut behind her.
I get up off the bed and unpack another box. “Go on. Let’s hear it. Say what you want to say.”
Mom joins me, reaching in and picking up items that were packed too haphazardly, since I was only given a small amount of time to move us out of our house. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Delaney. You did nothing wrong.”
“I married him.” I set Leia’s pink piggy bank on the dresser. Sean used to slip hundreds into it after bedtime on the rare nights he was there to tuck her in and kiss her good night. Which wasn’t as often as I would have preferred, but I stupidly believed he was off building our future. “I should have known.”
“You loved him,” Mom replies, stacking Leia’s books on the bookshelf that used to be filled with my own mementos.
There’re more than a couple of secrets she doesn’t know, but they can wait. One storm at a time if I want to make it through.
“If everyone quit going out in public over embarrassment, the town square would be a ghost town.” She strokes my hair. “You have to move forward, for Leia and for yourself.”
I stare out the window. This wasn’t my childhood bedroom. My parents left Willowbrook right before my senior year of high school and only moved back six months ago to retire. Of course they couldn’t pick Florida. They had to return to the one town I swore I’d never return to.
A buttercream yellow Jeep dotted with oversized white daisies turns onto the gravel drive.
I shoot my mom a look. “You called Poppy?”
She shrugs. “She’s your friend.”
“Her cousin’s wedding reception is today.”
“It’s just a reception. Lottie’s already married to Brooks,” Mom says with a too-bright smile. “Maybe Bennett will be there.”
Goes to show how much she doesn’t know. He’s a good part of the reason I’ve been hiding. I’m not sure how our reunion will go, but from the few times my mom has talked about Bennett since returning to Willowbrook, he’s really leaning heavy on the whole widower thing—how much he loved Kristie and how her death gutted him.
I’m probably just jealous and don’t want to know he was really truly happy with someone else. I wanted him to be thinking of me late at night and going through the what-if scenarios like I do. He probably is, just for Kristie, not me. Which is the way it should be. She was his wife, and I was… well not.
“Stop it,” my mom says before kissing my temple. “Lottie will be thrilled to see you.”
“I’m not crashing a wedding, Mom.”
A knock sounds downstairs. “Hello, Richardses!”
“We’re up here,” Mom calls, then murmurs, “Sue me for wanting to see you smile again.”
Poppy breezes through the doorway, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her blond hair hanging just below her shoulders in tight waves and not looking all that different from the last time I saw her. Time has been good to her.
She hugs my mom. “I can’t believe you’re a grandma now! Where’s the munchkin?”
“Outside with Grandpa,” Mom says. “I need to check that they’re not wading in the pond. Lord knows, if Leia asked, he’d probably say yes. You two have fun.” She walks out, leaving me with Poppy’s raised brows aimed in my direction. “And remember, I’ve got Leia for the night,” she calls from the hall.
Poppy purses her lips with her back to my mom. I really wish she wouldn’t have felt obligated to come because of my mom.
“Soo… we’re going to ignore the fact you’ve been back for weeks and haven’t bothered to reach out, because I’m in desperate need of a floral designer,” Poppy says, plopping onto Leia’s bed. “Know anyone?”
