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“Tomorrow. Yes, of course. Spacey Bliss.” She laughed lightly.
Carly raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you okay?”
No. Not really. This news about Gault was hitting her hard. But she couldn’t let on.Just keep on smiling.“I’ll set an alarm on my phone to remind me. Wedding day. Tomorrow. French twist. It’ll all be perfect.”
She clapped her hands together, forgetting she still held a few pins, and winced.
“Bye everyone! See you at the wedding!”
“Wait!” Carly grabbed her wrist. “Won’t you be at the rehearsal dinner tonight?”
“I’ll try, but I want to make sure I have this twist technique down.” She edged her way past the three men crowding the bathroom door.
“You can practice on the dinner guests. It’s casual, just family.”
Bliss avoided her sister’s gaze. “I’ll definitely try, but if I don’t make it, don’t wait for me. Have a wonderful time.”
She bent down to grab the tote bag in which she’d loaded up her hairstyling tools. As she straightened, she caught a glimpse of Carly in the mirror. The sympathy on her face made her heart glitch.
“It’s okay,” Carly mouthed to her.
Carly understood. She understood because Bliss had told her about seeing Gault at the hospital and now she could see how this news was affecting her.
Was that what happened when you actually shared your real self with your siblings? Who knew?
Emotion welled up inside her. She knew exactly what she needed—time to process this revelation about Gault. Alone. Now that she’d told Carly about it, she couldn’t get those images of Gault in the hospital with his purple stovepipe hat out of her head…
“Sorry,” she mouthed back to Carly, and fled.
Back at the inn, she closed herself in her room and buried herself under the bedcovers. She didn’t answer when Granger knocked on the door. She heard it open, but didn’t move, and Granger quietly closed it again. Moses scratched at the door, but she couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed to let him in.
Tears flowed down her face in a steady stream. If only she’d been able to see Gault one more time. If only she could have commiserated with him about those panic attacks. If only he’d made it to New York and she’d been able to talk to him.Oh Gault.I am like you.If only I’d known how much.
For the first time since his death, she let the emotions roll through her like a storm, not trying to stop them or change them.
I miss you so much.
I love you.
How can you be gone?
When she’d cried herself out, she took a sleeping pill, the heavy-duty prescription kind provided to people who absolutely needed sleep when they needed to look good the next day.
And fell down a long dark slide into sleep.
Fourteen
She was sitting in her favorite place in the world, which was on her father’s lap while he played around on the keyboard. That was how he thought up new songs. He’d pick out melodies, then match words to tunes, then backtrack, then try something different, then eventually write something down in his notebook.
She could sit for hours like that, even though she was only little.
“You’re the only child of mine who can put up with my process,” Gault liked to tell her. “That makes you my favorite. But don’t tell the others.”
From his wink, she knew he was joking. But she liked hearing it anyway.
The only sad part was when her mom interrupted, as she always did, with a phone call. And then Gault would start arguing on the phone. “This is my time with her. You can’t be bugging me all the time.”
“I’m her mother!” she’d hear Mommy say. “It’s not bugging if you’re the mother.”
