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Sure, he was a jerk. But was he bad enough for her to choose being unemployed instead? April couldn’t even think about it now. She would consider that when she was back in New York, figuring her life out again.
April started to pack up the things she’d spread out across the table, her pens and papers, her phone. But just as she picked up her phone, it rang. April prayed it wasn’t Maxwell as she turned it around. She couldn’t answer him just yet.
But instead of Max’s name, she saw Georgia’s. Her motherly instincts kicked in as she answered right away. “Georgia, is everything okay?”
“Woah, Mom. Chill out,” she replied. “Yes, everything’s fine. Well… You might not think so. I’ve uh…”
“Spit it out sweetheart,” April said, impatient as ever to hear what was troubling her daughter.
“I’m dropping out of school.”
April’s heart sank to her stomach. It hadn’t been but one week into her freshman year of college and Georgia was already deciding to drop out. “Why do you say that?”
“I just have to do this. It’s my own decision.”
She rolled her eyes. Georgia had never been like this before. She sounded so mysterious, like she was hiding something. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s for my own reasons. I’d rather not talk about it right now.”
April slid down into her dining room chair. “If something is upsetting you, I’m here for you. We can-”
“Mom, please. I just want to drop out.”
“You can’t-” April stopped herself from saying the words she never wanted to say.
Just before April had gone off to college, her mother had convinced her to become a lawyer. Caroline pressured her into becoming that person she was back in New York. The person who let everyone else decide what she did with her life. April was so unhappy.
She couldn’t let herself turn into her mother, telling her daughter what to do and why. The parameters for success were no longer making money and having a nice husband. It was happiness.
If she scolded her daughter for leaving school, she would be just like her mother. She’d be telling her daughter that money, reputation, marriage are more important than happiness and dreams. A desire to quit school wasn’t what she wanted for her daughter. But it was what Georgia wanted.
“Okay,” she whispered into the phone, her jaw tightening as she held back. “If that is what you want to do.”
Georgia released a big breath on the other end of the line. “Really?”
April heard the joy in her daughter’s voice and she realized something about herself. The part of her that said she had to go back to New York and straighten herself out, that was the old April. It was the one who let everyone else tell her what to do. It was her mother saying she had to marry well and become a successful lawyer.
It wasn’t just Georgia that needed to follow her heart, it was April, too. And her heart was in this house.
So she was going to stay here and work on it until she was satisfied with what she’d done. This was everything she needed; all her dreams would be fulfilled with this house.
“Mom?”
April shook her head, coming back to the phone call. “Yes, sorry. I think you should do whatever you want to do. But… what is that?”
“Oh, um. I have no idea. I wasn’t sure what to do. I just knew that I couldn’t stay here. So I’m dropping out today.”
“Come here,” April said without a second thought. It was just as impulsive as when she decided to come to the island herself. “I’m at the vacation home in Sandcrest.”
“The one you’ve had for like, ever? What are you doing there?”
April wasn’t ready to tell her daughter about the impending divorce. Or that her father was probably in another country exploring circuses.
When she told herself that she wouldn’t put Georgia in the middle of the divorce, this is exactly what she meant.
April had been in the middle of her parents’ divorce. She knew everything bad her father had ever done. It didn’t stop her from wanting to spend time with her dad, but it did taint her view of him forever. Maybe that’s why he’d stopped spending time with her.
And for that, she wouldn’t tell Georgia anything about the divorce until she processed it herself and all the papers were filed.
