“You should go on some dates,” she said, starting to sound sleepy.
I chuckled. “Who would I go on a date with?”
Her shoulders went up in a shrug. “Whoever you like.”
“I’ll take that under consideration,” I whispered as I stood.
Her lids were heavy. She’d be out in less than sixty seconds.
“Night, bug.” I kissed her forehead, walked out, and closed her door.
To be six years old again, when everything was so much simpler. Black-and-white. Wishes could come true.
In a way, I wished I could keep her from growing up, protect her from the complexities of adulting. Instead I’d do my best to prepare her to handle the easy times and the hard ones.
I headed off to my room for the night, where I knew complexities were lying in wait for me, ready to invade my mind.
Chapter Eleven
Magnolia
I was grateful for my tiny apartment, but some nights—okay, a lot of nights—it was so quiet and lonely I could barely stand it.
This Saturday evening was one of those nights.
A glance at the clock on my stove told me it was just after eleven. Still early for a girl who never seemed able to sleep until two or three a.m. if I was lucky.
Often on nights like this, I took a walk, not so much for exercise but to get out of my head. This evening I was too exhausted to walk after pulling off an eightieth birthday party for Harriet Limberger, but I put on a worn, oversized sweatshirt over my leggings, stuffed my feet into my fuzzy slippers, and picked up my favorite throw blanket, then headed outside.
The late October air was chilly but refreshing. I went down the exterior stairs to the cushioned bench swing Dotty had hung in the cozy alcove beneath the stairs. A string of fairy lights wound around the railing, and more twinkling lights were draped in the evergreen trees that lined both sides of the compact yard-like space behind her store.
She’d created a cute, private conversation area out here where we sometimes sat with her friends for tea or a glass of wine. Besides the swing, there was a bistro table and chairs, plus some additional patio chairs and end tables. Pots of mums in burgundy, pumpkin, and gold livened up every corner.
I sat sideways on the swing, with my back facing The Lily Pad’s rear door, an outdoor pillow behind my back and my feet stretching toward the alley. As I tucked my blanket around me, the swing rocked gently, soothingly.
The party had been a success, with Harriet suitably stunned by her daughter’s ability to pull off a surprise bash for her. I’d gotten several compliments on the way I’d transformed the new community center’s beige-walled rental room into a fall-themed haven. I might’ve even gotten a new client out of it, as one of Harriet’s neighbors had gone out of her way to get my business card for a possible family reunion next summer.
I’d had a busy week, between preparations for Harriet’s party, two new bookings, and meeting with Presley to get serious about her wedding. Regardless of being occupied with work, I’d spent plenty of time thinking about the sordid past my mother had revealed to me last week.
My emotions were all over the board, between relief at not being Felix James’s daughter, sadness and resentment that I’d been a pawn between him and my mother since before I was born, and a very mixed bag when it came to my mother herself.
I might dislike her, but I felt a commonality with her due to the environment she’d grown up in, because I’d grown up much the same, with a father figure who valued his business and career far above his daughter. I knew how much my own situation had screwed up my psyche, my self-esteem, my self-worth. I’d done a lot of hard, painful work over the past year and a half, and I still had a long way to go. I suspected my mother had never done anything for her mental health. There was a small part of me that sympathized deeply.
As much as it irritated me that she’d gone from depending on one man to another, I hoped she’d found genuine love with Franklin. Maybe love could begin healing someone, but something my therapist had taught me was that you had to love yourself first, before you could truly love and be loved by another. I wasn’t sure Bianca Lansford James could claim that.
I’d been pissed that she’d taken my ring, but now that I’d had time to think, I could admit that the disappearance of the ring had actually done me a favor. If something like that could drive an eighteen-year wedge between Luke and me, we’d never stood a chance anyway.
I hadn’t heard from my mom since she’d left my office last week, and I hadn’t heard talk around town of any blowup with Felix. I still hadn’t figured out what to do about him. I could just let it go and move on with my life. That would probably be the best option. But thirty-some years of resentment was a lot to bottle up.
Though I’d only told Luke and Presley the truth about my paternity, I wasn’t concerned about maintaining Felix’s privacy. He could suck an egg. I wanted the world to know I was not related to that sad excuse for a man, but I also didn’t plan to cause a scene about it. Presley had suggested changing my last name, and while I liked that idea, I had no clue what I would change it to. I wasn’t a James, thank God, but I sure didn’t want to be a Lansford either. Picking a random surname seemed generic and meaningless.
Movement in the darkness of the alley, maybe ten feet away, caught my attention, and my pulse raced. My eyes widened as I realized…it was the llama. Esmerelda. The frequent runaway.
I froze where I was, thinking she’d meander on past. She was coming from the direction of the bakery, which was less than a block down the street and had been closed for hours, so I wasn’t sure what her goal was if she’d walked away from her temple of cookies. Did llamas have goals?
For the first time, I regretted that there wasn’t a fence or a wall around this little backyard, only bushy evergreens on two sides that normally offered plenty of privacy. Just…not when there was a stray llama bearing down on you.
She angled in toward the bistro table, pausing to sniff a pot of mums. Apparently they didn’t do anything for her, because she walked on by them.
