“Sit,” I told her. “I’d offer a glass of wine, but…how about a sweet tea?”
“Just water, please.” I fixed her a glass and out of habit popped a slice of lemon in it.
I stood on the other side of the island as she took a seat on one of the metal stools and sipped at the water. Her gaze flitted around the kitchen, brushing against me like a physical caress as I chopped onions and mushrooms and stirred the beef.
“This kitchen is really pretty,” she commented, taking in the deep gray of the bottom cabinets, the creamy distressed uppers, the marble veined granite in the countertops. They complemented the scuffed hardwood floors and long, narrow farmhouse table Birdie had found at a flea market. We’d gone all out in the kitchen and the master bath, choosing to put off some of the other rooms in favor of making these exactly what we wanted. The result was a blend of luxurious and practical — a room for hanging out in, like she was doing now.
“You designed it,” I told her now. “Did all the painting. Picked out the rug and table, the light fixtures.”
“Oh.” A little smile tugged at her mouth as she continued surveying the space. “I did pretty good.”
“Yes, you did. We focused on the kitchen and master bath first, so the rest of the place isn’t perfect. There are places where we need to switch out fixtures, repair the dry wall, work on a fireplace…” I cleared my throat. “Our philosophy was that we had the rest of our lives, so why rush? We were taking our time, making sure we loved every detail.”
I didn’t tell her that I was pretty sure that if she didn’t come back to me soon, there was no way I could stay in this house another night. She had poured herself into it, one project at a time, and I couldn’t breathe without inhaling her absence. It was killing me, one moment in these walls to the next.
“How’s the job going?”
Her smile broadened. “I love it. I love Maggie — Magnolia — Lane. She’s so…genuine and warm. I feel like I’ve known her for forever.” I opened my mouth to speak, unable to let that opening go without letting her know that she did, in fact, know Maggie, but she kept going, talking faster as she warmed to her subject. “Speaking of. Can you tell me anything about my relationship with my mother? Something kind of weird — or at least, it seemed weird to me but what do I know, right?” She gave a little huff of laughter. “Anyway, something happened today, and it made me wonder.”
“What happened?”
“She called me at work, asked if I had a minute to talk. She told me that the place where she works is closing its doors, and she’s sorry that she won’t be able to cover my insurance anymore since she’s losing that.” I made a noise and Birdie got up from the bar, moving away restlessly. “Then she said that she was moving to Georgia to take a job with her brother — that she had been in the middle of doing exactly that when I had the accident. I could either come with her or stay behind. She hasn’t been warm and fuzzy these past few weeks, but I wouldn’t call her exactly distant or uncaring, either. But this phone call…out of the blue like this…it almost smacked of ‘don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’ She didn’t even ask about the baby. Mention anything about making sure she’d be part of its life.”
I took my time in replying, stirring the remaining ingredients into the sauce and setting the wooden spoon carefully onto the spoon rest. Then I wiped my hands on a towel and met her eyes. “I was a little worried, to be honest, about you being there with her. You haven’t lived with her in over four years, Birdie. Even though you were practically going to school in the same town and could have saved thousands on living expenses, you elected to live in the dorms for the first couple of years. She’s never been neglectful or unloving, but you’ve always held some resentment toward her for her decisions over the years. You weren’t close and I couldn’t see that staying there, in that place you haven’t been in for years, would help you remember.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “That’s the impression I got. So why was I staying there? When I got out of the hospital that’s where I was taken.”
“Because you at least recognized her. You didn’t know me from Adam. And I don’t have any legal ties to you.” She trailed a finger along the surface of the table, considering. I tossed the dish towel to the counter and stepped toward her. “Come on. Let’s go look at the rest of the place, see if anything strikes you as familiar.”
Taking her hand, I ignored her start of surprise or discomfort when my skin slid against hers and held on to it firmly. “This way.”
I tugged her first to the small room we’d declared a library, a front room off the foyer with walls that curved. “Library,” I announced. She peered around me at the mostly empty shelves, the hard wooden plank of a window seat that still needed softening up, the boxes of books and knick-knacks we had yet to unpack.
“What were we doing in here?” She questioned.
“We had just finished putting in the built-ins,” I told her. Your next project was painting or staining them and then I think you had plans for window treatments.” I scratched the back of my neck. “I can’t believe I even know the term window treatment. I guess I was paying attention to all those Fixer Upper episodes.”
She laughed once, low in her throat. “I don’t know what Fixer Upper is, but impressive all the same.”
“I have many impressive qualities but knowing what a window treatment is isn’t one of them,” I replied. I couldn’t help teasing her a bit, trying to remind her of the feeling between us.
“Hmmm.”
“Next…” I led her to the family room she’d peeked in earlier and gestured from the doorway. “Family room. We were refurbishing the fireplace in here, but I think more often than not it was the room we used to work on stuff. You’d sit in front of the tv and work on a piece you were painting, like that chest.” There’s a cherry-red chest sitting in the middle of the room, mostly done but still in need of a finishing coat.
“What did you do?”
“What do you mean?” We walked toward the back of the house.
“I was doing all these projects…what were you busy with?”
“Oh.” We stopped in front of the door to the bedroom we converted into her studio. “I did a lot of grading for work. Fencing, outdoors. The porch, the barn…anything that needed hammer and nails, really.”
She nodded toward the studio. “What’s this?”
“This is your studio.”
Curious, she wandered in while I leaned in the doorway, studying the workspace that ran the length of the room and the neatly organized assortment of paints, half-finished signs, and papers. She shifted a notepad off of one of the signs that had a few lines penciled in but not yet painted, reading the verse just under her breath.
And if my heart be scarred and burned, the safer, I, for all I learned. — D. Parker
She canted her head to the side, murmuring the words a second time. “I know this…” Then it seemed to hit her.
“I made these? For Maggie, I mean?” I watched as the connections formed in her mind, revealing themselves on her expressive face as quickly as they did so. “We knew each other…before.” She shook her head a little, her confusion clear. “But why wouldn’t she just tell me?”