When the meal is finally over, Gin leaves us to clean up, claiming she’s going for a walk. I glance at Penny when she says the w-a-l-k word, but my dog immediately closes her eyes and pretends to be asleep.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” I tell Cara when we’re about halfway through doing the dishes—with me washing this time because I put everything away in the wrong place last time I dried. “Maybe you’re right about a little break.”
“What happened to not letting up when she’s close to cracking?” Cara holds up her hand. “Not that I’m disagreeing. Just wondering what changed your mind?”
“I’m afraid you’re close to cracking, and that’s not what I want. Maybe it’s time to shift strategies. I can spend a little time away. Things calm down a little. And maybe I can make her like me. That might be easier than driving her out.”
Cara’s laugh doesn’t bode well for the plan. “I’m not sure what it would take to make my mother like you, but it’ll be more than being a good sport about the tuna casserole.”
“Hey, I made you like me,” I tease.
Her smile slips away. “But I never hated you. I was hurt by you and angry with you, but I never hated you.”
Again I feel the urge to tell her the truth about homecoming night, and again I tamp it down. Since I can’t say that, I’m not sure what to say, so I bring it back to the conversation at hand. “Either way, I think a break from the stress would be good for everybody. Instead of coming back Thursday night, we’ll say a situation came up and I have to work the weekend.”
“You know, Penny could stay here with me.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Not a chance. I know she loves you, but I wouldn’t be able to function that long without her.”
“It actually is a good thing you addressed custody of her in the prenup. I’d probably fight for her.”
I laugh because I prefer playful Cara to stressed out Cara, but the mention of the prenup is like a blow to the gut.
It’s too easy sometimes to forget this isn’t real—that Cara isn’t my forever wife, and that the time we spend together is just a means to an end. And maybe giving Gin’s nerves a break isn’t the only reason some time apart is a good idea.
Even though I’ll miss Cara, I clearly need some time in Boston, reminding myself of what my actual life looks like.
Chapter Fifty-One
Cara
When I get home from work a week later, I find Gin sitting on the floor in the middle of the garage, frantically trying to scrub her face with her sleeves as I walk through the door. It’s obvious she’s not only been crying, but crying hard, and fear clouds all of my senses. My mother is not the crying type and the last time I saw her like this was the day my dad passed away.
Georgia or Tony would have called me if it was either of them. Hayden’s in Boston right now, so it couldn’t be anything he did. Or that she perceived he did.
“Mom? What’s going on?” She looks as if she’s going to get up, but I’m sitting on the floor with her before she manages it. “Did you fall? Are you hurt?”
When she opens her mouth, a hiccupped sob comes out instead of words, but she shakes her head to let me know she’s not injured. An emotional meltdown, then. It’s very unlike her, so I simply wait, keeping her company while she gets herself under control. Sitting on cement isn’t ideal for either of us, but I can’t leave her here like this.
“I’m fine,” she says about two minutes later.
“You’re clearly not fine, Mom. What’s going on?”
“Sherry told me that adorable house down the road from her is going on the market, and the real estate agent said I can have first dibs before it’s even public.”
Excitement bubbles up inside of me, but I tamp it down because I’m a lot happier about this news than she is and I’m not sure why. “This is what you wanted, Mom.”
“I can’t,” she wails, waving her hands around the piles of junk filling the garage. “I tried to do just one box and there’s so much and I can never do this.”
Nope. The three of us are absolutely not living in this house—with me caught in a fake marriage limbo—for the rest of Gin’s life because of decades of junk. “You don’t have to go through all this, you know.”
She sniffles, her lower lip trembling. “Why? Because your husband will just hire somebody to haul it all to the dump? Even the Gamble family heirlooms?”
It takes everything in me not to laugh at her. She definitely wouldn’t appreciate that. “Mom, there’s a difference between Gamble family heirlooms and generation after generation of Gambles living here, meaning nobody ever threw anything away. When people don’t have to move, they don’t have to get rid of accumulated junk.”
Her lips tighten and I wince. “It’s not junk.”
“Nobody’s throwing anything away without you. And we don’t have to do it all at once, you know. Buy the house and we’ll pack up just what you need—your belongings. We’ll get your new home set up just the way you want it, and then we can start sorting through things, deciding what you want to keep, what should stay in the house, and what to sell or donate.”
