“Eleanor.” Her voice is firm in the way that reminds me she spent decades managing classrooms of children. “I may be old, but I’m not blind. Something is definitely bothering you.”
I sit down on the garden bench, my hands still dirty and my heart heavy. “I got a job offer.”
Meredith goes still. “A job offer? What do you mean? What kind of job offer?”
“A good one. A really good one. In Switzerland, teaching at the most prestigious finishing school in Europe.” I look down at my dirty hands. “It’s everything my mother ever wanted for me. Everything I was trained for and spent my life learning. But…”
“But it would mean leaving,” she says softly.
I nod. “Leaving here. Leaving everything I’ve…” I stop, unable to finish.
“Leaving Wyatt,” she says quietly.
“Leaving everyone.”
She’s silent for a moment. Her expression is unreadable.
“Does he know?”
“No. I haven’t told anyone. I don’t know how to tell anyone. I don’t even know what I want to do.”
“Well, when do you have to decide?”
“Ten days. Well, less, actually, now.”
Meredith nods slowly and picks up her pruning shears. She examines a rose bush, but I can tell she’s not really looking at it.
“Can I tell you something?” she says.
“Of course.”
“When Frank asked me to marry him, I had a choice to make. I was twenty-three years old with a teaching degree and a job offer in Atlanta. Good money, good school, everything I thought I wanted.” She snips a dead branch and sets it aside. “Frank was a mountain boy with no college degree who wanted to stay in Copper Creek and build furniture. On paper, it made no sense.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, I chose him. Obviously, I chose this life. And there were times early on, especially, when I wondered if I had made a mistake. When I missed the city, the opportunities, the life I might have had.”
“So do you regret it?”
She turns and looks at me. “Not for one single second. Because I learned something, Eleanor. The life that looks good on paper isn’t always the life that makes you happy. And the life that makes you happy doesn’t always make any sense to other people.”
“So you think I should stay?”
“Oh, I think you should make your own choice. Not the choice your mother would have made, not the choice Wyatt wants you to make, not the choice that looks best on paper, but your choice.” She reaches over and takes my dirty hand in hers. “But I’ll tell you this. Whatever you decide, you need to tell Wyatt. He deserves to know. Keeping this secret is only going to hurt both of you.”
She’s right. I know she’s right.
But telling Wyatt makes it real. It means having a conversation I’m just not ready to have. It means facing the possibility that whatever I decide, I’m going to lose something precious.
So I don’t tell him.
Not on Saturday when he picks me up for our date. Not on Sunday when we have lunch at Dixie’s Diner with Dolly and Presley. Not on Monday when he texts me good morning like he does every morning, and I type back a response that feels like a lie.
I keep the secret, and I feel it growing between us like a wall.
Tuesday night, I’m alone in my apartment staring at my laptop screen. Genevieve’s email is open. My cursor hovers over the reply button.
What do I even say?
