Page 56

DAVINA

When a week passed since the lake and I hadn’t heard from Deke, I wasn’t surprised.

But when another week crept by and there wasn’t a single peep, I drowned in guilt and immediately wanted to call him.

After the way I’d bolted, I couldn’t blame him for not reaching out. I did that a lot—bolted when things got complicated. I was tempted to text him sometimes while at work to check in with him and see if he was okay, but I knew he wasn’t. Texting him would’ve been torturing him, and I’d done that enough.

During that last night with him, I developed a feeling I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was a feeling that made me question the love I’d shared with Lewis and the years spent with him.

It contradicted what I’d told myself the day of Lew’s funeral about melting in another man’s hands. Deke had lowered my guard completely in such a short span of time, and for a split second, I felt safe because it was only us.

No one else was around.

No one could interrupt.

I could be me, and he could be himself.

It was perfect ... but maybe a little too perfect, if there was such a thing.

Regardless, that safety with him scared the shit out of me.

I lowered the wand of my mascara, studying my reflection. So put together on the outside but a mess inside. With a huff, I stuffed the mascara into my makeup bag and left the bathroom to find my shoes.

I couldn’t stay in my house a minute longer, with everything I had on my mind. Octavia insisted I come home and take a breather, and she was right. I was going to Maple Cove to see her, Mama, and my little brother, Abe.

Maple Cove was a small town that was only a fifteen-minute drive from Asheville. It was so small, in fact, that many people liked to lump Maple Cove in with Asheville, but the true natives never did. Maple was much more secluded.

I drove on a four-block road lined with cars, passing Mrs. Rina’s coffee shop, which I’d spent many days studying in; the bed-and-breakfast Mrs. Buttle owned, where tourists loved sleeping in; and then the barbershop where Daddy used to get his haircuts.

Octavia and I would sit on the curb waiting for Daddy to get his shape-up. His barber, Bradley, would hand us Dum Dum lollipops and wink for behaving afterward.

There was the familiar hair salon, but the name had changed to Clara’s, and two stores away was a brand-new candy shop, with taffy rolling in the window.

Then there was Mama’s candle shop, Aromantic, with its gold sign and black drapes in the window.

When I drove through town, it only took about a minute more before I was making a right turn and taking a familiar dirt path that led to a two-bedroom house.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves of the hovering trees and beamed on the newly built roof. The tan exterior had been refreshed with another coat of paint.

Bold emerald box hedges hugged the lower half of the house, and the porch (which you had to get to with a four-step stoop) had plants hanging from the ceiling in baskets that swayed with the breeze. Two wicker chairs with waterproof cushions were nestled in the corners, and as I walked up the stoop, I noticed more plants and flowers had been added.

It was like a mini jungle on the porch, and I loved it. Sure, I had my place in Charlotte, but this was my real home.

I dug into my purse until I found my key, then gave the lock a twist and turned the doorknob to get inside. Dishes clanked from a distance, and I could smell something savory cooking.

I took a quick sweep of the front room. Dark hardwood floors and shelves built into the walls, topped with books and plants. A love seat and a recliner, neither of which matched, were set near the walls, and a TV was mounted to face them both.

A bohemian red rug was placed beneath a round wooden coffee table, and on one of the side tables was an essential oil diffuser steadily blowing out mist and whatever scent Mama had picked for the day. Today it smelled citrusy, like lemon and a hint of clove. This house I grew up in wasn’t much, but it was cozy.

“Mama?” I called from the door. The clanking of dishes stopped, and as I set my purse down, I saw her head pop around a corner.

“Davina Bobina!” she sang, rushing out of the kitchen, wearing an apron with cartoonish avocados on it. She threw her arms around my neck and hugged me tight, and I huffed a laugh as I held her back.

My mom may have worked my nerves a lot, but if there was one thing about her, she could deliver an amazing hug.

“I’m so happy to see you, baby,” she said over my shoulder. She leaned back and held on to my shoulders as she looked me all over. “You look good.”

“Compared to what?” I asked, half-teasing.

“Oh, stop it. You always look good.”

“You do, too, Mama.” For a woman who’d be turning sixty in two months, she was flawless, really.

Her face had hardly a wrinkle in sight, other than the laugh lines around her mouth and the faint crow’s-feet around her light-brown eyes. Her hair had flourished, and what were once simple natural curls a decade ago had been transformed into unruly locs. She reminded me of Lisa Bonet, and I recalled a lot of men in town loving that about her.

“Thank you, honey. Come on, you’re just in time to have lunch with me.”

“Where’s Abe?” I asked, following her into the kitchen.

“He’s at therapy right now but should be done within forty-five minutes or so.” Mama sauntered barefoot through the kitchen to open one of the opaque glass cabinets. “Made us some chicken and chickpea soup.”

“That sounds good.” I went to the drawer where the utensils were while she ladled soup into porcelain bowls. After she grabbed a pitcher of lemonade, we sat at the four-top table and dug in.

“Octavia told me y’all went to Miami,” she said after chewing. “What was that like?”

I met her eager eyes and shrugged. “It was for business, so I didn’t really get to see much.”

“Oh. Well, your sister said y’all went to some fancy party in a penthouse too.”

“It wasn’t that fancy.” I laughed.

I looked up, and Mama was studying my face.

I didn’t know what she was looking for but I wasn’t in the mood to have her read me right now, so I said, “I can ride with you to pick Abe up if you want.”

