“Got it.” She sighs. “There’s just something you need to understand about him, though. He’s trying to apologize the only way he knows how. Spending money is his love language.”
“His what now?”
“That’s how he communicates affection. We didn’t have the healthiest model for relationships growing up, but he’s always tried to care for you the only way he knows how. Remember how he was always feeding you? He does the same thing with me and Tamara. It’s because he remembers being hungry as a teenager, and he never wants anyone he cares about to go through that. And when we were kids, the only affection that we got from our parents was in the form of material goods. Dad drowned us in presents. He always sent our mom jewelry and giant vases of flowers when she was mad at him, which was most of the time. Blake’s trying to learn how to live outside of Dad’s shadow, but it doesn’t happen overnight.”
My heart clenches in my chest. The thought of Blake going hungry crushes me every time. It makes me want to invent a time machine just so I could travel back through the years and show up at his house with bags and bags of home-cooked meals, brimming with all the love he’d been denied.
No. No. He hurt my parents. I have to keep remembering that. If we keep talking, I’ll weaken.
“Take care of yourself, Alice. Give Steve and Tamara my love.” And I hang up quickly and turn off the phone.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Blake
“We told you so.” Nico’s words ring in my ears. He’s reminded me by email, text, and phone that I should have run the billboard idea by him and Renata.
Alice joined in on the chorus of blame, which was super helpful. The press quickly figured out who the Times Square billboard was referring to, and now there’s a troop of newspaper reporters camped out in Peach Pit, embarrassing Winona’s family. I’m taking my life in my hands by showing up here.
But what kind of life do I have without her? A lonely one, where I wake up every morning in a cold, empty bed, missing the feel and smell of her.
I stifle a yawn, clutching the cardboard box on my lap as the limo driver slows to a stop in front of Winona’s house. I’m exhausted. Weeks without sleep will do that to you.
The cardboard box contains a gift that I’ve brought for her, inspired by Alice’s rant to stop throwing money at the problem and start thinking with my heart instead of my wallet. It’s the most thoughtful, personal gift I could come up with, and financially, it’s worth nothing at all.
“This is it!” I call out to the limo driver.
Winona’s family home is a small white bungalow with a traditional front porch, ringed in by a white picket fence. The front yard is adorned with buckets of flowers sitting in a wooden wagon. The back yard, their orchard, stretches into the distance. I recognize it from my internet stalking sessions.
The driver slows to a halt, and I fling the door open. A blast of sauna-wet air smacks me in the face and sucks the breath from my lungs.
“I’ve got my suitcase, thanks.”
I slide out of the car with the box under my arm, set my suitcase down on the street, and hand him a stack of bills. He nods his thanks.
“Hey, you!” an angry voice screeches at me. I turn to see an old woman with white hair piled in a top-knot, slowly making her way towards me from across the street, leaning on a cane.
“Are you one of those reporters?” she demands when she reaches me. She looks after the departing limo, headed back to the airport.
“No, I’m just the idiot who sent them here and who’s trying to fix my mistake,” I say.
She thwaps me on the leg with the cane, hard, and the cane slips from her fingers and drops onto the street.
“Ow,” I say mildly, and bend over to pick it up.
“You better not be lying,” she growls at me. I hold the cane out to her and she snatches it from my hand.
“I am not,” I assure her.
She turns and hobbles very slowly back towards her home, which faces Winona’s. She’s so wobbly I’m afraid she’s going to face-plant into the asphalt and knock her dentures out. I’m dying to get to Winona’s house, but I’ve promised myself that I’ll stop rushing everywhere.
I hold out my arm. “Here, allow me.”
“Don’t you try to mug me, now.” She glares at me suspiciously. “I know how you city slickers are. I’ve still got a few moves.”
“I’m sure you do,” I assure her. I leave my suitcase in the middle of the street, clutch the box in one arm, and help her make her way to the sidewalk. When we reach it, she whacks my leg with her cane again, but not as hard this time.
“You’re the one who put up the billboard?”
“Yes, that was me.”
“Dumb Yankee. You better go apologize right now.”
I don’t need to be told twice. I sprint across the street, grabbing my suitcase without even pausing, and a minute later I’m on the front porch. Her mother flings open the door, clad in a floral blouse, jeans, and sneakers.
“I’m–”
“Sorry, we know.” She rolls her eyes at me. “Don’t tell me, tell my daughter.”
I set my suitcase down just inside the doorway. She glances at the box I’m still holding.
“Gift for Winona.”
“Is it? There’s something rattling around. It sounds like something’s broken in there.” The air in the house is warm and carries the smell of baking and the sweet, golden scent of peaches. She waves at me to follow her. “It’s Saturday. It’s pie day. Move along, we’ve got work to do here.”
I follow her into the kitchen, and stop in my tracks. I pause to take a breath and quiet my suddenly pounding heart. It’s been weeks since I last saw Winona, and now here she is, five feet away from me, carefully dusting powdered sugar onto a pie. There are rows and rows of pies on an old scarred wooden table.
She has flour on her nose, an old frilly granny apron covering a baggy sweatshirt, and curlers in her hair. It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
“He helped the Widow Baudelaire walk across the street after she dropped her cane,” Anna Lou says to Winona, raising her voice as if to give her words extra emphasis. Not sure why; I mean, at the speed that woman was going on her own, we’d have entered a new ice age before she reached the sidewalk. Of course I helped her. It was that or leave her to be made into road pizza by the first passing turtle.
I walk over to Winona and set the box down on the table, and I pick up one of the pies and hand it to her.
She looks at me, with hurt and warmth and sorrow shining from her eyes.
“I’ve missed you,” I say, my voice hoarse with emotion. “You cannot imagine how much I’ve missed you. I didn’t mean to yell out all that stuff about your parents and the peaches like that. I promised you I’d never tell, and I meant it. I had no idea they would overhear it. And I’m sorry about the billboard, it was a dumb idea. Will you please just pie me? Right in the kisser. I deserve it. And I wore my all-time favorite suit for the occasion. It volunteers as tribute.”
The corner of her mouth twitches up in a smile, and my heart does a leap of joy. She’s smiling.