I open my eyes and see my older daughter smiling down at me. The late day sun behind her head makes her warm brown hair look like it has a golden halo behind it, like she’s an angel.
“What does your grandmother say? I thought I heard her talking about having a cookout for dinner tonight.”
My angel gives me a sly look and answers, “She hasn’t started cooking anything yet, so Danielle and I thought we could hang out in the pool for a little while. I promise we won’t give Grandma a hard time when she says it’s time to come out.”
She raises her hand in front of her like she’s swearing in court. I shake my head, amused by how funny she can be.
“Okay, but remember, no giving Grandma any hassle.”
Cassandra leans down and kisses my cheek. “Thanks, Mom!” As she runs away back into the house, I hear her yell, “She said we could! First one to the diving board wins!”
My daughters have handled this past year much better than I have. I don’t know how, but it made them stronger. Danielle even stood up to some boy who kept teasing her about Connor. She never told me, but one night Cassandra mentioned it, and I was never prouder of the two of them than I was that night.
As for my marriage, that was a casualty of Connor’s mistake. Once the police determined it had to be him who killed Bryan, there was little left between the two of us. He wanted me to ignore the truth and stay loyal to him. I couldn’t. The truth made it impossible.
Next week, he goes on trial for the murder of Bryan Corsei. I know because those terrible reporters have started contacting me again. I thought I’d made it through that horrible experience and put it behind me, but they’ve returned again in the past couple weeks.
The sharks smell blood in the water, and they’re circling.
I’ve got nothing to say to them. I still can’t believe this is what our life turned into, but I can’t deny the truth any longer. Connor killed that poor man. I don’t know why. Maybe it was jealousy like the prosecutors say. I did hear him complain that Bryan was the favorite of their boss more than once.
It took me a long time to come around to believing the man I married could do such a dreadful thing. Kelsey says that even people we would never suspect of anything heinous can have a secret side to them. She must be right.
Cuppa Cuppa is especiallybusy this morning, but it is a Saturday, so that’s probably why. Now that I work Mondaythrough Friday, I’ve come to genuinely appreciate weekends. Before all of this happened, they were simply the days of the week I cleaned the house or had the girls’ friends over. Now, I see those two days off in a different light.
Kelsey waves from the back of the coffee shop, so I give the girl behind the counter a quick smile before going back to join my friend. Our schedules are filled to the brim, but we take time out every Saturday to catch up and chat for a few hours.
“You look great today, Jamie! Doing something new with your hair?” she asks as I hang my purse off the back of the chair and sit down.
I smooth whatever fly-aways there are on the top of my head and smile. “Nothing new. To be honest, I think I need to get a haircut, but I just can’t find the time. I’m getting my usual. Do you need anything?”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m good. Thanks!”
After grabbing my iced latte and a blueberry scone heated and buttered, I head back to the table where Kelsey is sitting grinning at me. She looks like the cat that just ate the canary, so of course, I’m curious what she’s so happy about today.
“What’s this about?” I ask as I playfully point at her face.
She shrugs and shakes her head. “Nothing. I’m just so happy with how everything turned out. You’ve done so well for yourself, Jamie, and after the year you’ve had, I think you deserve congratulations. Other people would have crumbled under the weight of everything you had to deal with, but you didn’t, and I’m proud of you.”
Beaming a smile after her kind words, I feel as happy as she looks. “Thank you! It was hard. I felt guilty about not standing by Connor, but I had to keep my girls’ happiness uppermost in my mind. To be honest, you get the credit for that. I didn’t have the guts to stand up for them, but that day you told me I had to do what was right for them made me realize I needed to betheir champion. I’m sorry for what’s likely to happen to Connor. I really am. I just had to do what any good mother would and protect my daughters.”
Kelsey raises her plastic iced latte cup and taps it off of mine. “To Jamie and her strength!”
I’ll take it. There’s been so much bad these past twelve months that any good that comes my way I welcome with open arms.
“If I’m being honest, you deserve a toast as much as I do. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t around, Kelsey. When everyone decided I deserved to be treated as a leper, you were there for me. I don’t think I can ever repay you for that.”
She waves away any suggestion I owe her anything for her friendship. “Nonsense. I did what any decent person would do. Whatever your husband did or didn’t do, that’s up to a jury to decide. You aren’t Connor. You’re your own person who deserves to be treated with respect. I can’t say what’s wrong with all those people you’ve told me about who abandoned you as soon as the rumors started about him killing that man, but I’ll say this. They didn’t deserve your friendship.”
I raise my cup and mimic what she did a minute ago. “To friendship! And thank you so much for being my friend.”
People begin to sit at the open tables around us making the coffee shop quite noisy, so we fall into a comfortable silence only good friends understand. I can’t help but think back on the past year and my friendship with Kelsey. I can’t count the times I felt so down, so deserted by everyone in my world that I barely dragged myself out of bed. I didn’t have a choice, though. I had to for my girls.
And all along, Kelsey was there to support me every step of the way. She listened to everything I had to say about Connor, the good and the bad, and she never judged me. Unlike all thosephony friends, she understood I didn’t deserve blame for what my husband did.
“Hey, you look a million miles away over there. Everything okay?” she sweetly asks.
I nod, happy that answer isn’t a lie anymore. “Yeah. I’m good. I was just thinking about everything that happened this past year. Who knew so much could be stuffed into three hundred and sixty-five days?”
