“If you’d what, Maudine?” Helga interrupted. “What exactly was there you could’ve done to save Crystal when she didn’t want to be saved? I know this is hard to hear, but you can’t help someone who doesn’t want it. You did everything you could.”
“No. I didn’t.” She shook her head, guilt weighing down on her shoulders. “If I’d been a better mother, maybe my son wouldn’t have left his wife. Maybe then, his wife would’ve had insurance and maybe she would’ve had a shot at beating this same cancer.”
“Oh, honey.” Helga’s eyes watered in a rare show of emotion. “I see kids in my courtroom all the time who wouldn’t be in the trouble they’re in if they had parents who cared. And I see kids who have parents who’ve done everything humanly possible and their kids are still in trouble. I can tell you, you’ve done all you could do.” Helga straightened. “You know if I thought you’d fallen down on the job at any time, you’d have gotten an earful from me. Friendship does not rose-colored glasses make. At least not for me.”
Maudine sniffed, her own eyes watering because she knew it to be true. “Thank you.”
“Now are we going to plot or finish up this hand?”
“We’re going to plot, of course.” Maudine sat up straighter. “Frogfest is going to be the perfect time to push them together. To make them both see what a perfect little family they’ll make.”
REED FOUND HIMSELF facing the mirror in the bathroom, the harsh lights illuminating all the dark things he’d been trying to hide.
He looked into his own eyes and he reassured himself that he liked what he saw there. Even though there was that part of him that was afraid someone would wake up and realize he wasn’t allowed to be this person—that he’d snuck through some invisible barrier to success and they’d kick him back to his rightful side—he knew that wasn’t the case.
Reed had worked so hard to get where he was. No matter what that voice in his head told him, he wasn’t an imposter. He’d put in the work. He’d earned his place. He’d taught himself the stock market, began with penny stocks until he’d graduated to blue chip stocks, then he’d cashed in some of those and started buying up struggling companies and forming them into something new, something viable, and selling them for a profit.
He also knew that life was full of success and full of failures and he had to choose each day which thing he was going to focus on.
He reiterated all of the things he was thankful for to himself. This was his coping mechanism. Then he tucked it away deep down where no one could see it but him. It was almost a kind of armor that shielded him from the inside out.
Frogfest. He scrubbed his hand over his face. He hadn’t thought about that in a long time. Glory was full of small festivals that brought people from the surrounding cities in for little weekend getaways and brought in tourist money. There was something planned every couple of weeks and for the big holidays, the whole town got involved. It was genius marketing, really.
As a kid, Frogfest had been his favorite, as well. Sippin’ Cider Days was the least because it meant it was time to go back to school and he’d never had any money for anything. Frogfest was the last time he’d been with his mother when she was sober. She’d bought him a frog plush and promised him that things would be better.
And he’d believed her. He’d clung to that round-eyed, happy-faced stuffed animal every night before he went to sleep like it was some kind of talisman that could force her to keep her word. For a while, it seemed like it had.
Until Walter.
Walter had been the beginning of the end for his mother and for him.
He shoved those thoughts out of his head. They didn’t matter. They were in the past and Reed wouldn’t live in the past. He lived in the ever better, shinier future where things were still made of unfired clay and could be remolded over and over again until Reed had what he wanted.
Panic clutched at his throat. A sudden fear that everyone would know he was faking it—faking success, faking being a whole person. All the expensive cologne and hand-tailored suits in the world couldn’t hide it.
He exhaled, thinking about all the things he could do to quiet that voice in his head.
But none of them were acceptable, none of them were any action he’d ever take again. All he could do was let these feelings run their course.
Reed promised Gina everything would be okay, and it would.
If for no other reason than Amanda Jane.
He didn’t think it was possible to feel such an immediate, overwhelming connection to another human being. Reed thought that it would take time to get to know her; that he’d have to sort of fall into feeling like a father. Grow to love her.
The ferocity of emotion that raged in his chest like a lion was instant and eternal. He’d live for her, die for her and everything in between.
But it also made him wonder what was really wrong with him that his own mother hadn’t felt that way about him. Why hadn’t he inspired such devotion? Was he defective somehow and would that defect burrow into his relationship with his own daughter?
Again, he shoved those thoughts down deep where no one could see them. His life and the life he wanted to give Amanda Jane was going to be about fulfilling her needs, not thinking about his own that went unanswered.
There was no changing the past, only living in the present.
I like your face.
He supposed that was good, because upon close inspection, she did look very much like him.
His brain turned all of these things over again and again, like a cement mixer—combining these thoughts in on themselves, keeping them fluid as he drove back to the small farmhouse on Seven Sisters Road.
He knew Gina wanted to stay there, but even in a small town like Glory, your address mattered.
Amanda Jane waited on the porch, legs swinging and ponytail bouncing in one of the rocking chairs. The door was open and Gina pushed through, handing Amanda Jane a picnic basket and a tote bag while she closed and secured the door. He was glad she’d never fallen into the habit of a lot of residents of the town, especially the ones who lived out in the country, who never locked their doors.
Gina wore another pair of those pants with the pockets and his line of sight was immediately drawn to the flare of her hips and the round curve of her ass.
He was so taken by that dangerous curve that he drove over a garden gnome that stood so brave and welcoming near the gravel drive.
Reed swore and hoped mightily that it wasn’t something Amanda Jane had any overwhelming attachment to.
And at the sound coming from his put-upon Audi, he realized they were going to be a little late to Frogfest.
This was the universe reminding him to keep his mind on his daughter, not on Gina. Message received, loud and clear.
Gina ran to the car. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I think your garden gnome tried to kill me.”
The car made an unhappy sound and he switched off the ignition.
“Guess I’m driving.” She grinned.
“That wasn’t...anything special, was it?”
“No. Just something that was in the yard when we moved in. The previous renters left it. Although, Amanda Jane might make you have a funeral for him. His name was Bostwick. She broke his brother, Fenwick, last week.”
A funeral, for a garden