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She was. She really meant that. There was always going to be a darkness to her, but that only made her light shine that much brighter.
“Have you ever found love? Since then?” I asked, marveling even more at this remarkable woman. I yearned for her to find someone who marveled at her too. Who worshipped her. I knew that Laura Maye definitely didn’t need a man, she’d proven that. But she deserved one. A good one.
“I have found love,” Laura Maye replied, her eyes twinkling. “I’ve got it all around me here.”
“You know what I mean.”
She nodded. “I do know what you mean, honey. And I’ve been close to finding it, a couple of times. Might’ve even turned into something, if I’d let it. But I haven’t got there yet. When it comes to scars on the heart, they take longest to heal. Maybe I’ll find love again. Maybe I’ll even go looking for it. But I’m okay even if I don’t.”
“I hope you find it,” I offered. “Any man who wins your heart will be the luckiest man in the world.”
“You’re not wrong on that one, honey, I’m a gosh darn catch.”
I laughed, something I hadn’t thought would be possible in such close proximity to that story. But that was Laura Maye. She was a little bit magic.
“Thank you, for telling me that,” I said.
“Thank you for giving me the opportunity,” she replied. “I don’t like traveling back into the past much, but it’s much easier when I have good company. Glad it was you, sweetie.”
“Me too.”
We let the silence swim between us for a while, it was nice. It shouldn’t have been, now I that knew the truth, the sad truth of Laura Maye’s past. But it only made her more beautiful.
“I am sure you came in here for more than listening to my story,” Laura Maye said finally.
“I don’t even know why I came in here,” I admitted, looking out toward the windows. “I’m a little lost, I guess.”
Laura Maye laughed, not in a cruel way, she didn’t have that in her. “Of course you are, baby. You can’t expect to even know what direction is up right now.”
“But I should. I’m a mother—”
“A damn good one,” Laura Maye interjected. “Doesn’t mean you aren’t human. And you’ve had your heart ripped out in the most brutal of ways, forced to try to keep it together for your kids, for your friends, for the club. You’re allowed to fall apart now and again. You’re allowed to talk to your friends.”
“It feels like I’m failing,” I whispered. “He’s the one in the ground, yet I’m the one rotting. Everything hopeful inside of me, everything romantic, everything that somehow remained untarnished even through the hardest years of our marriage... The things that he nurtured, he grew, they all died. They withered inside of me first. And now I’m just decaying I feel like I’ll decompose until all that’ll be left are rotten pieces of what I used to be.”
“No, baby,” Laura Maye said firmly. “You’re young and you’re strong. Even if you don’t want to, you’re gonna have a second life. Just you wait.”
She said this with such conviction, with such certainty, I actually believed her.
For the afternoon, at least.Chapter 10Kace was mowing the lawn again.
Both of the kids were at Asher and Lily’s place. Now that I’d almost, kind of let myself back into the Sons’ fold once more, our rotation of playdates had resumed. Potluck dinners. Cocktail nights. Pre-gaming before any kind of game or school event.
Shopping.
Trips to L.A. to visit Lucy, Rosie and Polly.
Life was almost normal. Except I never had Ranger at my side. Except I was the only one at all of those events who didn’t have a husband anymore.
They didn’t treat me any different, though. Of course they didn’t.
But I was different. There was a reminder in my empty heart every damn day. Walking into houses, bars, stores knowing I’d always be walking in alone. There was no escaping it. The urge to say no to every invitation, wanting to hide at home with wine and my books was overwhelming at times
But I’d done that. For a year, I’d done that. It hadn’t changed anything. Didn’t make the hurt any less. It had only made my children suffer.
So I was sucking it up.
It wasn’t so bad when I got the house to myself for an afternoon. As much as I’d feared being alone, especially in our home, I realized needed it. Needed the time to just be... me instead of ‘mom’.
Ranger used to give me that.
Constant reminders that I was not just a mother. That I was a woman. His and my own. Since I didn’t get reminders like that anymore, I didn’t feel like anything but a mother and a widow. And it was infuriating. I was sick of my own fucking misery. My own pain.
