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Peter flushed, and struck a loud, vicious chord.
I got up, looking from one to the other of them, realizing with a weird sense of lightness that I really was done here. There was no need to say another word.
“I’m heading out,” I said. “I wish you well. Good luck with everything.”
“Wait! Hold on, Nance,” Enid said urgently. She leaned down, whispering fiercely into Peter’s ear. He dug his wallet out of his jeans pocket with clear reluctance, looking shamefaced. He pulled out a wad of money, counted it, and passed it to me. “It’s not all that we owe you, but I’ll get the rest of it to you when we get back to the city.”
I stared down at the cash, startled. “Thanks.”
“Nance,” Enid said. “We’ll make this right. We’re sorry. I’m definitely sorry. And Petey is, too, even though he doesn’t act like it. You know how he is.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I certainly do.”
“Please reconsider,” Enid coaxed. “We don’t want to look for other management. You’re amazing. The way you care. How you ‘get’ us. We didn’t appreciate that enough. You spoiled us. Not that I put the blame on you, but…”
“But you just did,” I said wryly. “I’m not feeling it, Enid. Sorry.”
“Just think about it,” Enid urged. “Keep an open mind. We’ll be good. Good as gold. No more whining. No more tantrums. No more debts.”
She looked like she meant it. Gratifying, but I just nodded and left, heading to my own room to grab my own bag. I going home, to figure my shit out. I had bigger problems at the moment. Peter and Enid feeling abandoned just did not make the cut. They needed to grow the fuck up.
And incidentally, so did I.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Liam
There was nothing else I could have done, I repeated as I sanded the table. I was so sick of the images looping endlessly through my brain. Nancy, curled up in that music case, looking so pale and fragile. All the bad outcomes, so narrowly escaped.
It made me want to throw myself in front of her door to keep her safe. But that was not something I had a right to do, unless I was her lover.
Or her husband.
The rhythmic motions of sanding were not chilling me. Working on the table made my misery worse, not better. No matter how hard I tried, I kept seeing that shiny auburn hair spread out in a fan on the smooth, polished wood, those hazel eyes, the long, elegant nose, the wide, luscious mouth. The sounds she made when she came.
I’d never imagined proposing marriage to her, even when things were going well. Idle memories chased themselves through my brain. Inconsequential, silly things, like making sure she ate breakfast. Teasing that anxious little crease away from her brow. Making her smile. Making her laugh.
I sanded away, unable to stop the flood of memories. It had been so easy to talk to her. She’d understood things, even when I couldn’t put them into words. I remembered those sweet, companionable silences as we listened to the creak of the porch swing and the song of the wind chimes, the crickets. The wind in the trees as clouds scudded across the evening sky. The moon, shining down on us. Pure magic.
But that wasn’t compatibility. That was just hormones, limerence, a cheap trick my mind was playing on me. There were some things in life that a man should not compromise on. Nancy and I were incompatible. She’d demonstrated that time and time again. And blowing off our vacation without a second thought was the last straw. Just like when Dad …
A chill shuddered through me.
Just like when Dad had done it to me and Mom.
I lay the sandpaper down, my hands suddenly numb. Strange, that I hadn’t made that connection sooner. It was obvious, after all. Not a huge revelation. In a lot of ways, the situations were very similar.
Similar, maybe. But not identical.
I ached to talk to Mom. I could see her so clearly in my mind. Her short, iron-gray hair, her clear gray eyes. Smiling as if we always shared some secret joke.
I sank down onto one of my carved benches and closed my eyes. God knows, Mom had never been all that great at compromise herself. I remembered with bemused affection how we’d butted heads. Both of us, hopelessly stubborn.
She had tried to compromise with Dad, but he did not make the same reciprocal effort. At last, she’d been forced to put her foot down, and keep it down.
And as for Dad, forget it. Once he made up his mind, you couldn’t budge him with an earthmover. When it came to compromise, I was genetically challenged.
I brushed sawdust on my clothes, wandered out onto the porch and sat down on the steps, deliberately avoiding the porch swing and its memories. I started to let memories of that early part of my life bubble up, uncannily vivid. Those early years with Dad.