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“Actually, I was thinking about not going. It’s been a big day, with going to the lake and swimming, working in the garden and all the baking and all the things we did. You guys go on ahead. I think I’ll probably call it an early night.” She smiled and didn’t seem upset. In fact, if he had to guess, maybe she seemed relieved.
Was she relieved that she didn’t have to go with him? Was she dreading having to spend time with him? He kinda thought she looked eager to do it when he’d asked.
She had talked about it like it was something she wanted to do. He honestly had to admit he’d been looking forward to it all day. More than he normally looked forward to anything. Mostly because everything that he’d done with Jubilee had been fun, not fun in a super exciting teenager kind of way. But it was fun in a he’d enjoyed the companionship kind of way. The way he felt like he was with someone who wasn’t going to stab him in the back the first time he did something wrong, someone who’d give him grace and would see past his faults and who was trustworthy enough for him to allow her to see past the exterior that he showed everyone else. That was how he felt about Jubilee.
Was it terrible that he wasn’t really excited about riding with his daughter and her mother? That he didn’t really want them to be a family. That he didn’t see them as a family.
“It’s hard to keep up with everyone around here. Maybe you’ll develop some stamina after you’ve been here for a while,” Eva said in a slightly condescending tone, although he imagined that it wasn’t quite as condescending as it might have been, since she got what she wanted, with Jubilee backing out.
Eva held a conversation with him all through supper. Or maybe it was more like Eva chatted all through supper, and all he had to do was eat and nod his head.
Nora sat on the other side of him, and she seemed excited and happy that her mom and dad were talking and sitting at the same table with her.
As for Matt, he kept trying to see what was going on with Jubilee, who was carrying on a conversation with his mom and sister at the other end of the table. Her girls were involved in that conversation, their own conversation, and chatting with Nora as well.
At least it looked like Nora was going to have friends this summer.
Supper didn’t end soon enough, and after Matt helped carry the dishes to the sink, where his mom was putting them in the dishwasher, while Jubilee and the girls put the food away, he walked out onto the porch.
Eva followed him out.
He wished he wouldn’t have left the safety of the kitchen.
Thankfully Clara came out before Eva had a chance to say more than, “It’s a beautiful evening. I can’t wait for our ride. Do you want me to grab Nora so we can go down and get saddled up?”
He opened his mouth to reply, when Clara said, “Why don’t you go do that. I wanted to talk to Matt for a minute anyway.”
Eva went back in the house, calling Nora’s name. Matt would have said to let her finish helping. It was good for her to do that, but Clara grabbed him by the arm and said, “Take a walk with me.”
He allowed her to pull him, even though she was his little sister and he didn’t typically follow her around.
He wasn’t quite sure how his evening had gotten so messed up, from looking forward all day to being with Jubilee, to ending up going with Eva and dreading the fact that Nora was going to get ideas in her head about them getting together, when he had no such plans.
“You know that Eva is just trying to get her claws into you.”
“I don’t know why,” he mumbled as they walked up the sidewalk, away from the lake.
“I’m not sure why either. It’s not like you’re super rich or anything like that. And it’s not like she wants the best for Nora. Although it’s obvious that Nora wants the two of you together as well.”
“Yeah. I feel bad about that. Nora and I are going to have to have a talk. Because if that’s what she wants, it’s not going to happen.”
“You let Eva push between you and Jubilee.”
“You heard her. She didn’t want to go anyway.”
“She didn’t want to go with you and your ex. The woman you have a child with. To be the third wheel in your family time.”
He didn’t point out that she would have been the fourth wheel, with Nora along. It seemed silly to split hairs like that. After all, Clara was trying to help. “What was I supposed to say? Nora was looking at me like it was the thing that she wanted more than life itself, and it felt rude to tell her no.”
“If you ask Jubilee to go, then it should be you and Jubilee making the decision as to whether or not anyone else should go. It should have been you and her doing it together, in private. It shouldn’t have been you asking her at the table in front of everyone. What else was she going to say?”
He knew that. He knew he’d messed up. He just...didn’t have enough of a chance to think before he had to make a decision to say something.
“So what do I do now?”
It was too late to go back and fix anything. He had to move forward and try to fix it, but he didn’t have any idea what to do.
“I’m not sure.” Clara stopped and turned on the sidewalk to face him. “I don’t know Jubilee that well. I mean, I just spent the day with her, but I only met her this morning. But she seems like a really nice person. Like the kind of person that I’d love to have as a sister-in-law.”
