Page 50 of Letters to Molly (Maysen Jar 2)

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nbsp; “Hi.” Poppy smiled from her side of the table as she mixed something in a large silver bowl. “Want some lunch?”

“Hi. I, uh . . . maybe in a minute.” Molly was marching toward the office, so I held up a finger to Poppy and hurried to catch up.

Molly was waiting in the center of the room when I got there. She stayed tight-lipped until I closed the door.

“I’m sorry about the letter.”

“It’s fine.” She shrugged. “It took me by surprise. But it’s fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re pissed at me.”

“Because you came into my workplace and picked a fight with my mother. Can’t you just avoid her?”

I gritted my teeth. “I didn’t pick a fight with your mother. I was trying to be civil but she crossed the line. If you want to swallow the shit advice she feeds you, that’s your choice. But when it comes to Kali and Max, I won’t have it.”

“She gets paid a lot of money to give that ‘shit advice.’”

My blood pressure ticked up a notch. I fucking hated air quotes. And this fight. We’d had it so many times but never come out on the same side. Molly always stood on her mother’s, which left me standing alone, wondering how a woman with so much confidence and intelligence could let someone manipulate her.

“Tell me honestly. Do you think Kali is depressed?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Well, your mom says Kali has been quiet and withdrawn. All the signs, she says, point to a depressed kid on the verge of acting out and making drastic calls for help.”

Molly blew out a long breath. “Mom is overreacting. The last few times we went to see Mom, it was at her office. Kali gets bored there, so she plays a game on my phone. She got into it and shut out the rest of the world.”

“Yeah, because she’s a normal kid with a screen in front of her face. But the last thing I want is your mother convincing her that there’s something wrong with her.”

“Mom would never do that, Finn.”

“Really?” I gaped at her. “Of course, she would. The woman has no limits. She tried to stop our wedding.”

“Now who’s overreacting?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Listen, that was a long time ago. But I remember, Molly. You wanted to cancel the wedding.”

“No, postpone.”

“Does it matter?” I shot back. “Cancel. Postpone. We were a week away from the wedding and you wanted to call it off because your mom had convinced you that we were rushing into it. Two months wasn’t long enough to be engaged, and we were breaking one of her rules.”

“She was just worried. We were both so young and the wedding planning was stressful.”

“See? You always defend her.”

“What’s wrong with me defending her?” she asked. “She’s my mom.”

“Then maybe she could support you and your choices for once instead of always questioning them.”

Molly was an incredible mother. Somehow she always knew the right thing to say to Kali when she was upset. Or how to communicate with Max with just a single look. Because she was such a good mom, it baffled me that she didn’t see how toxic her own mother’s words could be.

“It doesn’t matter anyway.” Molly waved it off. “We worked it out.”

Not fifteen minutes after I’d finishing writing that letter, Molly had knocked on my door. I’d apologized for getting so upset. She’d told me she didn’t want to postpone the wedding, then we’d made love for hours, the fight forgotten.

Until that letter had shown up last week.