Page 30 of The Homemaker (The Chain of Lakes #1)

Chapter Thirty

Murphy

It’s much easier to fall in love than out of love.

I can’t undo what’s been done. Alice knows.

Now what?

As soon as I smell coffee, I know she’s in the kitchen making breakfast. The warm wood floor absorbs my steps without creaking.

Just as I reach the dining room, Hunter clears his throat and glances up from his phone, readers low on his nose. “Morning,” he says.

“Good morning. How are you feeling?” I sit at the opposite end of the table.

“Much better. Alice made elderberry cough syrup and gave me a dose before bed.”

I didn’t hear her come into the house last night, but before I can say as much, Alice brings his coffee, carefully pouring it into his gold-rimmed cup while offering me a quick smile.

“Coffee, Murphy?” she asks.

How can she look at me as if yesterday never happened?

I stare at her, waiting for her to break, but she doesn’t. So I nod slowly. “Thank you.”

She places another cup and saucer in front of me and fills it.

“I talked to Vera this morning, and the women seem to be having a great time. I think we should head to the country club, get in eighteen holes, and spend the rest of the afternoon drinking. They’re setting off fireworks later.”

Hunter’s suggestion hangs in the air as I silently beg Alice to look at me again, but she just turns and floats back to the kitchen as if her conscience has no gravity.

“Put in thirty years of marriage, and you can have an Alice, too.” Hunter smirks, catching me watching Alice.

“I appreciate the offer,” I say, ignoring his comment about Alice, “but I need to catch up on work before Blair returns.”

“I thought you were catching up yesterday.”

I sip my coffee, buying a little time. “Sadly, one day wasn’t enough.”

“Fine. I’ll give you the day but meet me for dinner at the country club.”

I nod because it sounds like a demand, not a question.

Hunter’s phone rings, and he squints at the screen before mumbling, “What now?”

As he answers the call, I use it as an excuse to step into the kitchen.

Alice glances over her shoulder while arranging flowers in a vase. “Can I get you something for breakfast?”

I lean my backside against the island, hands resting on the edge of the counter.

When I don’t answer, she takes a second glance back at me. This time, she pauses her hands.

“I was in a mental hospital for fourteen months,” she says, facing the vase again, cutting another stem and tucking it into the arrangement.

“PTSD. Depression. Severe anxiety. Suicide ideation. But that was then. This is now. Sometimes life sucks; sometimes it doesn’t.

It’s good to see you. It’s even better to see that you’re in a good place. ”

She piles the discarded stems into the small bucket and turns, hands folded in front of her. “I’m in a good place too.”

Jesus Christ.

My physical response remains masked behind clenched teeth. She was in a mental hospital for fourteen months? What the hell? And now she’s good, and supposedly I’m good? That’s it?

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry,” I whisper because I don’t know what to say, and I don’t want to make it about me, but I have all these feelings and questions, and I don’t know what to do with them.

After a pause, as if she’s waiting for me to say more, she nods slowly. “Thanks. I’m sorry too.” She drops her gaze to the floor for a second, but then the oven timer buzzes.

I return to the dining room while running both hands through my hair. When Hunter glances up at me, I hide my pain behind a fake smile. I’m a fucking wreck.

For eight years, I’ve thought about Alice. Only in my dreams did I imagine seeing her again. Now, she’s here, canning tomatoes and pickling onions between loads of laundry. And I’m holed up in the bedroom, trying to get caught up on work, but my mind is shit.

Eight years, and here we are.

This is insane. Hunter is at the club. Vera and Blair are in New York.

It’s just the two of us under the same roof, and I feel like a hostage, gagged and unable to speak, afraid of knowing all the details, and equally afraid of not knowing.

I lean back in my chair and stare at the cursor blinking on my screen.

Then I fixate on the hummingbird, taking nectar from the feeder outside the window.

After the bird flies away, I wad up a piece of paper and shoot it at Blair’s yellow leather tote across the room. It lands inside, so I try it again. But I can’t focus on anything for more than a minute or two.

Something taps the floor and my gaze flits to the open doorway and the plate with cookies and milk that appear out of nowhere.

I lumber from my chair and peek around the corner as Alice sashays in the opposite direction, her pink dress hitting just below her knees, and her wedged shoes making her calves look sexier than ever.

“I refuse to snack alone,” I say.

She stops. “You’re not alone. You have your work.”

I feel weak and emasculated. Anything but brave. I want to know who Chris is or was. Why it took her fourteen months to recover from hydroplaning? What was in the water, if not this Chris person? Did she try to find me?

