AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Violet shakes her head. “Please don’t make me worry about you while I’m gone. I’ll do all the laundry when I’m back tomorrow.”
After a beat, Gayle nods. “I’ll leave it for you.” But her shoulders slump.
“Do you need anything? Tea?”
She holds up a mug. “You already made me one, remember?”
“Or a sandwich?”
“Oh, don’t fuss over me.” Gayle waves her off. “We’ll be fine.”
Violet’s brow wrinkles. “You sure?”
“Of course! Go and have fun with Abbi at the bridal shower. We’ll see you tomorrow. Give me a kiss.”
Violet stoops to kiss Gayle’s forehead with a murmured “Love you, Gramma.”
We wave our goodbyes and head outside, into the cold.
But Violet seems down.
“You okay?”
She peers over her shoulder at the house. “I feel guilty about leaving them alone overnight.”
“Did you want to stay here? You don’t have to come with me.”
“No, that’s the thing. I want to! And Gramma wouldn’t let me stay, anyway. It’s just hard, you know? She needs help getting out of bed. Her body’s really stiff from the arthritis. Gramps is usually the one to help her, but with him being sick, I’ve been doing it.”
My heart aches for her. And for Gayle. “Getting old sucks.” Being sixteen and feeling like a caregiver to your elderly guardians isn’t any easier. “I’ll bet they love the extra time they’re getting with you though.” I open the tailgate on the SUV so Violet can toss her bag in.
“Yeah.” She bites her bottom lip as she peers back at the house. “They were going to sell this place and move to a retirement home before my mom got sick.”
I know. But I can’t admit to knowing that because then I’d have to admit to Dyson digging into her grandparents and I’m not sure how Violet would feel about that, jokes of invisible flying robotic eyes aside.
“Oh, crap! I forgot something. I’ll be back in a sec.”
I get settled in for the long drive while Violet runs into the house, only to return empty-handed thirty seconds later.
“What’d you forget?”
She digs into her coat pockets to pull out a portable speaker and earbuds. “Hopefully, the walls are thicker at this hotel than the one in Aspen.”
“Oh my God.” My face burns as I put the SUV in Reverse and back up. “Don’t worry, Henry made sure the bedrooms are far apart.” He was visibly horrified to discover that his daughter heard us having sex, and Henry has never been bothered about having an audience.
Violet shucks her coat and adjusts the radio station. “Did I ever tell you that Becca Taylor and her friends cornered me with, like, a thousand questions after the play?”
“About what?”
“They asked who Henry is and if you’re his wife, that sort of thing.”
“What’d you tell them?” I ask warily. They must not recognize us.
“Don’t worry, I stuck with the story. He’s ‘a cousin’.” She air quotes. “But do you know what they started calling him?” She snorts. “The DILF.”
* * *
“That’s my great-grandmother’s restaurant.”I point at the Pearl, where a couple sits at a window table, giving their order to Ryleigh, the new teenage server Aunt May hired before Christmas. She wears too much eyeliner for Mama’s liking. Garland still hangs around the door, a residual of the holidays.
