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ChapterTwenty-Eight
Chase
Hallie was working on her laptop the following morning. She had a glass of juice beside her and was wearing a big fluffy sweater. She was adjusting the color in her photos. I savored watching her work, if only because it felt as if our lives were stitching together more and more.
“By the way, I ran into Jasmine in town. She's looking forward to your help on the marketing for the galleries.”
Hallie glanced up with a quick smile. “I am too.”
“I'm thinking of hiring some help to finish the house sooner.”
Her brows lifted in question.
“I want to have the bedroom ready for the baby,” I explained.
Her teeth snagged on her bottom lip as she blinked, her gaze becoming uncertain. I didn’t blame her for being nervous. I sure as hell was.
“I guess we should talk about timing. My lease doesn't run out for six months,” she offered.
“Okay. I don't want to rush you.”
She nodded. After a moment, she looked back at her computer and typed something and then glanced back over. “I had a trip scheduled.”
“What do you mean?”
“I used to travel a lot more for gallery showings and contracts for marketing photos. I'm still trying to decide how I'm going to handle that. This was a marketing trip scheduled before I found out I was pregnant.”
“Okay.” I nodded slowly.
I was worried. This felt like the kind of thing my mom did, bouncing in and out of our lives often. But I didn't say any of that. “How much do you usually travel?”
“I used to travel for months at a time. It's only been in the last year or two that I've mostly been in Alaska.”
I nodded again, feeling ridiculous as I just stood there with my hand resting on the counter.
“I thought I’d mention it because I'm trying to figure out what to do about those plans. That's all.”
“You don’t have to answer to me.”
While Hallie’s brother had called Rex to find out about me, I called him to check with her brother about Hallie. The second Rex replied, I realized I’d made a mistake.
“You want me to ask her brother how much she used to travel?” Rex asked, his tone dubious.
That alone cued me to what the hell I was doing. “Never mind. That's fucking ridiculous.”
“It is. Just ask her. This is part of being in a relationship,” Rex said patiently.
A few minutes later, I sat there wishing I’d told my mom how I felt about her before she passed. My need to please her, to keep things smooth with her, had been a powerful force.
As luck, or perhaps un-luck, would have it, I ran into Mr. Green at the grocery store when I was doing my weekly shopping, and he happened to be in the same aisle as me. Mr. Green had been my favorite high school teacher. He’d taught world history. He’d perfected the balance of being firm, while somehow creating the sense he understood you. I really believed he did. He was kind of a nerd, really into history. He also knew a lot about music and covered the history of rock and roll in his class. Lots of students looked up to him. I never,neverwould have suspected he would have had an affair. And with my mom, of all people.
I would have thought he wouldn't have stooped to that level and wouldn't have violated boundaries in that way. I knew from my sister that the affair was after we had graduated from high school, but it still stained my memories of him.
I'd avoided him pretty successfully ever since I'd found out. This was the first time I'd seen him face-to-face. When he saw me, he dipped his chin and cast a quick smile. “Good to see you, Chase.”
I studied him for a long moment before I decided to be honest. If there was one thing I’d learned from my mother's death and what she hid from me, it was that secrets didn’t help. Especially not when they were found out later.
“I know you had an affair with my mom.”
