“I’m sorry, too. I should’ve spoken up more when things started bothering me.” Seth stayed quiet on the phone for a little longer. “Can you meet for coffee tomorrow to talk?”
She slowly formed a small smile. “Yes.”
Lexi knew it wasn’t all resolved, but she felt hopeful after they hung up.
As she and Archie made their way back into the house, her sisters and parents all stared at her.
“Well?” her mom asked. “How’d it go?”
She nodded her head and smiled. “Let’s just say I finally have my appetite back.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “Can we eat?”
The kitchen counter was lined with aluminum foil tins filled with food the caterer wrapped up for them from the wedding. Everyone piled blackened red fish and prime rib onto their plates and sat around the oak dining table, which was scraped and scratched from many years of family dinners.
Lexi stared at the magnolia centerpiece sitting in the middle of the table. Karen, the event coordinator from the country club, delivered it an hour ago, along with some other items from the wedding. Maybe it was the fact that she had already cried too much that day, or perhaps it was how stupid those little sprigs of gold-painted twigs poking out of the flowers looked, but Lexi felt an inappropriate giggle coming on.
Her mom glanced at her, perplexed. “What in the world could be so funny right now?”
Lexi tried to compose herself, understanding the gravity of her and her sisters’ situations, but couldn’t help as another laugh escaped from her mouth. She covered it with her hands. The moment reminded her of when they were younger, and she and her sisters would break into giggle fits at the table. Her parents used to get so annoyed when that happened. One time when Lexi was in elementary school, it got so out of control that none of the girls could stop laughing and actual tears streamed down their faces. She couldn’t even remember what was so funny, but she wanted to feel that again. Those were the kinds of tears she wanted right now.
“Oh, come on,” she said with a laugh. “You have to admit it’s kind of comical how bad today was. I mean, has there ever been a more pathetic set of sisters… ever?”
Callie and Hanna straightened their slouched shoulders.
Lexi shook her head and dried the residual tears under her eyes.
“What’s wrong with us?” Hanna snorted.
Callie leaned her arms on the table. “True… If there was an award for most pathetic sisters, we’d win.” She started chuckling.
Hanna hung her head low and let out a small laugh. “I guess it’s funny in a depressing way.”
“Is it?” their dad chimed in, looking around at his daughters with a confused expression.
“Yes, Dad,” Lexi said, nudging his arm. “We thought we were so lucky, but god, we were so wrong.…” A hush fell over the table. Lexi took a sip of her wine and turned serious. “Do you think we’d be in this mess if we hadn’t won the lottery?”
Hanna leaned back in her chair. “Absolutely not,” she said, shaking her hair. “You would’ve had your simple wedding with Seth, that jerk would have never come into Callie’s life, and I never would’ve bought that stupid house.”
Callie nodded her head. “Yeah, I really thought the money was going to make life easier, but it kind of did the opposite. I mean, look where we are right now… right back where we started.”
Lexi frowned, thinking about what Callie said. “Well, you guys are right back where you started.” An image of Seth flashed in her mind. “There’s still a chance I might be the only one who lost what I already had.”
“You’re going to work things out, I’m sure,” Hanna said, reaching her arm across the table.
Lexi could feel herself getting choked up again. “I hope so.” She paused. “The funny thing is, all he wanted was to get married on a hill at sunset, and all I wanted was to marry him… and somehow we got neither.” She sniffed. “I’m not sure what’s gonna happen with him, but I don’t want to lose him. He was the best decision I ever made.”
“Aw, honey,” her mom said. “I’m sure everything’s going to be okay.”
“Seth is a good guy,” their dad added. “I think he’ll come to his senses. And if he doesn’t, well, then he’s too stupid to be with my daughter.”
Lexi hoped her parents were right.
Callie poured champagne into her sister’s empty wineglass. The girls had found the stash of Dom Pérignon mixed in a box filled with wine bottles Karen had included in her haul from the venue. The alcohol was helping dull the pain a little.
“Well hey, if it doesn’t work out, maybe Wynn Kernstone will try to court you next,” Callie said sarcastically.
“Ew, no thanks,” Lexi said, disgusted. “I’m so happy you caught him when you did.” She hated that her sister’s first real love turned out to be such a skeevy fraud. But she also knew that Callie was strong and would come back from it even stronger. “So, are you going to stay at that TV job since he’s there?”
“Hell no,” Callie said immediately. “I already emailed my boss and said I’m never coming back. And it’s not just because Wynn’s there. I hated it there. I hated the clothes, the lifestyle, the on-camera reporting—” She paused for a second like she was having a breakthrough. “It turns out I’m just a gritty low budget newspaper girl—there’s no getting around it.”
“And we love our gritty low budget newspaper girl,” Hanna said with a smile.
“All right, Hanna, you’re up,” their dad said, pointing to her. “Let’s figure out your problem. Are y’all gonna fix the new place or move back into your old one?”
“I have no idea.” Hanna folded her napkin in her lap. “I feel like the new one has bad juju or something. But we’ve outgrown our old place and there are too many things wrong with it.” Hanna tilted her head with an idea. She smirked. “Maybe we’ll just move back in here with you.”
Their parents were going to use some of the money the girls had given them to renovate the place. Their mom had already enlisted Tom to do it once he finished the big project he was working on now.
“Ha,” their dad said with a laugh. “You’re a big girl with a big bank account now. I think you can find a place to live.”
“Easy for you to say.…” Hanna trailed off. “Why didn’t y’all tell us that being an adult was so hard?”
Lexi tilted her head, thinking about what her sister just said. There was certainly no rulebook for life. Sometimes she wished there was.
Everyone sat in awkward silence for a second.
“At least this crawfish pasta is freaking delicious!” Callie said, holding up her fork. The family all broke into laughter and for a split second, Lexi felt back to her old self again.
CHAPTER 30 Callie
With a broken heart, no job, and nothing to do on Monday morning, Callie decided to go to the only place she could think of. She pulled into the parking lot of the newspaper office, wondering what she was going to say to her coworkers when she saw them. She couldn’t very well ask for her job back. But her heart still ached, and she needed some friendly faces right now. She just hadn’t realized until she quit that her coworkers were the best ones.