Page 24 of Right the Wrongs (Broken Vows #5)

Chapter Seventeen

Wren - Present

I hate to admit that Charlie and Scott were right.

I feel so much better looking like myself.

Maybe I look a bit more like my old self.

My best friend Bess recently made a huge change to the way she’s looked since I’ve known her.

She used to have this punk pixie look that was kind of a rocker chic vibe.

Now she’s got this sexy, old Hollywood style.

It’s still edgy compared to the other moms, but she doesn’t stand out like she did in shades of neon.

I think I need to reinvent myself a little, too. I don’t know. I feel like I need to be a different person in order to make my life make sense. If I were someone else, I wouldn’t be pulled under by problems I left behind a decade ago, or I should have at least.

Is it always going to be like this? I’m just going to go through my day, not knowing when I’m going to be smacked in the face by the fact that the first man I loved used me as a scapegoat for everything that went wrong in his life, then easily pulled himself together for someone else?

Griffin pretty much treated me like shit back then, too.

I know he says that the reason was that he was fighting his feelings for me.

I believe him most of the time, but when this insecurity hits me, I find myself wondering if maybe there is just something about me that is fundamentally unlovable.

There’s a voice that whispers that somehow I deserved the way both of them treated me, and that if I don’t do everything right, I will end up on the other end of Griffin’s ire again.

Liam blowing up at me like he did the day Griffin dragged him off to rehab is nothing. At least it’s nothing I haven’t heard from him before. I thought I’d have had a stronger reaction to it, but if anything, all I’ve felt for the last couple of months is numb.

The only thing I’m truly afraid of is losing Griffin.

I need to stop hiding from the things that scare me and deal with this shit.

I’m not going to let Liam take any more of my peace.

I know logically, the only thing that can break my relationship with Griffin is if I let these insecurities fester into me pushing him away.

Not a single day has gone by that he hasn’t proven to me over and over that he loves me.

I would like to think I’ve done the same for him, but it can’t be easy watching me have some kind of existential crisis over some bullshit my ex said to me.

It’s even worse for Griffin because Liam is his son.

It’s not the first time he’s been pulled between us, but I thought those days were over.

I can’t have him thinking that there’s any part of me that wants to be with Liam.

I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time telling him what is bothering me. Certainly, he’d rather find out I’m worried he’s going to revert into an asshole again than think I am still pining for my ex-husband. The problem with that is he’s done nothing to deserve my doubt.

The house is quiet when I exit my room. Scott is going to be a great dad if he was able to get my twin terrors out the door with minimal fuss. Parker is quickly entering the dreaded pre-teen years. There have already been full-on meltdowns about how either her hair or clothes looked. I’m not ready.

I’m digging through my purse for my keys so I can lock the deadbolt when I step out onto the front porch. Good thing we live in such a safe neighborhood, because I have zero awareness of my surroundings today.

“Wrenegade, I hear we’re taking a road trip.” I look up and see Bess holding out a cup of coffee for me.

“You are a goddess among women,” I say to her as I grab the cup. This isn’t my first cup of the day, but I’m going to need a few more still if I’m going to make it through the day after the tossing and turning I did last night.

I take a sip, and then her words filter through the fog that is my brain today. “Road trip?”

She shrugs. “Charlie seems to think we’re heading to Harriston.”

“Hmm,” I muse. “I was actually thinking I’d drop in on Dolores.”

A wide grin spreads across Bess’s pretty face. “I do love me some Granny D. Jump in, I’m driving.”

Bess drives like her skeleton is made of lead, and every trip is a tryout to get on the NASCAR circuit. Still, I’d rather ride with her today than risk unleashing my distracted state on the world with two thousand pounds of steel.

We pull up to the retirement village—do not call it a nursing home in front of Dolores—and find her sitting at a table near the roses. She’s got a dainty teacup in front of her, and by the scowl she’s giving it, you’d think someone spit in it.

“Granny D!” Bess shouts when we’re still at least fifty feet away.

“Rainbow-less Brite!” Dolores shouts back. She’s been calling her that since Bess got rid of the bright highlights and clothes.

“What did that cup of tea do to you?” I ask when we join her at the table.

She looks up at me with her watery blue eyes. “It made the mistake of not being coffee.”

