“The queen of nosy neighbors. She’s probably already told half the town that I was at the house on Cornsilk Drive with a strange man. This means I need to do damage control.”
“I’ll come with you. After all, I’m not a strange man. I’m your husband.”
To my surprise, Bree doesn’t object. To Dr. Meyers, she says, “We’ll be back for the dog later today.”
“We will?” I can’t keep the hope from my voice.
Her shoulders drift with a shrug as if part of her is afraid to commit, but the other, bigger part of her can’t say no.
As we’re leaving, Bree gets another call. Her expression shifts abruptly into a neutral mask. “Hello, Mom. Yes, I’m—we’re on our way.” She pauses. “Yes, that’s right.”
I can only hear half the conversation, but Bree’s tone tightens.
“Be there soon.” She ends the call with a sigh that puffs her cheeks. “Do you mind if we change plans slightly? My mother wants to meet you.”
“I already said I’d join you,” I gently remind her, sensing she needs a buffer, backup.
During the drive, I find myself thinking about Bree’s childhood home. The neglected Victorian has good bones, as I toldher earlier. With some work, it could be beautiful again. I wonder if I could help her with it because I see the potential there.
I pull into the visitor parking lot at Golden Years Village, married yet neither one of us has met the parents. “Any advice about meeting your mom?”
Bree runs a hand through her hair. “My mother is not exactly the warm and fuzzy type. More concerned with appearances than anything else. Just be yourself.”
“I can do that,” I say with confidence.
Monique Darling’s apartment is decorated in shades of beige and cream. Everything is coordinated and tasteful, if a bit impersonal. Like I imagine Bree’s childhood home once was, it feels designed to impress rather than be a place to kick off your shoes and stay a while. My house was the neighborhood hang-out zone and well-lived in. Then again, with four boys plus my dad, Mom couldn’t have kept up with appearances if she wanted to. Granted, it was clean and we had everything we needed, but there was proof of life everywhere you looked—toys, tennis shoes, textbooks—everything accumulated in piles over the years.
“Bree,” Monique says, not giving her daughter so much as a hello hug. She’s a slender woman with silver hair cut in a precise bob.
“You come home unannounced and alone and now you have a husband. How exactly did this happen? Fletch, is it?” She scans me from head to toe as if conducting an insurance appraisal.
Bree’s face pinches like she’s trying to come up with a clear way to explain the truth. Instead, I open my arms and wrap the older woman in a hug. She sure looks like she could use one. Mrs. Darling makes a little yelp of surprised delight in my arms.
I step back and introduce myself. “Yes, ma’am. Fletch Turley. I play hockey for the Nebraska Knights. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Mrs. Darling looks me up and down. “I thought Bree would bring home a stray or a cowboy, not a big boy like you.”
Bree’s cheeks darken and her eyes widen. “I didn’t—it’s not?—”
“A hockey player. How ... athletic?” She says it like it’s halfway between a compliment and a curiosity, but she can’t decide.
Bree looks at me and then at the door as if offering me an escape route.
Mrs. Darling says, “Come in, sit down. I’ve made tea.”
The conversation is awkward with fits and starts. I find myself doing most of the talking.
Monique—she insists I call her by her first name—asks pointed questions about my career, my family, and how Bree and I met. I stick close to the truth where possible, embellishing only the romantic aspects. Bree remains mostly silent, a version of her I haven’t seen before—smaller somehow, quiet, and contained where I’d expect her to spin a yarn about our romantic meet cute or whatever it’s called, given her storytelling occupation.
Studying us over her teacup, Monique says, “You make an … unexpected couple. Fletch, you’re immediately noticeable in any room, while Bree tends to blend into the background.” She says this without malice, as if stating a simple fact.
Bree may as well be a statue in a Victorian garden.
But I don’t like it. Not a bit because this isn’t strictly true about Bree—at least from what I can remember.
“You’re saying I stand out? Having three brothers will do that to a guy.”
Monique continues as if showing a pony at a thoroughbredevent, “Bree’s understated appearance highlights your more polished, athletic presence. The visual contrast between you is quite interesting—her soft features versus your more defined build.”
