Granny laughed. “Sweet girl, you’ve been a fighter since the day you were born. You weren’t breathing, and your dad turned bone white he was so worried. The birth nearly killed you and your mom, but you both made it.”
“Dad always said I was handful enough for three kids, even though he and Mom couldn’t have any more after me.” Rebecca said it lightly, like there wasn’t a bucket full of psychoanalysis down that well. If they would have had more kids, it might have made her life easier, taken some of the pressure off. But she didn’t have to think about that now. Ever, really.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, savoring the afternoon sun. Little gnats buzzed around her legs and arms, but she paid them no notice.
Granny ruffled Rebecca’s hair lightly and Rebecca smiled. “Those summers you visited me and your grandfather werewonderful, but yes, I do remember a young lady full of gumption, ready to take on the world.”
She reached over, clasped Rebecca’s hand. Love you, Granny squeezed twice. Love you back, Rebecca squeezed in reply.
“Thanks, Granny. For being there.” Rebecca swallowed, eyes moist.
“Always, Becca.” The moment lingered, tender and sweet.
“Granny. Becca?”
Granny giggled.
“Old habits die hard.”
“Hey, Granny—thanks. For everything”
“I’m here if you need me.” Granny softened her words, looked deep into Rebecca’s eyes. “There’s nothing I won’t do to help.”
The moment drew out, like a deep, consuming breath. Then with a little shake, Rebecca squeezed her hard and kissed her hair.
“I know, Granny. Believe me, I know.” She stood. “I’m going to head to my room, do a little work, and try to clear my mind. I’ll be down in a bit to help with supper.”
???
Later that evening, after dishes were done and Granny had headed out to whatever food mission she was doing at her church, Rebecca sat on the full-sized bed in the upstairs guest room, laptop on her legs and four neat stacks of paper piled around her. The mattress creaked as she shifted a bit farther back against the antique headboard, the feather pillows pressed snugly as she made her little nest. She’d updated the newspaper’s website earlier with a teaser about next week’s articles, and now she was trying—without success—to get back online for the third time that night.
“It’s like the Dark Ages in this town,” she muttered and jabbed in the Wi-Fi password one more time. She forced her eyes off thescreen and across the room, the old saying about the watched pot firm in her mind. Her eyes fell on one of the embroidered scriptures Granny had framed and scattered throughout the house: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you—John 15:7.”
Rebecca glared at the words. I wish I could get a blasted Internet connection. What do you say to that? She knew she was being petulant, even if her therapist had told her anger was not a bad thing—at the very least a more active way of dealing with her feelings. But there were millions of people starving around the world, or dying from a preventable disease, and all she could think of was getting online. She couldn’t even connect through her cell phone hotspot because for some reason it didn’t work here. Even the cellular carrier couldn’t explain it. Dahlia truly felt like the middle of nowhere.
Five minutes later, she shut the laptop with a hearty smack. She’d wake up early tomorrow and handle it at the newspaper office. At least there they had a decent wired connection.
She piled the paperwork in alternating stacks back into her briefcase, then picked up her cell phone and started exploring social media from her phone’s data plan. She could connect that way still, thankfully. No one even seemed to notice the slow Internet but her, and that made her feel even more like an anomaly. Even Tiff, who was probably used to being able to search the internet, stream music, and shop online simultaneously, waited patiently for a slow-as-molasses webpage to load as though the pace here in Dahlia was no big deal.
She scrolled through the feed, relaxing now that she was connected to the outside world in some way, liking some posts, commenting on others. And then she couldn’t help it. Her mind said no, but all the willpower in the world couldn’t stop her fingers from typing his name in the search box.
Peter Montclair.
In an instant, he was there on the screen, dark full hair and gorgeous teeth, looking larger than life and impossibly handsome. She could feel her heart pound beneath her T-shirt. Squeezing shut her eyes a moment, she forced herself to count to five, then looked again. Maybe it was her imagination, but the grin seemed a bit smarmy. Fakey sincere. She looked closer, decided his hairline was receding. Serves you right. She scrolled down, and her stomach clenched. There he was again, covered in glow paint, his arms around a younger woman, the “other woman,” both grinning their sickeningly white smiles at the finish line of some hip nighttime 5K run in the city.
“You two are the perfect couple!” Someone had commented below the picture. Her stomach roiled and she gritted her teeth harder, kept scrolling.
There they were again, at a gala dressed to the nines, and again somewhere in Central Park with a little yapping dog on a leash at their feet. Peter hated tiny dogs, their little mouths and beady eyes. Called them snake food. What was he doing with this woman?
She stopped after the final set of photos: Engagement Party. At one of his and Rebecca’s favorite restaurants. The one where she’d hoped he’d propose to her, and instead where he’d proposed to someone else. She’d seen the photos before, but it still stung to know how quickly he’d moved on. Like she was nothing.
Now he was getting married to someone else. Someone who looked a good ten years younger, who looked cute and charming and fun and, well, vivacious was the word that came to mind. Rebecca scowled at the woman, at her pert nose and friendly green eyes and long, wavy red hair. He didn’t even have the decency to pick someone a little bit like her. He’d picked the polar opposite, like he wanted someone as far away from Rebecca as he could possibly get.
Rebecca swallowed hard, a wave of heat coursing through her, then fished in her purse and pulled out the antidepressants, turned the bottle so she could see her therapist’s name and number. “Call anytime,” the woman had told her. “I’m here for you.”
Her fingers started to punch in the numbers on the cell phone, then she jabbed the “off” button and tossed the phone aside.
No. I’m doing this on my own. It’s my head, my problem, and I’m the one who needs to be sorting it out, not my therapist. She liked Nancy, even liked their weekly sessions. She probably should have been in counseling years ago. But she was darned if she was going to start relying on someone else to save the day.