“I can smuggle you in coffee,” Bess whispers like she’s a dealer of illicit coffee beans.

“Elizabeth Miller, do I have to put you on another ban list?” one of the nurses asks when she overhears our conversation.

“Slow your roll, Nurse Ratched, I’m just kidding.” Bess winks at Dolores, which the nurse also sees.

“Don’t let Dolores tell you she can have coffee. The caffeine is bad for her blood pressure, and until it comes down, she’s restricted from all kinds of caffeine,” the nurse, whose name tag says Angel, says.

“I think she’s evil,” Dolores whispers to Bess.

She shrugs like the nurse being evil isn’t far-fetched. She looks over her shoulder to make sure that the nurse is gone. “You know, Lucifer was an angel before he was the devil.”

Dolores nods several times as if her nurse being the incarnation of evil makes sense to her. Heaven save us all from nurses who keep us from giving ourselves heart problems.

We sit and gab for a few more minutes. Their playful banter is calming.

I half listen to all the gossip about the old folks’ love lives.

Honestly, until she moved in here, I never realized how a nursing home—sorry, retirement village —was more like Club Med than a hospital environment.

Of course, in this case, Med stands for medicine, not Mediterranean.

“Where did we lose you, dearie? Was it when I was recounting how Gertrude dislocated her hip when Stewart?—”

Bess slaps her hands over her ears and starts humming. “Dear God, I’ll be good, I swear. I won’t wear that Catholic school girl outfit again, no matter how much Donovan begs, just please don’t make me listen to another story about how freaky these grannies are.”

Dolores laughs, and it sounds like she’s a young girl again. “Fine–” she holds up her hands— “you win. Besides, I don’t think that our little Wren here came over to listen to tales of geriatric whoopee.”

I shake my head. “Nope, no. Just don’t ever say any of those words together again. I’ll promise to God to hide Bess’s Catholic school girl outfit if I never have to hear that ever again.”

Bess slaps my arm. “You hooker, you’re supposed to give up something of your own, or it doesn’t count.”

I pretend to think about it, then shake my head. “I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to listen to Daddy. I’d have to ask him before I make a promise I can’t keep.”

Bess groans. “Now that we can look forward to unpacking that little nugget in therapy, maybe we should get down to it. I only have so much time to sit on a therapist’s couch, and I have daddy issues. Just not the same kind you do.”

I wink at her, and then my face falls. The levity of the moment vanishes, and all there is in front of me is this gnawing anxiety. What if it’s me? What if I’m not enough? What if I’ll never be enough? Will Griffin leave too?

Dolores already knows about my history with Liam, of course, since she was my saving grace when I had no one to turn to and nowhere to go. She also knows about his recent relapse and stay in rehab. What she didn’t hear from me, she got from Griffin, since he comes to visit her at least once a week.

She reaches out and pats my hand with her fragile one. “Could you do me a favor, dearie?”

“Of course,” I answer automatically.

Dolores smiles, and I know I’ve fallen prey to one of her schemes.

Like the time she told me that the guest cottage I rented from her needed to be fumigated, so I should go stay with Griffin.

She knew from almost the beginning that he would be the center of my universe.

I guess it wouldn’t hurt to trust her one more time.

“Lite-Brite, get your keys, we’re taking a trip,” Dolores says.

Bess giggles. “New nickname, I can dig it. Your wish is my command.”

“You’re not even going to ask where we’re going?” I ask Bess. “For all we know she might have some wild idea about going to Vegas.”

Dolores snorts. “Vegas? You have quite the imagination, dearie. You’ve lost yourself, haven’t you?”

My eyes swell with tears, and I nod. The lump in my throat won’t let me so much as squeak.

“Well, you know how to find what you’ve lost, right?” she asks.

I shake my head. I mean, of course, I know how to find something I’ve lost. Every mom becomes an expert in finding lost things, but in this context, I have no idea what she’s talking about.

“It’s simple, you retrace your steps. We’d better move quickly, though, before my nemesis comes back around,” she says.

“The nurse isn’t your nemesis,” I mumble.

“She’s just jealous she doesn’t have her own nemesis. She wouldn’t understand,” Bess placates her.

I roll my eyes and head toward Bess’s SUV. At least they’ll be entertaining. That’s better than how I thought I’d be spending the day.