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Sorry? Sorry!
Grace gripped the phone like a weapon. She was angry and also bemused. Did the girl really think that this could be fixed and forgiven in a phone call?
“You didn’t dent my car or run over my flower beds. You slept with my husband. This isn’t one of those things you get to say sorry for.”
Lissa was crying. “I’m so ashamed. You’ve always been so kind to me, Mrs. Porter. And after my dad left—”
“Enough. I don’t want to hear this.” Mostly because she knew that if Lissa carried on, she might start to feel sorry for her. She didn’t want to feel sorry for her.
“I loved babysitting for you. I love Sophie. I always wanted a family just like yours. You and David still kiss when he gets home from work, and you eat dinner around the table and laugh a lot—”
“And? You decided you wanted to wreck that?”
“No! I just liked the way I felt when I was with you all.”
“So you thought you could move in and join the family?” She knew her tone was bitingly sarcastic, but she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t in a gentle mood. Audrey’s influence showing again.
“I don’t know what I thought. I was stupid and selfish and—” Lissa sniffed. “It’s just that your family was so warm and perfect, and David always made me feel safe.”
Grace stared across the lobby.
David had always made her feel safe, too.
He’d sheltered her from the harsh winds of life. Except that he was responsible for a hurricane-strength wind that had all but flattened her. So much for strength and solidity. She saw now that you needed to build your own walls.
But she could easily see how someone like Lissa, whose father had never even bothered to fight for custody, might be attracted to that strength and solidity. David never panicked about anything. His approach to a problem was simply to find the best solution. As someone who had grown up alongside chaos, Grace had found his pragmatism soothing. She could see how Lissa might have found it irresistible.
She frowned.
She was doing it again. Making excuses for something that was inexcusable.
Oh, what a mess.
“You don’t get to make excuses for this, Lissa,” she said. “Part of being an adult is taking responsibility.” And she needed to take responsibility, too, of course.
It hadn’t all been David’s fault.
“That’s what I’m doing.” Lissa spoke in a quiet, tired voice. “I’m taking responsibility. I’m moving away. But before I leave, I wanted to tell you something. David never loved me, Grace. He was looking for something, sure, but it wasn’t me personally. And yeah, it hurts to admit that in the end I wasn’t special. I think being with me made him feel young, but the affair could have been with anyone. I was nothing more than an adrenaline rush. It’s like when you go on a roller coaster, knowing that for a few breathless minutes you’re going feel terrified and truly alive.”
“I don’t—”
“Please let me just say this and then I promise I will never bother you again. David stepped out of his life for a little while, and who hasn’t sometimes wanted to do that? But it’s you he loves. It’s always been you. Even when we moved in together, he couldn’t stop missing you. He was miserable. In the end we spent more time talking about how he could rescue his marriage and make it all up to you than we ever did about our own relationship.”
He’d stepped out of his life for a little while…
Hadn’t she done the same?
“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”
“Because I’m doing what I can to put right a wrong before I leave.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to stay with my aunt in Seattle. I’ll try to find a job there.”
Lissa was moving to Seattle? So she wouldn’t be there when Grace finally went home.
There would be no awkward encounters in the supermarket. Grace wouldn’t have to stifle the temptation to hurl melons at her in public or smack her over the head with a skillet.
