Esther blinked at Tiffany’s reply.
That’s his to tell.Not mine.Tiffany added.
Esther could understand that.
I don’t want him to move.
Then, what are you going to do about it?
I’m on my way to Marydale to talk to him.I’ll talk to you later.
A heart-eyes emoji was Tiffany’s only reply.
She hit call.“Okay, so I can’t wait until later to talk a bit,” she said when Tiffany answered her phone.“But I can’t text and drive.”
“Are you sure you want to talk to me about this and not Rosalie or Mandy?They know your history with Fred better than I do.”
“You know as much as they do after that movie-night intervention the three of you staged.”
Tiffany laughed.
“But if you’re busy… I didn’t think that you might be with a client or doing paperwork or whatever before calling,” Esther said as she waited at a stoplight.One more of these – once she passed the church – and then, she’d be headed out of town toward Marydale.
“I have a few minutes, but let me close my office door.”
Esther waited until she heard a door click closed on the other side of the conversation.“You don’t think it’s too soon after breaking up with Steve to start a new relationship with Fred, do you?I don’t want it to look like I moved on too quickly because then, people might think that I was dating him while I was dating Steve or something.”
Tiffany sighed.“People will always think what they want to think.You can’t prevent the Negative Nellies from finding things to gossip about.”
“Thanks.I just needed to hear that.I mean, I know I’m doing the right thing here, but…” This doing the right thing path felt bumpy and uncertain – and everyone who knew her knew that she didn’t do so well with uncertainty.God help me with that,she prayed silently.
“Doing the right thing isn’t always the easy path.I know that from experience.I left a big mess back home when I moved here, and then, when I got here, I was a bit of a grump about having to be here – until I met you and Rosalie and Mandy – well, really, it’s been you and Rosalie who have been the greatest influence in a positive direction.Don’t get me wrong.I love Mandy, but she can be less uplifting than you and Roz.”
“Yeah, she can be.”Esther turned onto the road towards Marydale.“You know, I haven’t been to Marydale in years, and then, it was just to the high school for a band thing.I’m going to have to pull over when I get closer and start my maps app so I can find Drummonds.”
“You could be lost in Marydale for about fifteen minutes before you knew where everything was.It’s not big.Take the main road in, and you’ll find it – even without a maps app.”Tiffany paused and then her voice turned sweeter – like a child hoping to not have to do part of an assignment.“You know, there are some really cute houses over there.I’ve got one listing there right now that I think you’d like.”
She was trying to sell her a house?Esther shook her head.“I’m not planning to move to Marydale.”
“Not even if Fred gets a job over there?And you’re married to him?”
Esther huffed.Her friends could be pushy at times, but then, she understood why they were.She often needed a nudge to do things that scared her.“I haven’t even told him that I love him yet.I think jumping to marriage and buying a house in a different town is moving a bit too quickly.I don’t know how they do things in Ontario, but here in Nova Scotia, we take our time going from ‘Hey, I like you’ to ‘I do.’”
Tiffany laughed.“Girl, we know it’s going to happen.”
Esther sighed.“I hope so.”
Tiffany’s tone was serious again.“All I’m saying is that if he needs to be there, I will make sure you have a lovely place to raise your family.And it’ll be big enough for us to have girls’ nights.We’ve got you.You just need to focus on getting Fred.Is that enough of a pep talk?”
Esther chuckled.“Yes.It was just what I needed.You know, I’ve been so stupid.I should have known he loved me all along.I should have seen it in the little things he did for me.Like… even just before Christmas when he came to play for our school practice and then helped me cut out circles.”She likely wasn’t making much sense.“You know I graduated with honours, right?How could I be so dumb?”
It was Tiffany’s turn to laugh.“They say love is blind, and I’ll add that it makes us stupid sometimes, too.”
“Thanks for –” The rest of Esther’s words were knocked away with a loud bang, and her car lurched to the right.“Oh no!No, no, no, no, no!”She struggled to keep the car from going into the ditch.
“What happened?Are you okay?”
“Just a minute.”Esther brought her car to a stop.“Let me look.I think a hidden pothole took out one of my tires.”With shaking hands, she opened her door, climbed out, and rounded the front of her car to look at the mess that remained of her front passenger side tire.“Oh, this looks bad.The tire is gone, and who knows what it did to the alignment and suspension.”
