I sat on the edge of the bed, and as soon as it dipped under my weight, Wren’s eyes fluttered open. She smiled, the morning sun peeking through the shades we’d closed the night before in little stripes across her face.
“Mornin’,” she murmured, stretching her arms up high over her head as she pointed her toes. It didn’t take her long to note that I wasn’t smiling back at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Your mom’s here.”
“What?!” She sprang forward, clutching for the sheets and hiding her body as if I’d said her mom was in the room. “What do you mean? Where is she?”
“Downstairs. She just got here.”
“Did she see you?!”
I nodded. “I’m the one who let her in.”
“Did she see you like that?” She motioned to my abs and I grimaced, adjusting the towel on my waist.
“Unfortunately.”
She groaned, smacking her palm on her forehead. For a minute she just sat there, murmuring to herself, shaking her head. Finally she bolted up, tugging on clothes and throwing mine toward me. We’d hung them on her bedroom balcony to dry, and she continued to curse under her breath as we both dressed in otherwise silence.
“Are you okay?” I asked as I pulled on my stiff sweater. It was dry, but it definitely wasn’t clean.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, but frustration rolled off her. She threw her hair up in a tight bun, just like the one her mother wore. It was the first time I’d seen it that way. “You should go. Before I walk down there. It’ll just be bad if we go down together.”
I nodded, not wanting to upset her more than her surprise guest already had. I reached for her as she fussed with her hair again, pulling her into me and wrapping my arms around her. She was tense, but sighed, relaxing a little and resting her head there. I kissed her forehead.
“Are we okay?”
She looked up at me, green eyes wide and soft, and though they were under bent brows, she nodded, too. “Of course. I’ll call you later, okay?”
I took her chin between my knuckle and thumb, tilting her up until our lips touched. “Okay. I’ll be here.”
I meant it in the sense that I’d be waiting for her call, but also that she wasn’t alone. I didn’t know the entire history with her and her family, but she was uneasy—that was enough to set me on edge, too.
When I walked downstairs, I let myself out her back door, offering a polite goodbye to her mother that went unacknowledged.
And the whole walk home, I told myself everything was fine.
I heard Anderson’s farewell to my mother, and of course there was no response on her end. Not that I would have heard it if she did because my heart was beating so loud in my ears I already had a headache. I smoothed my hands over my hair, over and over, tucking it as tightly as I could into a low bun. Flying into the bathroom, I quickly applied tinted moisturizer and flung on two coats of mascara, all the while willing myself to breathe.
Just ten minutes before, I’d been existing in complete and total bliss. I’d fallen asleep with a throat sore from laughter, feet sore from dancing, and a heart sore from healing—because that’s exactly what was happening the more time I spent with Anderson.
He was healing me, in more ways than I even knew, and I knew I was healing him, too.
It wasn’t that we needed each other, or that we couldn’t find footing on our own. It was that our pieces together made a larger whole. We were stronger when we leaned on each other. We felt more, faced more, laughed more. We didn’t have anything figured out. We didn’t know what even the very next day would bring, but it didn’t matter, because we were making the most of every minute we had.
But now, all that comfort had vanished.
Anxiety was crushing in, heavy on my chest, my mind racing with why my mom was here, what she wanted, how she even found me. The only people I’d told about the cabin were Adrian and the rest of the team at the boutique. It was possible he could have told her, given how intimidating my mom could be when she wanted to be.
When I felt somewhat presentable, I stood at the top of the stairs, hand gripping the railing tight as I forced three long inhales and exhales. It’ll be fine, I lied to myself, and then I let my numb feet carry me down.
Mary Anne Prieston was pristine.
That was the best word to describe her. She never had a hair out of place, she ironed her blouses and skirts to a crisp each morning, and in all the years I’d lived with her I’d never once seen her without a full face of makeup. I swore she must have tattooed it on or woken up at ungodly hours to put it on before she was making mine and my brother’s breakfast.
She sat at the small kitchen table near the front door, legs crossed, back straight and not even close to touching the back of the chair. When I rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs, her eyes caught at my face first before assessing the rest of me. Nose pointed high, eyes narrowed—she had plenty to say to me, and I knew there would be no way out of hearing it.
“Mom,” I greeted, walking until I was standing next to the kitchen counter in front of her. I leaned my hip on it and crossed my arms. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to check on my daughter whom I haven’t heard from in six months,” she said casually, picking a fleck of lint from her soft pink skirt. “You know the least you could have done is call me to let me know where you’re living. Or that your divorce is final. Or that you’re still breathing.”
I cringed, eyes on my bare toes. I was ashamed. My parents and I weren’t close, and after I’d decided to leave Keith, I felt their disappointment like an ant feels the rays of the sun under a magnifying glass. I didn’t lean on them during the hard nights of the divorce or even think to tell them that I needed to get out of the city to think. I didn’t have anything to say to them at all, other than I’m sorry, and I was so tired of saying that.
“I’m guessing you talked to Adrian?”
“That’s really the only thing you have to say right now?”
“I don’t have a permanent place yet, but I’m staying here for the summer. My divorce is final. And I’m still breathing.”
Mom rolled her eyes until they landed hard on me. “Don’t be impudent, Wren.”
I bit down hard on my tongue, pushing off the counter and making my way over to the coffee pot. “Want some?” I asked, pulling one mug down because I already knew her answer. I poured a full cup, adding just one spoonful of sugar and taking a sip while it was still scalding hot. It was more pleasurable than talking to my mother.
She sighed behind me. “What are you doing here?”
I kept my eyes on my mug, the steam hot on my face from how close I held it. Mom stood slowly, crossing the kitchen until she stood in front of me. I felt like a little girl again, like I was ten years old and had stayed outside until after the street lights came on.
“Listen, I know that marriage is hard. I get it, believe me. But this?” Mom gestured to the cabin, the place that had felt more like home in the past two months than my house with Keith ever did. The way she surveyed it made me feel defensive, like I needed to puff out my chest and protect it. “Honey, this isn’t you. This is absurd, quite frankly. Keith loves you, and he’s waiting for you to get this out of your system and come back home. I know the paperwork is final, but it doesn’t matter. He’ll take you back and you guys can work on this.”