Panicked, I turned to fumble for it on my bedside table, thinking there must be some kind of emergency for someone to be calling me at this hour, when the song stopped. Grabbing my phone, I pushed up to sitting and unlocked it to see the missed call was from my mom.
I stared blearily at the screen for a moment.
Obviously, Phil had passed along my message to Mom that I was staying in England for another three months. What was she thinking? Would she think I was abandoning her? That I was done? Would this cause her to fall off the wagon? This was why I didn’t want to talk to her in the first place, because I didn’t want my concern for her dictating my choice. Not this time. At some point, I had to put myself first. Horrible flutters flapped around in my belly.
I’d only been staring at my phone a few minutes when it beeped, and an envelope appeared to let me know I had voice mail.
Oh God.
Just delete it, Evie.
But I couldn’t.
My curiosity was too great.
“Hey, baby girl.” My mom’s husky voice sounded in my ear as I listened to her message. An ache flared across my chest. “I just realized it’s probably really early where you are . . . so I’m sorry if I woke you.”
I relaxed at how clear she sounded.
No slurring.
Not off the wagon, then.
“I just . . . Phil told me you’re staying in England for another three months, and I couldn’t wait that long to say to you . . .” She sucked in a shaky breath and released it slowly, causing static on the line. “How sorry I am. Again. And . . . uh . . . well, I need you to know that if you can’t forgive me, if you can’t find it in you to give me another shot, that I understand, baby girl.” Her voice broke, her words filled with tears I knew were rolling down her face. “I need you to do what’s right for you, even if that means letting me go. I’ve been selfish with you for too long. So . . .” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was stronger. “You make the right choice for you, my beautiful girl, and don’t worry about me. You’ve been the parent in this relationship for way too long. It’s my turn to do right by you . . . I’m sorry I let you down so much. I’m sorry I never found a way to let you know that I love you more than I love anything in this world.”
The message cut off and I struggled to breathe through the tears that had started falling from the moment I heard her voice.
In all the times she’d apologized, my mom had never once said, I need you to do what’s right for you.
It sparked a hope.
But that hope had been crushed too many times to count.
Turmoil washed through me, and I knew there was no going back to sleep after that message. Instead I got up, brushed my teeth, washed the tears off my face, and pulled on a boyfriend cardigan I’d brought with me.
I made coffee, slipped on shoes, and went outside to watch the sunrise from the apartment’s private garden across the street. The village was eerily silent, no sound but that of the sea lapping at the small shore of the harbor.
The sky was a dark purple color, slowly brightening to pale blue streaked with orange as the sun began to rise.
Sipping my coffee, I forced tears back as I pondered the message from my mother. For weeks now I’d purposefully forgotten everything about the States except Greer.
It was all waiting for me when I eventually got back, and with the exception of my best friend, I wasn’t sure I wanted to face any of it. Which was why Greer’s suspicions about my reasons for staying longer in England didn’t sound so silly to me anymore.
The heartbreaking truth was that I’d been happier, more content, these past few weeks than I remembered feeling in a long time. Suddenly, I felt brittle with confusion.
The sound of a car engine broke through the peaceful silence, and I turned my head, surprised to see Roane’s Land Rover. The beam of his lights blinded me for a second as the SUV turned toward the center of the village.
But then suddenly he stopped, reversed, and swung left toward me.
He’d obviously caught sight of me.
My heart began to beat just that little bit faster.
Roane pulled up against the curb and jumped out. He strode unhurriedly toward the garden and jumped over the small gate rather than open it.
“Evie?” He took the steps two at a time down into the garden.
“Hey.”
“What are you doing up so early?” Roane sat down on the bench beside me, resting his arm along the back of it, almost cocooning me.
That’s all it took.
The man did something to my defenses.
Obliterated them.
An ugly-sounding sob burst out of me.
“Fuck, Evie.” Roane wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his warm strength. I burrowed into him, my tears soaking the front of his sweater. “Shh, angel.” He rubbed my back. “I’m here, I’ve got you.”
He did. Nothing felt safer than his arms around me, and I wondered if anything ever had. More confusion flooded me, so big it got stuck in my throat, the emotion choking me. I burrowed harder into Roane, fighting for breath through my tears, and wished for the feeling to pass.
When my tears eventually subsided, I panted a little, trying to catch my breath, and neither of us moved for a minute.
Turning my face on his chest, I looked up to the sky. It was lighter, almost completely blue, and cloudless.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
At Roane’s gentle query, I straightened, lifting my head. His hands smoothed down my back as I moved, one falling away, the other settling on my hip.
I met his concerned gaze, knowing I was probably a snot-nosed mess.
“My mom is an alcoholic,” I confessed.
Concern gave way to sympathy. “Evie.” He squeezed my hip.
I proceeded to tell him the things only Greer knew. The things I’d kept from previous boyfriends because Chace had used the knowledge as part of his arsenal in his cold war against my self-esteem. He’d used it to support the idea that I was ungrateful trash.
“My dad died of a heart defect when I was eight. One day he was there, the next he was gone. No one knew about the defect until it was too late. I only have a few memories of him that are sharp, clear, as if they happened yesterday. The rest are just impressions of him as a dad, as a husband. I was so young. But he was the kind of dad who sat patiently removing gum from your hair when you had a little-girl freak-out at the idea of the gum being cut out.” My smile was watery. “The kind of dad who cheered you on at Little League like you were the next Frank Thomas when in truth you couldn’t bat for shit. And he was the kind of husband who kissed his wife every morning before he left for work and every evening when he got home. The kind of husband who dried the dishes she washed and made her laugh when she’d had a bad day.”