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With a small smile, she grasped his hand one last time and gave it a squeeze before turning and bolting from the room. She ran past Lanie and Max on her way out, but she didn’t stop to speak to them. They would find out everything soon enough.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Rose’s mother asked.
Rose nodded then remembered she wasn’t on video chat. “Yes, Mother, I’m sure.”
She hadn’t wanted to FaceTime her parents, afraid they would see right through her facade, even on the other side of the world. After she’d gotten home, she’d spent a good hour sobbing into her pillow. When her tears ran out, she forced herself out of bed and washed her face.
Her mother sighed on the other end of the line, and Rose braced herself.
“Aren’t you being a bit rash?”
She bristled. “I’ve been asking him for months, even before the accident, to slow down and take it easy. I thought the heart attack would be a wakeup call, but it wasn’t.” Calm down. Getting in an argument with her mother wasn’t going to help things. “And now, he’s passing out from stress, and I don’t know what else to do. I’ve tried to reason with him. I’ve tried nagging, begging.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “He dismissed my concerns or made empty promises. I started to wonder, what kind of future can I have with someone who so easily disregards my feelings? What if that bleeds into other areas of our relationship? What will happen when we have children?” She took a deep breath. “I love him. I do. But sometimes love just isn’t enough.”
The line was silent, and she held her breath as she waited for Mom to respond, though she supposed it didn’t matter whether her mother agreed with her or not. She’d made her choice.
“It’s better this way,” she continued when her mother didn’t respond. “Can you imagine how much worse it would be if we had gone through with the wedding? Now, we can both move on, and maybe I’ll go back to Baltimore.”
Her mother tsked, and Rose rolled her eyes. That was the other positive point for Steven. Her parents had never liked the idea of her working in a hospital in Baltimore. They hated the city and worried about the things she would witness while working there. She hadn’t had the heart to tell them it didn’t really matter where she worked, gruesome sights were pretty much universal. In Cedar Haven, she might not have seen gunshot wounds, but she’d seen some tractor accidents that were far bloodier.
“Maybe you can come home to Korea,” her mother said.
Rose cringed. The possibility that her mother would mention a return to the home country had crossed her mind, but she’d hoped it wouldn’t be during that conversation.
“I’ll think about it.” Though they both knew that was a lie. “Anyway, it’s getting late, and I’m working the early shift tomorrow.”
They said their goodbyes, and Rose collapsed onto her couch. The one saving grace in the whole awful situation was that she hadn’t moved in with Steven yet. She didn’t want to imagine how awkward it would have been to try to find a new place to live when he was released.
She had just flipped on the TV when there was a knock at the door. She debated pretending not to be home. There were only so many people who would have stopped by her house at that time of night.
“Rose? It’s Lanie.” A pause. “I know you’re in there.”
With a sigh, she stood and opened the door. Lanie leaned against the wall outside the condo, her eyebrows pulling together. She held up a brown bag.
“Thought you could use some wine.”
Rose rocked back on her heels, not sure how to react. Without waiting for a response, Lanie pushed past her and set the bag on the counter before removing two wineglasses from the cabinet.
“You planning to stand there all night, or are you going to join me?” Lanie asked.
Bewildered, Rose shut the door and went into the kitchen. Lanie poured two large glasses of wine and handed one to Rose.
“What are you doing here?”
“Bringing you wine.” Lanie shrugged. “And I figured you might want some company.”
“So you’re not here to convince me to reconsider?”
“Would you listen to me if I was?”
Rose shook her head.
“Then I’m not.” Lanie carried her wine into the living room before sinking onto the sofa.
Unsure of what else to do, Rose followed and sat on the other side, keeping some distance between them. As close as Rose had gotten to Lanie recently, she was Steven’s sister, and Rose suspected that was where her loyalties lay.
She waited to see if Lanie would start the conversation, but her future sister-in-law… Scratch that, her former future… No, that didn’t quite work either. While she debated how to define their new connection, Lanie leaned back and gazed out the window. Her face was serene, and she seemed perfectly content to sip her wine and sit in silence.
But Rose was like a firecracker left too close to a bonfire. One small spark, and she would explode. She shifted in her seat, hoping the movement would break Lanie’s reverie and force her to speak. When that didn’t work, she heaved a sigh to break the silence.
