“Yes.” I glance over my shoulder to peer toward the living room, but I don’t see him. “Can I call you back later?”
She laughs. “Girl, you’d better call me. I want to know everything.”
I murmur a quick goodbye, then drop the phone into my purse. When I walk back into the living room, I find it empty.
The front door has been unlocked, then closed silently behind him while I was talking to my friend. I look out the curtain of the front window just in time to hear his car rumble to life in the driveway.
He backs out onto the street, then he’s gone.
22
MELANIE
“Katie, time for breakfast,” I tell my niece, popping my head into her bedroom while I wind my hair into a bun and fasten it with an elastic band I pull out of the skirt pocket of my diner uniform. “Brush your teeth and come down to eat before I have to leave for work, please.”
“Okay, Aunt Mellie.”
I can hear my mom rummaging in the kitchen downstairs while a commercial plays on the TV in the living room. She came home from the hospital two mornings ago, feeling healthier than she had in months. Of course, her renewed energy only makes her harder to manage. She’s always had an independent streak, and I suppose I don’t have to look far to guess where I get my stubbornness.
I find her in her peach bathrobe and pajamas, bent over in front of the open refrigerator door and reaching in to retrieve an unopened gallon of milk from the back of the shelf.
“Mom, what do you think you’re doing?”
Her voice is muffled from halfway inside the appliance. “I’m getting Katie’s cereal ready for her.”
“Your doctor said no lifting or straining for at least a week.” I move around her and take the carton out of her hands. “What did you do with the packet of instructions he sent home with you?”
She gives me a mildly exasperated look. “It’s on the end table with my reading glasses in the living room.”
I frown, but it’s hard to be upset with her when she’s staring at me with clear, bright eyes and a healthy pink glow in her cheeks. I consider it my personal responsibility to ensure she stays as healthy as she looks now. “If you’re uncertain about what you can or can’t do while I’m gone today, promise me you’ll follow your doctor’s orders.”
She sighs. “I’ve already promised you I would, honey.”
Yes, she did, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry. “Maybe it’s not a good idea for me to leave you and Katie alone so soon.”
“Melanie, I’m sixty-two years old. I’ll be fine. Besides, Katie and I have our day all planned out. We’re going to color and play some board games, then we’re going to make sugar cookies this afternoon.”
I arch my brows at her. “I must have missed the page that listed sugar cookies as part of your new heart healthy diet plan from the hospital.”
“Don’t worry, they’re not for me. Katie wanted to bake today, and I thought it would be fun if we did something we could decorate together.”
“All right,” I relent, feeling a bit better about the situation.
I’d much rather stay home with them, but at least the diner is closeby. Ordinarily, I’d be heading into the city to my part-time accounting job, but after Mom came home I quit the dentist’s office in order to pick up extra shifts at the diner.
God knows, we’re going to need the money. I don’t even want to imagine the size of the medical bill that will be coming soon. My stomach bottoms out just thinking about it.
I can’t deny how much I could use the money Jared was going to pay me for posing for him, but that’s obviously off the table now. Even though I had decided not to go through with the arrangement after that first day at his studio, Jared’s disappearing act two days ago here at my house and the radio silence that’s followed has made it clear to me that he has no desire to continue with the painting, either.
When it comes to me, evidently, he has no desire for anything.
I felt foolish enough in the minutes after he left. Two days later, I feel like an epic idiot for letting myself believe there was something more than just the attraction that had been burning between us. I shared a piece of my soul with him that day. I told him things only my closest friends know because I thought he might be the one man who could understand.
I thought he might have cared about me, even a little.
Instead, what he apparently felt for me was pity.
And regret.
