Page 26 of Second Chances

“I, uh…” Henry started, unable to speak over the awkwardness of the moment. “Actually, I was hoping to talk to Charlotte Berg, but I haven’t seen her.”

“Charlotte? I’m sorry, but she left with her daughter and a friend a little while ago. Went out the front door,” Del told him. “I can take those if you want. Put them on her desk. She’ll see them tomorrow morning.”

Cheeks burning, Henry looked at the roses, actively wilting thanks to the pressure of his grip. What should he do? Leave a bouquet of half-dead flowers for Charlotte to find in the morning? Repeat this process for tomorrow night’s performance? Before he could second-guess himself, Henry said, “No, thanks. I’ll give them to her later,” and left it at that. Humiliated, Henry tossed the flowers into the front seat of his car when he got in, frustrated with himself for getting it wrong. Again. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be for them, or their timing was off. He didn’t know if he had the tenacity to try again. But he was tired of being alone…tired of waiting. Unsure of what to do, he considered that the best course of action was to wait for her to make a move, to ensure he didn’t mess it up once more.

By the end of summer, the oppressive heat refused to break its hold on Beverley, but nothing could dampen the high spirits of the late-August engagement party. In their backyard, Effie and her fiancé of one week offered icy cold drinks and grilled bratwurst to their guests.

“That little scamp! I can’t believe Josh didn’t tell me he was going to propose!” Ruth exclaimed, pulling Effie to her in a rib-crushing hug. “I’ll forgive him, though, because you are positively glowing! Your smile is almost as blinding as your ring!” She brought Effie’s hand up to her face for a closer inspection. “Where did he get it? It’s gorgeous!”

With tears welling in her eyes, Effie explained, “Actually, the diamond in the center is from the engagement ring my dad gave to my mom. I guess she gave it to Josh a few months ago. He added the rubies around it because that’s my birthstone.” Josh had stunned her last week with his proposal. Although the couple spoke about their relationship in terms of forever, and had lived together for a year, they had each experienced heartbreak before: she endured a miserable marriage with a cheating husband, and he, of course, had been stunned and humiliated the night before his wedding when his fiancée left him at the altar. Until he got down on one knee in the city park under the gazebo, she hadn’t realized just how badly she wanted them to be united in marriage, for all the world to know they belonged to each other.

“I don’t know when I have ever seen Josh this happy,” Ruth cried, dabbing at her cheeks with a tissue. “These damn hormones have my emotions all over the place.”

“Hormones?” Effie questioned. Granted, her engagement to Josh was the cause for many happy tears tonight, but the last time Effie had witnessed her friend crying was last year, but with two little daughters under two years old, she couldn’t be- “Ruth, are you pregnant again?” Effie shrieked.

“Shh, keep your voice down,” Ruth laughed. “I didn’t want to make this party all about my fertility, but since you figured it out-” the rest of what she wanted to say drowned out when Effie embraced her. Since she was at least six inches taller, that meant Ruth’s face burrowed into Effie’s chest.

“Stop! You’re suffocating me!” Ruth laughed.

“Effie,” Hamilton appeared at her shoulder, taking her elbow in his hand. “Can I borrow you for a sec?”

“Um, sure,” she said. “Excuse us,” she told Ruth. “What’s up?” Effie asked her younger brother, who wore a serious frown on his gorgeous face.

“It’s Mom,” he said ominously, and she braced herself for impact. “She’s at least three sheets to the wind. If those sheets were hanging outside to dry, but then a tornado came through, ripping them off the clothesline, dropping them in a field where the cows can stomp all over them. We’re talking hammered.”

“Wait…what?” Effie assumed that her mother’s drinking had stopped, or at least tapered off, since Burnie had been recuperating so well at home. “She seemed fine before. Maybe a little high-strung, but I thought that could be because of my ring.” During Effie’s childhood, Diadema’s engagement ring from Nathaniel had represented the eternal love between her parents, but now the last symbol of their short-lived, tragic love story was on her finger, and she could understand why that might be upsetting to her mother. Was her mom regretting giving Josh the engagement ring after all? “Where is she?”

“She has Josh’s dad trapped, crying about how he abandoned her and how everyone she loves leaves her. The dude looks so uncomfortable.” Considering he was taking classes to become a social worker, Hamilton should be more adept at handling a situation like this, instead of being so confused about how to help their mom. However, she conceded that she had ten more years than her brother dealing with their mother, so she cut him some slack.

