Jules flushed, but she didn’t answer.
“You deserve a second chance to—”
“I should get back to work.” Jules went to stand.
Angela gently tightened her hold on Jules’s hand. “I know you were dating someone, and it ended.”
Jules’s eyes widened. But after a second she sank back into her seat. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?”
Jules’s mouth thinned and she shook her head.
“At least tell me why you broke up with him.”
A stubborn, angry look settled on Jules’s face, but a hint of sadness lurked in her eyes.
Angela knew that look. Oh no. “Jules… did he break up with you?”
Jules yanked her hand from Angela’s. “I said I don’t want to talk about it!”
“That dog! How dare he?”
Jules’s eyes widened. After a shocked moment, she gave a surprised, shaky laugh, the tension leaving as quickly as it had appeared. “He wasn’t a dog. It was my fault.”
“As if!”
“Mom, seriously. I don’t blame him. I expected too much.” Jules leaned back in her chair, looking suddenly tired. “Joe and I started dating a long time ago. In the beginning, I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want the boys to think I was trying to replace their dad. Joe agreed and said the boys had to come first. He was great about it. Or he was back then.”
“And now?”
“Now he wants our relationship to be public. The trouble is, he may want that, but I don’t. I’ve gotten used to the way things are and I like it, having my privacy and no one asking questions. Which is what I told Joe. He said that was all he needed to know, and he ended it.”
“Jules, I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m fine.” Jules grabbed a napkin from the holder on the table and swiped at her eyes. “I just have to get used to being alone again. That’ll take time.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure everything out. You always do.”
A smile flickered across Jules’s face. “Thanks, Mom. It’s nice to be able to share that with someone.”
“You’re not the only one weighted down with secrets. There are some things I need to tell you, too.” Angela took a deep breath. “When I divorced your dad—”
“No! Mom, please. I don’t want to rehash history.”
“We need to. There are things you don’t understand. Jules, when I divorced your dad, I expected you to live with me. When you convinced the judge to let you stay here in Dove Pond, it”—Angela’s voice trembled—“it broke my heart. I cried for months about it. But I never gave up hope. Even after the divorce, I thought you’d eventually come to your senses and come live with me.”
“I belonged here, in Dove Pond, with Dad.”
Angela found it hard to swallow. “Maybe. It was a painful time for all of us. But you had a home with me. I decorated a room for you, and bought you a bike, and invited you to stay with us over and over and over. John did the same. I saw the letters he wrote you.”
“What you did, leaving Dad and me—it was devastating for both of us. It hurt us, Mom.”
“I know it was hard for you. I saw that. But your dad? Honey, your dad and I weren’t happy together. Just think of how he is with Lisa now. He laughs and teases and makes jokes. He was never like that when he was married to me. In fact, he’s since told me that he’s glad I left when I did. He said it freed him and that he was able to find true happiness because of it.”
“He did not say that.”
Angela shrugged. “Ask him. Have you ever tried talking to him about it?”
“It makes him sad. Or it did.” Jules seemed to realize she’d twisted her napkin into a knot, and now she tried to smooth it out on her knee. “I hate always talking about that time. I still do.”
“You see what happened, don’t you? You never asked your dad about our relationship and why it failed, because you didn’t want to make him sad, and you wouldn’t ask me about it because you were angry with me.”
“I suppose so, yes. But I was just so mad you left us like that.”
“I didn’t leave you and your dad, Jules. I just left him.”
“But… I never once heard you fight.”
“People who don’t talk don’t have fights. And the few fights we did have, we hid from you. You, of all people, know how it is. You never want your children to see the struggles, do you? Didn’t you and Liam sometimes fight and keep it from the boys?”
“We—I suppose so.” Jules frowned. “It wasn’t the same.”
“Wasn’t it?” Angela smiled wryly. “Your father and I were too different, even from the beginning. He had a loving family and lived in this big house.” She looked around the beautiful room. “You know how I’ve always loved this place, especially after growing up in a rusty single-wide down by the river. But it wasn’t just this house; I loved his parents, too. They were wonderful, both of them, and so kind to me. Meanwhile, my parents didn’t care one whit about me, and they made it clear that the sooner I moved out of the trailer, the better.”
“They couldn’t have been so mean.”
“You don’t remember them, as they were gone by the time you could walk, but that’s exactly how they were.” Angela gave a short laugh. “Their desire to push me out made me eager to push myself—sometimes past my own limits. By the time your dad and I met in high school, I was wilder than a loose hair on a porcupine.”
Jules smiled. “Dad said he used to love your free spirit.”
“That’s one way to put it. For every ounce of me that was a rule breaker, there were a hundred ounces of him that were determined to follow those same rules. His parents never had to put pressure on him to do things, because he put it on himself. He became what everyone expected him to be: an honors student, the president of his class, the star quarterback. He was doing it all. But I think it made him feel a little trapped.”
Jules was quiet a moment, absorbing this. “You must have represented freedom to him.”
“I think so, at least at first. And if I represented freedom to him, he represented safety to me. Then you happened.”
“And you had to get married.”
“Your father always had to do what was expected. The marriage was quick, hasty, and it was immediately obvious to us both that it was a mistake. But after you were born, we made you our focus. You and, eventually, the café.”
“But then you left. Dad would have never divorced you. He said as much.”
“Jules, when I left, your dad and I hadn’t slept in the same bed for over two years. The marriage wasn’t working. We both knew it, but your dad kept hanging on because he hates change more than he hates unhappiness. If I hadn’t found the courage to leave, we might still be together, every bit as miserable, and probably more so.”
Jules’s gaze dropped to the floor. After a minute, she said reluctantly, “It took Lisa almost two years to convince him to move to Florida, and it was his idea to begin with.”
“And how long did it take to get him to change the menu at the Moonlight? He’d had the exact same one for over twenty years. Every time there was a price change, he’d just put a little sticker over it. It was ridiculous. Some items had ten or more stickers.”