“He’ll love that, Vina.” She took a sip of lemonade. “So how are you lately? I mean after the last few months ...”

“You know you can just say it,” I told her.

“I know, but I don’t want to be insensitive.”

“I’m okay, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s good.”

I took a look around the kitchen, before my eyes ventured to the living room. This house had changed so much in the last decade. When Octavia and I were younger, this place was sparse and lacked many of the decorations it had now. But back then all Mama cared about was going out with her friends or staying the night with one of her flings.

It was a surprise knowing all it took for her to get her act together was birthing a son.

When Daddy died, I was the one taking care of Octavia and making her peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and pouring her milk after school. And during the first year of Abe’s life, I had to secure a part-time job just so Mama could have enough money for formula and diapers.

Whenever I wasn’t working, I’d be watching after him and Octavia while our mother slept or worked part time at a retail store. I was forced to mature, and to this day I don’t feel like I had much of a childhood.

Maybe that’s part of the reason why I’m so fucked up inside.

I shifted my gaze to Mama’s, but she was already looking at me. “You look troubled, Vina,” she said. “What’s going on in that brain of yours?”

I debated whether to speak on the issue that’d been bothering me for years now. I didn’t want to come across as bitter for how I felt.

And don’t get me wrong, Abe deserved the world. I loved that kid from the moment I laid eyes on him, but I became angry sometimes when I thought about how simple it was for him and how hard it was for me and Octavia.

I moved my spoon around in my soup, pushing one of the chickpeas toward the edge of the bowl. “Do you think I’d be different if I was raised like Abe was?”

Mama sat up straight, her rosy lips parting. She stared at me a moment before lowering her gaze with a defeated sigh. “Davina ... I know what this is about.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you were young, I wasn’t there like I should’ve been.”

I swallowed thickly and placed my spoon on a napkin, bumping my bowl away.

“I wasn’t a good parent to you. You relied on me, and I wasn’t there half the time. You ... you lost your daddy at such a young age, and I could tell it really affected you. And you were always so sweet and kind and understanding about everything I did. Always looking after your sister, making sure she was fed and bathed and—” Mama gasped and pressed her hands to her chest. “I’ve thought long and hard about this moment, you know? How I would bring it up to you—how I would apologize for everything. I’ve been waiting for you to confront me because bringing it up myself never felt right. I was a terrible mother, and I know it. And this is no excuse, but I simply wasn’t ready for the role back then.”

I nodded, combating tears.

“But let me be clear when I tell you that your resilience and your shine cannot be replaced,” she said. “No matter how you grew up, or if the tables had been turned, you would still be the Davina you are now, and I love that about you.” Her voice broke during the last sentence, and I tucked my hands between my thighs. “I’m so sorry it took me so long to pull myself together. I’m so sorry if my actions have damaged you in any way or made you feel like you don’t deserve to be cared about or loved. I love you from the depths of my heart, and you should know that I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere, and if it’s not too late for you, I want to keep being here for you, baby. You, your sister, and your brother are my world. Nothing will ever come before my babies again.”

At this point, Mama had become a blur. A part of me figured maybe I was being too emotional about this, but the rational part of me knew I had a lot to be emotional about.

I wasn’t sure what’d come over me. I thought I’d done all my crying at the damn lake house, but it turns out I had a lot more pent up inside me. So at my Mama’s dining table I cried, and didn’t realize I was crying until she curled her arms around me and held me close.

As she did, all I could think was that the last few months I’d spent with Lew were just like it had been when I was a child.

Inconsistent.

Lonely.

That feeling of abandonment, even though he had no control over his situation.

I’d been in complete survival mode, trying to take care of everything and make all the ends meet just so the people around me would be okay.

But what about me? What if I’m not okay?

That question tormented me in so many ways. I was not okay. Like I told Deke, I was in shambles, and I meant that in every sense of the word. My heart, my mind, my body—all of me was so bleak and broken.

And maybe that was why I ran from him. Maybe that was why I was so scared of what was budding between us. Because I didn’t want someone so perfect to see how fucked up I truly was.

It’d taken a while for me to fully commit to Lewis, when we first met. I didn’t feel like it was real or like my relationship with him was something I could keep. Even after we married, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, just like it had with my dad, and it came stomping down when he was diagnosed with cancer.

To me, that was all the proof I needed to know I was better off alone. Why suffer if I didn’t have to? Hell, I’d suffered enough. I didn’t think I could share that side of me with another man again. I kept saying this, but it was true. Deke deserved better than me. Lewis deserved better than me.

Like a light bulb flashing above my head, a clear realization hit me, and my mind circled back to one of the last things my husband had said: “I love you, Vina Boo. But I know you, and I don’t want you shutting the world out when I’m gone.”

Lewis had seen how lonely I was after his diagnosis, how isolated I felt, how tired I was. He saw me move at lightning speed just to make sure he’d survive. He saw everything I couldn’t see. Now it made sense why he said those things the night he died. He was trying to save me from myself .

A door closed from a distance, and after hearing footsteps drift through the house, I picked my head up and spotted my sister through bleary eyes.

“Mama! Why did you make her cry?” Octavia exclaimed, frowning at Mama. “She just got here!”

Mama laughed, rubbing my back in soothing circles. “She’s just processing a few things. Right, Vina?”

I smiled up at my mom, and she returned a warm smile.

“Yeah.” I sniffed. “That’s right.”