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Chapter
Nineteen
Bea sighed asshe leaned her head against the window on the airplane.It hadn’t even taken off yet, and she already wanted to go back to the beach cottage.
Ten days, she told herself.For the past month, she’d been living in ten-day increments, and she wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry about that.
When Nort had first left, she’d lived in one-hour increments.She’d gotten through each day, only to have another dawn.They marched on relentlessly, not caring about her heartache, her turmoil, her anger, her concerns.
Bessie had suggested she take a cruise by herself.Just to relax.
Bea couldn’t imagine anything worse.
Sage had said there were single women’s groups all over, and they planned trips to almost every destination around the world.She’d get there alone, but then she’d be with a group of women just like her.Single.Divorcées or widows.Ready for adventure.Ready to move on with their lives.
Bea hadn’t been ready.Even when she’d boarded the plane to come to Hilton Head, she hadn’t been ready.She’d done it, because she didn’t want to disappoint Joy, and she didn’t want Cass to lose her money on the rental.
She closed her eyes and relived the last kiss Grant had given her.Out on the curb, here in Charlotte, he’d said he’d be right there to pick her up when she returned in just ten days.Before, Bea wouldn’t have worried about what ten days could bring.
Now, she knew ten days could drastically change the course of someone’s life.
The plane pushed back from the gate, and Bea sighed again.She’d never imagined she’d be heartsick again.She’d never once thought as she fought with Nort throughout their divorce that she’d want to attach herself to another man.She’d never believed that second chances happened to women in their mid-forties.
She also wasn’t sure her relationship with Grant really was a second chance.A second chance at what?She wasn’t going to have more children.They wouldn’t be building a family together, though his daughter was still a minor.
A second chance at happiness, she thought, and with that perfect, golden image in her mind—her and Grant on the deck of the lighthouse, grinning for all they were worth, the glorious ocean in the background—she endured her flight to Austin.
The moment she saw Meredith, tears rushed into her eyes, and Bea blinked them back.“Hey, baby,” she said, though her twenty-four-year-old was no baby.Meredith held her tightly, and though she towered over Bea, it was like she was her little girl all over again.She’d just gotten off the bus on her first day of kindergarten, and while she’d skipped up the driveway, the moment she’d seen Bea, she’d burst into tears.
“How was South Carolina?”Meredith asked.
“Oh.”Bea sighed and stepped back.She made a show of wiping her eyes to buy herself a few moments to think about what to tell her daughter.“It was wonderful.Sunny and relaxing.”She picked up her spotted purse.“I love the ranch, but I’m thinking I need to be closer to the beach.”
Meredith laughed and put Bea’s bag in the trunk of her car.“You can go to the beach any time you want, Mama.It’s just a few minutes’ drive.”
“Sixty is more than a few,” Bea said.She sat in the passenger seat and let her daughter navigate them around Austin.“Are you ready for the concert?”
The big performance sat roughly twenty-four hours from now, and Bea noticed the way Meredith’s fingers strangled the steering wheel.“I think so,” she said.“I have one more practice session in the morning with my professor.I got my dress from the dry cleaner today.”She glanced over to Bea.“You’re making the Texas sheet cake, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” Bea said, though she had forgotten.She felt as if she’d left some of her brain cells in the beach cottage on Hilton Head, and she looked out her window so Meredith couldn’t see the little white lie on her face.“Did you get the ingredients?”
“Mom, I don’t even know the ingredients.”She spoke in a horrified tone, and Bea scoffed and shook her head.
“You do too.We’ve made it plenty of times.”
“You’vemade it, Mama,” Meredith said.“I can count beats and notes.I can’t measure ingredients.”
Bea laughed, because that had been their joke over the years Meredith had grown up.She had a selective math mind, and cooking was something she selected not to do.
“We’ll have to swing by the grocery store tonight,” Bea said.“No problem.”She could put a sheet cake together in her sleep, and last time she’d checked, Meredith could chop pecans.
“Did you get the graduation gown sorted?”Bea asked.Her daughter had called in a near-panic on Tuesday—was that just yesterday?—and said the university didn’t have the sash she’d earned.
“Yes, thankfully,” Meredith said.“I texted you earlier, but you must’ve been on the plane.”
“Oh, right.”Bea pulled her phone from her purse and tapped on the airplane icon to get it connected to data again.A moment later, a flurry of notifications came in, overwhelming her instantly.
Grant had texted a few times, of course, and Bea subconsciously angled her phone away from Meredith.She drove, so she wasn’t peering over Bea’s shoulder, ready to accuse her of falling in love with a man in ten days or less.
