She hoped the little girl wasn’t trying to protect her father. She remembered Rosie’s comments about Richie being a drunk.
She’d even smelled it on him along with his body odor the day of the parent-teacher conferences.
She walked back to her room, packed up her stuff, and drove home.
There were phone calls she had to make and emails to return. A wedding was at the barn this weekend. One that she hadn’t planned, but had been helping on. More than the first one a few weeks ago and she was excited.
She pulled in front of her townhouse and got out. Karl walked toward her from another parking lot. Must be he was making the rounds.
“Hi, Meredith.”
“Hi, Karl. Out walking?”
“Yes. Have to get my daily steps in,” Karl said, holding his wrist up with his tracker on it. “And of course chat with those that are around.”
“Got any interesting news to share before I go in and get some work done?” If she didn’t ask, he’d volunteer it anyway.
“Nothing much today,” Karl said. “It seems like there aren’t that many people around.”
“That happens as the weather gets cooler,” she said.
She collected her belongings from the passenger seat, then walked up her porch and in the house. Karl looked as if he wanted to visit, but she had a laundry list of things to do.
Laundry being the first on the list.
She ran to her room, changed out of her pants and sweater, grabbed her basket of colors and went down the stairs. She just remembered she had her towels in the dryer from the day before and would have to turn it on to fluff and fold them. She’d done them on Saturday when Clay was working an event, then forgot while she got busy with other things.
When she was shifting the basket in her arms on the last step, she bobbled it, some of her clothes spilling out. Typical of her.
She bent to pick them up and walked to the small laundry room off the kitchen. The door was open like always, but her towels were folded in the basket.
This was nuts. How could she not remember doing it? Especially since they were folded exactly like she always did it. Fredrick used to give her crap over wanting them her way, but it was how they fit in the closet the best.
She laughed and rolled her eyes. Good lord, she must have done them last night talking to her mother and totally forgot. She had been moving around the kitchen and doing food prep and all the other things she did on a Sunday night.
Her phone was ringing, so she dropped the basket, barely missing her foot, and ran to get it out of her purse on the counter.
It was Clay.
“Hi,” she said. “I was just thinking of you.”
No reason to add she did it so much now that she forgot half of what she was doing. The last thing he needed to know was that she couldn’t concentrate on a task at hand.
“Are you around for dinner?”
“I am,” she said. “Where are you?”
“I’ve got an appointment in a few minutes. I can text you when I’m done.”
“I’d love that. What do you want? I’ll cook.”
“I thought we could go out,” he said. “No reason to cook.”
Awwww. He hadn’t offered to take her out once and she hadn’t asked.
“Even better. I’ll see you soon.”
He didn’t say bye, just grunted and hung up.
