I sat up straighter, sending Nancy into a half-awake frenzy of indignant snorts. The tone of his voice wasn’t laced with apology. It was laced with concern, the kind that made my stomach drop.
“What happened?”
“There was a fire and—”
“Is Charlie okay?” The words came out loud and panicked. My free hand flew to my belly like I was covering the baby’s little ears.
Doyle sighed, long and heavy. “He’s fine. Shaken up, but fine. O’Malley’s burned down on New Year’s Eve. The whole place, Tal. It’s just... gone.”
I couldn’t breathe. O’Malley’s. The place where I got to actually talk to Magnolia, for the first time, and it was like meeting with an old friend. The bar where Charlie and I had one hysterical yet somehow intimate night. How important that building was not only to the Pruitts’, but to Savannah’s history, as well.
“The fire department’s still investigating,” Doyle continued, and I could hear him moving around, probably packing up wine orders, keeping his hands busy during a difficult conversation. “But Dane is suspect number one. Charlie’s been at the station giving statements, dealing with insurance, trying to figure out what the hell comes next. Everyone’s been rallying around him and Magnolia, but it’s bad. Really bad.”
“Wait, it was Dane? Like Magnolia’s fiancé, Dane?”
“Turns out he was having a full-blown affair with Kasey—the bartender. They ran off into the night and haven’t been seen since.” Doyle’s voice tightened. “But that’s not even the worst of it. He forged Cole Pruitt’s death certificate—Charlie and Magnolia’s uncle—and never filed the real one. Which means Dane technically still holds the majority share of the Wilder family trust. So when Cole died, the payout from his life insurance went straight to Dane.” He exhaled, frustrated. “There’s more, but honestly, Tally, I don’t want to stress you out right now.”
But I was already spiraling. Charlie had lost O’Malley’s. The bar his uncle left to Magnolia, the place they’d both grown up in, where their whole lives lived in the grain of the wood and the stories etched into every barstool. And Magnolia—God, Magnolia had lost everything. Her bar, her fiancé, probably her sense of trust in anyone or anything.
And Charlie, sweet Charlie who took care of everyone, who’d probably spent the last however many days holding his sister together while his own heart broke, dealing with police and insurance adjusters and the wreckage of the only home he’d ever really known.
And the loss of me, walking away in the middle of the night.
“He’s been taking care of Magnolia, hasn’t he?” I asked quietly.
“Of course he has. You know Charlie.”
I did. I knew him so well it physically hurt. Knew that he’d put everyone else first, that he’d swallow his own grief to make sure his sister didn’t drown in hers. That he’d probably barely slept, barely eaten, but kept moving because that’s what Charlie Pruitt did when the people he loved needed him.
And I wasn’t there. I was here, pregnant with another man’s baby, too proud or too scared to pick up the phone.
“I should come back. I should be with him.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. I thought of them all, huddled around each other trying to work through this moment, how many ways Charlie had been there for me when my world fell apart, and... he should have called to tell me. Shouldn’t he?
“Did you give him my letter?” I asked, the words catching in my throat.
Doyle hesitated, releasing what sounded like a long-held sigh. “There’s just… a lot going on right now. It might not have been the right moment.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, though my chest squeezed. “I get that.”
But I didn’t. Not really. When was it ever the right moment? When was anything in our lives ever simple or easy?
“I am really sorry, Tally. I’m going to come for a few days when you have the baby. Just me. I can’t ever make up to you what I put you through, but I can start by trying to make things right, for you and the baby.”
My throat closed up. “I love you, Doyle.”
“I love you too, Tal.”
After we hung up, I sat there in the golden morning light, Nancy’s snores resuming their steady rhythm, and felt the tears sliding hot down my cheeks. Magnolia’s bar had burned down. Not only her bar—their family’s legacy, her inheritance, the place where we’d fallen in love over spilled margarita salt and late-night confessions, where he’d first looked at me like I was something precious instead of something broken. And he hadn’t called. Doyle hadn’t given him my letter. And I was here, hundreds of miles away, growing another man’s baby while Charlie’s entire world collapsed around him, while he held his sister together and faced down the wreckage alone.
My eyes drifted back to the watercolor on the side table. The Waving Girl, forever frozen in her gesture of goodbye or hello or maybe both at once. Charlie had painted me as her, pregnantand alone, waiting for someone who might never come back. Had he known, even then, that this was who we were? Two people who loved each other, one of them carrying someone else’s child, separated by hurt and pride and terrible timing?
I picked up my phone, his contact still saved under “Charlie ??” because I’d been too stubborn or too hopeful to change it. My thumb hovered over his name. One call. That’s all it would take. I could tell him I was sorry, that I didn’t care about the letter or the timing or any of it—I needed to hear his voice. I could tell him that I wanted to be there, wanted to help him rebuild, wanted to be part of his life even if mine was messy and complicated.
But what if he didn’t answer? What if he did, and his voice was cold, indifferent, too exhausted from holding Magnolia together to have anything left for me and this baby that wasn’t even his? What if the fire had burned away whatever feelings he’d had, and now all that was left was ash and the memory of what we could have been?
I set the phone down and pressed both palms against my stomach, feeling the baby shift beneath my hands. Maybe letting go was the kindest thing I could do for both of us. Maybe love wasn’t always about holding on. Sometimes it was about knowing when to let the ashes settle.
***
