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Kara and Noel didn’t say anything.
But Bernice did.
“I will admit to what we were discussing earlier, and she absolutely tried to drive a wedge between Cor and me. But when my mom passed—”
Bernice stopped.
It had been years, she still wasn’t over it.
It had been years for mine too, so I got her.
“Langston and Ruth were here, we were all a mess,” she went on, referring to her big brother and younger sister. “Cor was trying to hold me together. And Bea came over and just did stuff. No questions, she just got to work. Like cleaning the dishes and bringing in food and making us eat and setting a meeting at the funeral parlor and with the pastor. She didn’t say anything about it, didn’t make a big deal, and when we pulled ourselves together, she just faded away. But the truth of it is, if she didn’t hustle us to the car and drive us there herself, I don’t even know if Mom would have had a service until maybe weeks later.”
“I’m seeing now why you put up with her shit,” Noel remarked.
“I told you she isn’t all bad,” I said.
“You’re right, she’s had her good times with me too. She’s also, as we talked about, had her bad. But Wyn, seriously? She was the worst with you,” Kara said, and it surprised me.
“Do you think?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah,” not Kara, but Bernice answered.
“Really?” I asked Bernice.
She nodded.
“I talked to her, you know,” Kara said. “After the Cor debacle, and when she seemed to be setting her sights on Remy, I sat her down and told her to lay off.”
“Really?” Noel, Bernice and I said at the same time.
Kara sipped her dirty martini and nodded. “It was too much. It was constant. It actually kinda freaked me out.”
“What did she say?” Bernice asked.
Kara shrugged. “At first, she stuck to her guns, was belligerent, said he was too alpha and maybe she shouldn’t be asked to be different, he should, which was hogwash. I mean, Remy is alpha, but he’s not a dick, and she was using those terms interchangeably. When I pushed it, she was vague. Looking back, it was kind of a confront the bully, the bully backs off situation. I didn’t let her get away with her lame excuses, she said whatever she had to say to get me to shut up about it, except that she’d do better. Then, of course, it came as no surprise she didn’t do better.”
“I just passed it off,” I mumbled.
“Because you love him, and nothing anyone said about him would change that,” Kara replied.
It was Bernice mumbling when she said, “Until it did.”
“Bea didn’t break us up, Remy walked out,” I reminded her.
“You know that wedge she had for me and Cor?” Bernice asked.
I nodded, because I so did.
“Well, she chucked that aside and grabbed a jackhammer to pick away at you and Remy,” Bernice went on.
I sat still and said nothing.
“Honest to God, it says a lot about the man he is, and the respect he had for you and your decisions, also the faith in your marriage, that he didn’t tell you he didn’t want you around her anymore,” Kara put in.
“Why would he do that?” I asked, ignoring the “faith in your marriage” part because a creeping feeling was sinking in.
“Oh, I don’t know, because she dug into him right to him,” Kara replied.
Oh my God.
He’d never said anything.
“She did?”
Kara nodded.
“I remember when he was talking about that project in Chicago, and you had that fundraiser you were doing with the queen bees of Scottsdale, which was a massive score for you, and he mentioned he was flying to Chicago, and she said, ‘Of course you are,’ all snotty,” Kara told me. “He couldn’t miss what she meant. He was leaving you with the kids when your plate was seriously full.”
“Sabre was fifteen then, sixteen?” I noted. “So Manon was thirteen and Yves eleven. It wasn’t like, for the most part, they couldn’t look after themselves, or Sabre couldn’t look after them. And I worked from home then. I was just across the garage. What was she on about?”
“That wasn’t her worst offense.”
We all turned at these words and saw Reed, Kara’s husband, strolling in.
He went right to his wife, and the brie, put some on a slice of apple, popped it in his mouth and chewed.
“Did I say you were allowed beyond the estrogen barrier?” Kara asked.
Reed tipped his head to Noel. “He broke the seal. For years I’ve been dying to tomcat with you kittens. Here I am.” He then faced Noel. “Thanks, man.”
“One, I love you, your phraseology is everything, and two, you are more than welcome,” Noel replied.
They smiled at each other.
I had no time for this, no matter how cute it was.
“What was her worst offense?” I asked.