“Any idea what’s going on?” Effie asked her brother as they walked the path Josh had lined with paving stones.

“You know how I’ve been helping Dad with his business?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’ve been going over there at least twice a week and almost every weekend, but then last week Mom was going on about how guilty she feels making me drive from Beverley, while I’m also juggling my classes at the college. I told her I didn’t mind, but she told me not to come anymore. She said now that Dad was better, they could deal with things on their own.” Hamilton lifted his wide shoulders in a shrug.

Effie scanned the crowd. “Where’s your dad? I don’t think he needs to see Mom like this.”

“He had to run to the hardware store. Needed to look at light fixtures for their garage.” That meant he should be back soon, since Bits and Bobs was less than a mile from their house.

“Okay. Listen, why don’t you run in and make some coffee? Someone should be able to help if you need it.”

Hamilton tilted his head. “I know you see me as incompetent, and sometimes it’s justified, but believe it or not, I do know how to make a pot of coffee. One of my girlfriends showed me,” he explained as she raised her eyebrow, before grinning and jogging back to the house.

Effie reached her mom and Henry. “I think she needs to go home, Effie. She’s had a long day,” her future father-in-law murmured before slipping away toward the grill, where Josh, holding a pair of tongs, stood with his cousin Liam.

Poor Henry, cleaning up her mother’s mess, once again. When Effie first began dating Josh, Diadema revealed that she and Henry had a history as far back as childhood, but offered no further details, presumably because they painted her in an unflattering light. As a teenager, Effie recalled overhearing whispered conversations between her mother and Nora, filled with snippets of remorse that had made no sense until recently. Earlier tonight, in the rare moments Effie’s eyes drifted from her fiancé’s, she witnessed a handful of times her mom’s gaze followed Henry. For his part, he seemed oblivious to it, as he always did when a woman stared at him. Maturely handsome, with a haunting quality to his good looks, it was Henry’s quiet reserve Effie assumed most women found appealing. He should be looking to the future, not being dragged through her mother’s mess. Still convinced he and Charlotte were a perfect match, Effie was disappointed that nothing had happened between the two. Yet.

“Mom, what the hell are you playing at?” Disturbed as her mother drained whatever was in the cup she was holding so precariously, Effie berated herself for not trusting her instincts about Diadema’s alcoholic consumption. After all, the evidence had been present since she had first moved from Denver back to Clover Lake last year. Mixed drinks with every meal, afternoons topped off with a wine spritzer or hot toddy, depending on the season. Since Burnside’s hospitalization almost nine months ago, the drinking had increased, for a while at an alarming rate—so much that Hamilton had suggested an intervention. Before it could happen, Diadema miraculously appeared to get it together. Conceding that maybe that’s only what Effie wanted to think, since she and her mom had forged a new relationship together. After so many years of her mom being unreliable, consumed with her new husband and precious baby boy, Effie was finally relating to and communicating with her mom, something she had never thought possible.

“Euphemie,” her mom slurred, “I am merely enjoying a cocktail at my daughter’s engagement party. Why must you always be so dramatic?” Her mom lifted the arm not holding a drink, and her voluminous sleeve practically swallowed her frail arm. Was she…was her mother wearing a caftan? How had she not noticed until now? Was this what her world had come to? After marrying Burnside (and his generous bank account), her mom had adopted a certain “Emily Gilmore” attitude, especially concerning what clothes were to be worn in and out of the home, and Effie couldn’t recall caftans being part of either wardrobe.

An exhausted sigh escaped Effie. “Okay, why don’t we start with how many cocktails you’ve had while enjoying your daughter’s engagement party?”

Diadema exhaled loudly before taking another drink, frowning when she realized her cup was empty. “Euphemie, we are celebrating my beautiful daughter and her true love. Or I thought we were, but I seem to be the only one who is having her drinks counted.”

Over her mom’s head, Josh shot her a worried look, and she mouthed coffee, hoping that he would go in and check on Hamilton’s progress. Her sweet love handed his tongs to Liam and ducked inside the house. Breathing a sigh of relief that Josh read her so well, she started, “Mom⁠—”