And then, seemingly without her permission, she had heard her own voice say that thing about eating dinner alone five nights in a row. Truth be told, she almost always ate dinner alone. Five days wasn’t her longest stretch.
Now all three of them were sitting on the dark porch with their defenses down like houses that had lost their walls during a hurricane. And Harper had no idea how to put hers back up.
She also did not feel like she wanted to, and that was an even more alarming realization.
Apparently, the wine was doing its job.
The second bottle was almost gone, and Harper was considering a third, which she didn’t normally do on a weeknight.
But turning fifty while confessing your extreme loneliness to your two best friends on a screened porch in Beaufort felt like maybe it was an exception.
“Now I want to say something,” Harper said. “And I need you both to not make this into some big deal.”
“Okay, well, that’s a promising start,” Claire said, rolling her eyes.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Every time somebody says, ‘Oh, don’t make this a big deal,’ it always feels like a very big deal. But please, proceed.”
Harper sucked in a breath. The salty marsh air sat on her tongue. She had never loved the Lowcountry the way that Claire and Nina did. Charleston was a city to her, a place with great restaurants and good business, and a condo with a view she rarely even looked at.
But on nights like this, on Claire’s porch with frogs making noise and the water somewhere beyond the dark, she could almost see why people wrote poems about this place. Although at night, she found it spooky.
“So Jordan called me.”
The porch went even more silent. She was pretty sure the frog paused and had his little hand cupped over his ear.
“When?” Claire asked.
“Three weeks ago.”
“Three weeks?” Nina turned in her chair. “You sat on this information for three whole weeks?”
“I didn’t sit on it. I just handled it.”
“And what does ‘handled it’ mean?” Claire asked.
“I told him I was busy and I hung up.”
“Harper!”
“What? I was busy. I had a quarterly review.”
“You always have a quarterly review,” Claire said, taking a sip of her wine.
“Quarterly means four times a year, Claire. I mean, it’s just math.”
Nina made a sound that almost sounded like a laugh, but Harper couldn’t tell in the dark.
Nina leaned back in her chair. “What did he want?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stay on the phone long enough to find out.”
“So you panicked.” Claire didn’t say it as a question. She made a statement. An assumption.
“I don’t panic. I prioritize. I make difficult decisions. Fast.”
“You prioritized running away from the only man who ever made you happy,” Claire said, a slight edge to her voice. “He loves you, Harper. And you love him, whether you want to admit it or not.”
