Tears fill her eyes.
“Don’t do that.” I point at her, my throat suddenly full. “You know nobody cries alone in my company.”
She blows out a steadying breath and somehow manages to keep her tears from falling. “Thank you, Maggie. This is really special.”
“I’m glad you like it.” I give her hand a squeeze.
“I can’t believe you remembered that old bottle.” She shakes her head. “No. I take that back. I totally believe it. You’re such a sentimentalist, always so nostalgic about things.”
I frown, because that’s my opening. “That’s kind of the reason I called y’all here tonight.”
“Andnowwe’re getting to it.” She carefully rewraps the bottle and sets it aside so she can cup her chin in her hand and eye me thoughtfully.
I try to put my ramshackle thoughts into an order that will make sense. But eventually, I’m forced to admit, “I can’t figure out who’s in charge of my life these days because it sure as shoot doesn’t feel like me. I feel like a piece of flotsam on the ocean, being carried by the current, unable to adjust my path. Or worse, not knowing which path I would take even if Icouldadjust it.”
“Let me guess,” she says. “Cash is the current, and he’s pulling you straight toward him?”
“Yeah,” I admit. Then I quickly add, “And no. I mean, I definitelyfeel pulled toward him. No question of that. But it’s not because of anything he’s said or done. If anything, based on what he’s said, I should feel the exact opposite.”
“What do ya mean?” Jean-Pierre asks.
“I mean, when I asked him what he wants from me, he said he doesn’t want anything.”
They exchange a glance.
“I know, right?” I lift my hands and let them fall. “But it’s just that… I don’t reallybelievehim. Sometimes I swear I catch him looking at me like he used to. Then again, maybe I’m seeing what I want to see. A decade ago, my feelings for him bloomed into this huge tree, and I’ve spent the intervening years watering it and watching it grow instead of cutting it down and burning the stump.”
“Do ya want to cut it down and burn da stump?” Jean-Pierre’s eyes are intent on my face.
“I don’tknow,” I admit morosely. “I can’t see things clearly. I’m hoping y’all can help me. Do I open up my chest, take out my heart, and hand it to him knowing he might not want it? Or worse, that he might stomp all over it like he did the first time?”
Neither of them says anything to that. The only sounds to break the silence are the low, mournful moan of the breeze across the rooftops and another soft call from the whippoorwill.
Eventually, Jean-Pierre ventures, “Me, I don’t know much, but I know dis. Love is supposed to cherish and support. It isn’t supposed to disregard or disrespect. You want to fill your life and your heart with folks who leave a mark,cher.Not a scar.”
The simple truth of his words cuts into me, sharp as a gator’s tooth, and makes me wonder,Did Cash leave a mark or a scar?
Thinking back on all the times he was so sweet to me, like when I was sick with the flu and he came by Aunt Bea’s house to leave a package of gummy bears—my favorite candy—with a note that read, “Life without you would be un-BEAR-able, so get better soon.” Or the time, exactly one year after we met, that he taped a sign to my locker. In big, black Sharpie for the whole school to see, he’d written,”Cash Armstrong has loved Maggie Carter for 365 days.” I would say, unequivocally, that he left a mark.
Then I think back on the night he left…
Yep.Thatis definitely a scar.
“You know I love you, right?” Eva asks.
“Uh-oh.” I wince. “Anytime you start a conversation that way, I know I’m in for it.”
Her expression is like the woman herself—kind.“You tend to spend a lot of time living in the past and putting a lot of emphasis on whatwas. I think maybe that stops you from seeing whatis.”
