“Let’s just say that giving someone a taste of his own medicine has never felt so good,” I said. Andrew’s arm felt familiar and comforting as it slipped around my shoulders. But I had toadmit that when I saw Mr. Corporate Takeover at the top of the steps, staring at me again, a shiver went down my spine.
diana: sink the ship
Walking up the steps to Frank’s house that day, all I could hear in my head wastrailer trash orphanover and over. And Frank’s momma, she wasn’t wrong about me. Back then, I had been making crazy good money waitressing at the Island Grille, and I’d got me some nice clothes and rented one of them cute, tiny houses on the outskirts of Cape Carolina. But that didn’t mean Frank’s momma couldn’t see right through me. I was, at my very core, a trailer trash orphan—or, more aptly, a project orphan, which was even worse.
Frank squeezed my hand and looked at me funny like he thought I was going to throw up or something. “She’s not here, Diana. It’s not like my momma’s going to pop out of the paneling.”
But, oh my Lord, she was everywhere. She’d sewn the curtains and decorated the bookshelves and found all them shells lining the coffee table. “We’re being crazy, Frank. Nothing’s changed. Your momma’s still going to hate me.”
He shrugged. “I’m almost forty-five years old, Diana. I don’t care what my momma thinks.”
It was easy to say, standing there in her living room, in the family house she always knew she would pass down to Frank one day, that he didn’t care. But he had to care. Or maybe that was just the fear talking. It was waiting in the wings, hiding inthe background of every happy moment, asking,What’s going to sink the ship? What’s going to go wrong this time?I didn’t consider myself a pessimist, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around things being this good.
He led me into the tiny kitchen and poured a glass of wine and handed it to me. “You just need to relax,” he whispered in my ear, kissing its lobe, then the nape of my neck, then my collarbone.
I took a sip, feeling soothed.
“I thought it was going to be just me, so I was going to throw a steak on the grill, but I’m happy to take my girl out if you’d rather.”
I smiled. “I think dinner in sounds like just what the doctor ordered.”
Cooking dinner with Frank felt easy, like we’d been doing it forever. He put the steaks on the grill, and I chopped the zucchini and onions and squash and tossed them in a little olive oil and threw them in a pan. He popped the bread in the oven, and I took the butter out of the foil. We carried our plates and wine to the tiny dining table on the corner of the porch. The house was small, modest, and nothing fancy. But the view of the ocean, waves crashing on the shore, was spectacular.
“Momma and Dad built them a new house over on Ocean Ridge right before he passed,” Frank said. “So this one’s all ours if we want it.”
All ours. It wasn’t lost on me. I smiled at him, the second glass of wine washing away my worries. He was right. He was a grown man. His mother didn’t control him anymore.
“What about the stores?” I asked. “How can you live here and keep them all going?”
He chewed his steak and smiled. “I sold out of all of ’em but the Cape Carolina one.”
I looked at him wide-eyed. That chain of stores was his family’s pride and joy. They had something. Not just one but five stores that were real profitable. “Why’d you do that?”
He shrugged. “You see it, the chain stores—the real big ones—they’re popping up on every corner. I knew I couldn’t compete.” He wiped his mouth and took a sip of wine. “Walgreens wanted my corner lot in Charlotte and paid me all kinds of money. And one of the auto parts giants bought the other three all in one deal.” He shrugged. “It was kind of hard because it’s family, but, I mean, I still got this one to tool around in—pun intended. Wasn’t like I was ever going to make that kind of money out of the stores. Selling out was the right decision.”
I got up to clear the plates. I rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher that his momma must’ve finally installed.They aren’t a fad, I wanted to tell her again. Frank followed me.
I told myself that I didn’t want to ruin our perfect night, taint it with the stain of our past. But it was true whether I said it out loud or not. And now was as good a time as any. “I thought I was punishing you,” I said.
He cocked his head as I closed the dishwasher door. “When?”
“Having the abortion. I thought I was punishing you.” I paused, picking up the dish towel on the sink. “When you said you were going to Charlotte no matter what, I felt so alone, likeyou didn’t care about me. And that’s why I disappeared that night to Cheyenne’s. And you didn’t come. I know you didn’t know I was pregnant, but in my mind, you were abandoning me and your baby. I was trying to punish you. But I only punished myself.”
It made no sense. I felt that now. In my mind, I had punished Frank for twenty-two years for something that was my fault. No, he didn’t stand up for me the way I wanted him to. But I had left him. I hadn’t told him about the baby. I had taken a piece of him away without even asking him. It hurt me to admit it, but I was the one to blame for so much of this.
“Can I be honest with you?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I’m angry that you didn’t tell me. I’m trying to push it away because I’m trying to win you back and say all the right things, but, damn, Diana. That was my kid too.”
My instinct was to argue with him, but I knew he was right. Maybe it was my choice, technically. But Frank and I had loved each other. That baby was his too. It wasn’t a one-night stand; it wasn’t a mistake. The mistake was on me. “You have every right to be mad,” I said. “I thought about it a lot, Frank. I swear I did. But all it came back to was that I was eighteen, and I was going to be alone. I didn’t believe that you would stand up for me, and even if you did, I didn’t want to spend my life knowing that you only married me because I was pregnant. That wasn’t the life I wanted.” I could feel tears in my eyes as I said, “And I paid for it, Frank. I paid for it by never getting to be a mother.”
Frank reached out his hand and pulled me into him. “I wastoo proud to come get you. I was too proud to beg.” He shrugged. “What we lost hurts, but it doesn’t hurt as much as the idea that we might never have a future together because of the mistakes of our past.”
“We both made mistakes,” I repeated, resting my head on his chest. I felt cleansed somehow, ready to really, truly move on.
He grinned down at me. “How about we take a walk on the beach? There’s a dune down there that I’m quite fond of.”
