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She wanted to joke and say that Rodney was a great driver, and he had been very solicitous of them as they got in the carriage.
But after they’d started, he hadn’t turned around to say anything to them. He was far enough away, with the breeze and the waves and the horses and harness that she doubted that he could make out any of their words, although he could probably hear that they were having a conversation.
Not that they were talking about anything private. It just felt private. Peaceful. And relaxing.
Except Mark had said different things like that all evening. She couldn’t figure out if he had been doing it for her mother and his sister, or because he was really feeling that way. It scared her a little that those might be his real feelings, but more than fear, it excited her. Because that’s how she felt. It was just the idea that their comfortable relationship might be changing. Everything seemed to be changing.
“There’ve been so many changes in our lives. Mine in particular, with me quitting my job, buying the inn, my girls leaving, just... Life has been so curvy lately, and the one solid thing through all of it has been my friendship with you. This whole us having to act like we’re married so that my mom believes that, I know it was my idea, even getting married, but... It makes me...anxious.” She turned her head to look at him, although she couldn’t make out his expression in the soft moonlight.
“Yeah. I guess marriage is a pretty big change. And we didn’t exactly do it the way normal people do it, so it makes it even...less stable. I guess. For lack of a better word to describe it.”
“Yeah. It just feels like my whole life has been shifting sands. I know God hasn’t changed, but almost everything else has.”
“You still have your health. You still have your mother.”
“There are some things I wish would change,” she said, but teasing mostly. Her mom was difficult to deal with, but lots of people’s mothers were. If they didn’t have a difficult mother, maybe they had a difficult dad, or a difficult sibling, or a difficult coworker friend or relative. Everyone had difficult people in their lives.
Some people chose to cut them out of their lives, calling them toxic and saying that they were better off without them, but she couldn’t help but believe that God put difficult people into her life in order for her to become a better person herself. Or maybe to influence those difficult people. She wasn’t sure, but the idea had been there. The easy way out would be to call her mother toxic and to talk to her only once or twice a year.
“You know, we spent a lot of time on the beach over the years together.”
“Remember the year we had your nieces almost the entire summer?”
“That was a hard summer. I had more work than I knew what to do with, couldn’t find any employees, and they were like what? Ten or twelve?”
“They were. My girls were close to that age as well, and we just had such an awesome summer.”
“Really? You loved that summer?”
“Yeah! I mean, I had four girls in the house, every single day, but it was fun. We did so many cool things together.”
“Man, I look back at that summer, and I think about how I dumped them on you. I mean, you volunteered to watch them, but my sister was...going through her divorce maybe?”
“I don’t remember. That, or maybe her best friend had an operation.”
“Oh yeah. I think that was it. Anyway, I couldn’t not take my nieces, and she said they would be fine with no adult supervision all day, but she didn’t understand how much I worked.”
“Or maybe she was just figuring that Strawberry Sands is such a small town there wasn’t any trouble they could get into.”
“That might be it too.”
She smiled at the memories. She wasn’t joking. It had been one of the best summers she could remember. “I was actually disappointed the next summer when they didn’t come.”
“I remember doing bonfires. It seemed like every night.”
“I really appreciated you coming home from working twelve or fourteen or more hours, and being willing to do something with us. The girls really appreciated that too. It was...like we were family.”
“Yeah. That was probably the summer more than any other summer that I wished I had my own kids. I have to admit, sitting around the bonfire in the evening was so much fun. I would look forward to that during the day. That, and the fact that things cooled off at night.”
“I remember you swimming in the lake almost every night after you made the bonfire. You’d jump in, saying that it had been almost a hundred degrees that day and you were going to treat yourself to a little air conditioning.”
“Well, when you’re mowing grass, there is no such thing as air conditioning. I’ve yet to see an enclosed cab on a lawnmower.”
“That would probably price them out of most people’s price range.”
“I think that there might be some landscapers, like myself, who might want to splurge and spend a little extra for the convenience.”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve never spent an entire day mowing grass, not in the summer heat. But at least you ride. It would be a lot harder if all you could do was push.”