“I need help,” I say.

Alice turns. “I don’t know how to write instruction manuals.”

“I need help moving on from our last night together.”

She fiddles with her apron before smoothing her hands down the front of it. “You’re getting married. I think that’s considered moving on.”

I pick up the plate of cookies and milk. “You’re right. I guess I need help letting go.”

Her lips turn downward. “Murphy?—”

“I just”—I shake my head—“I just need some of the gaps filled in because I’ve spent eight years trying to figure it out. So call it closure or whatever, but I can’t let it go until I know exactly what I’m letting go of.”

She chews on the inside of her cheek.

“I don’t want to cause you stress or bring up painful memories. I really don’t. So if this is too much to ask, then?—”

“It’s not,” she murmurs. “It’s just more than you need. So I guess I’m trying to decide how to help you let go without giving you too much.”

I walk toward her, dipping a cookie into the milk and taking a bite. It softens her frown. “There’s nothing you could give me that’s too much.” Dipping the cookie again, I hold it up to her mouth.

It drips milk onto her apron, and she inspects the spot before giving me a raised eyebrow.

I snort while suppressing a laugh. “Oops.”

She takes a bite, and it drips onto her chin, so I wipe it with my thumb. She stiffens for a second before slowly chewing and swallowing.

“I’ve missed you,” I whisper.

She takes a step backward. “Blair is?—”

I shake my head. “Don’t. I can love her and miss you. Two things can be true at once. Grief doesn’t die. It just learns to coexist with a new reality. In fact,” I take another bite of the cookie, “when it’s just the two of us, let’s not talk about Blair or what’s his name. ”

Her nose wrinkles. “His name is Cal?—”

“Shh.” I shake my head. “Nope. It’s just you and me. Cookies. Milk. Manuals to write. Tomatoes to can. And Hunter’s streaked underwear to fold.”

Her giggle reaches into my chest and squeezes my heart. “His underwear doesn’t have streaks. And even if they did, you knowing that would be weird.”

“The guy farts more than a thirty-year-old truck with exhaust issues.”

“He does not.” She rolls her eyes before returning to the kitchen.

I follow her. “He does, just not in front of you. I never said he’s not a gentleman. He holds it in until you’re out the door, then he explodes.”

Alice shakes with laughter as she finishes putting dated labels on the sealed jars of tomatoes and onions. “You’re ruining my fantasy.”

“Fantasy? What fantasy?” I cross my arms over my chest and lean my shoulder against the fridge. There are so many things I want to ask her, but I don’t know where to begin. So I opt for anything that will bring a smile to her face.

“Mr. Morrison has a real charm about him. And while he sneaks no less than a hundred peeks a day at my legs, I love the way he curls Vera’s hair behind her ear before he kisses her cheek and whispers, ‘I love you,’ in that ear.

And Vera always blushes like they’ve been dating for weeks instead of married for years.

It’s sweet.” She caps the marker and faces me.

I glance at my watch without actually paying attention to the time. “I’m taking a quick break before getting back to work. Let’s get in the pool.”

“Can’t. I’m on the clock. ”

“Who’s going to know?”

“Anyone who looks at the security cameras.”

“We’ll pause them.”

Alice scoffs. “No. We won’t be pausing anything. Enjoy your swim.”

“It feels like a crime that you’ve never shown me your synchronized swimming moves.”

She sets the jars in the divided storage bin. “Look up the word synchronized and you’ll discover it means two or more things occurring at the same time. Then you’ll think about it for a moment and realize there’s a reason synchronized swimming doesn’t have an individual field.”

“Are you mocking my intelligence?”

“No. Am I embarrassed for you? Perhaps.”

I chuckle. “I’ll be your synchronized swimming partner.”

She slides the bin full of jars off the counter, so I take it from her and carry it to the root cellar in the basement, hoping Chris wasn’t her synchronized swimming partner. Was Chris a man or woman?

“Thirty minutes,” I say, setting it on the empty shelf.

She closes the door behind us and heads back up the stairs. “Then I’ll have to dry my hair.”

“It’s a little after one. I’m meeting Hunter at the country club for dinner, so he won’t be home until eight or later tonight. I think you have plenty of time to dry your hair.”

She heads toward the laundry room, and I grab her wrist to stop her. I feel all kinds of things I shouldn’t feel. Her eyes flit to my hand on her wrist and then shift to my face. “It’s a bad idea.”

I smirk. “I can think of worse ones.”