“Maybe we should start by trying to find a place where we can get him more personalized care,” Frank said.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to move him more than we need to. I want his next move to be permanent.”
I slid an empire-waist dress over my head. I couldn’t wait to look full-on pregnant.
“Okay, then. Yeah. You’re right. We’ll do everything we can from where he is now, and then when the time is right, we’ll move him in here with us.”
I smiled. “Really?”
He nodded. “Of course. He’s your brother.”
I kissed Frank right as the doorbell rang. “He’s here! He’s here!”
Throwing open the door, I hugged Charles so tight I hardly even noticed the woman standing right behind him on the front porch. I was getting ready to blurt out all about the baby, and I was kind of irritated that he had brought someone with him so I couldn’t. I pulled away and smiled at the woman. Her face seemed familiar. I was about to introduce myself when she said, “Diana.”
Her voice came rushing back, and I swear I lost my mind for a minute. “No!” I screamed. I slammed the front door and walked out the back.
“Diana,” Frank called. I heard the front door open, but it didn’t matter. I was getting the hell out of there. As I bolted out the back and down the steps into the detached garage, I realized I didn’t have any car keys. And surely they were in the house by now, so it wasn’t like I could go back. But Gray’s was only a couple miles away, so I started walking. I expected them to come after me, but they didn’t. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help but think about all those other times I’d been alone before—and worry that nothing much had changed.
CHAPTER 21
gray: the car crash
I hadn’t spoken to Andrew since the day I had told him it was over between us for the second time. And I knew that, before I confessed to him how I was feeling now, I had one more thing to do, something that terrified me to my core: I had to talk to his mother.
I could see her rear end pointing up toward the sky from her trunk before I saw her face. She looked shocked when she turned and my car was in the driveway. I waved, and she laughed.
“Hi, June,” I said, opening the door, figuring it was safe since Andrew’s car was nowhere to be found.
“Well, hi there, darling. What brings you here?”
I got out of the car and lifted my sunglasses so that we could see eye to eye. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I just wanted to talk to you for a minute, but if this isn’t a good time I can—” I pointed back to the car.
“Don’t be silly.” She winked at me. “You can help me carry up my groceries.”
“I don’t want to put you in a weird spot,” I said, as we climbed the stairs to the front door.
She paused and fumbled for her keys in her purse. “Well, I asked you not to break his heart, darling, and, without a doubt, you did.”
I sighed, following her through the door. “I know. But I did it then to make it easier. I didn’t want to drag things out, prolong them, because I knew that, realistically, this wasn’t going to work out. I mean, he’s just a kid, and I’m not exactly who a parent would dream about their star of a son marrying.” I paused and added, “I didn’t want you to think that I was latching on to your son because I was desperate or something.”
She laughed heartily. Opening the fridge, she pulled out a bottle of white wine and retrieved a corkscrew from a drawer. “I think we’re probably going to need a little of this.” As she poured, she said, “I am not going to patronize you, Gray. I have…” She paused. “Concerns.”
She walked toward the back deck, and I followed her. She looked around as she sat down and said, “You’re a mother, so I feel that you understand where I am coming from and won’t take offense when I say that, no, you are not who I envisioned for my son.”
I knew that. Even still, it stung.
“Well, that’s not true,” she said. “Under different circumstances, you are precisely what I envisioned for my son.”
“But we aren’t under those circumstances,” I agreed. “I’ve been married, I have a child, and I am barreling toward my thirty-fifth birthday.”
She bit her lip. “We raised him to be a steadfast man. We raised him to follow his heart.”
I nodded. “That’s very, very clear.” I turned and looked out over the ocean.
“He has always been so focused. He has dated a lot, but whenever I asked him if it was serious he would say, ‘When I find her, I’ll know.’?”
My heart was racing.
