It was all a lie.
Neither of us speaks for a long moment while she tears through the box of supplies, making a racket inside the quiet, dark shop. Then I remember something she said, and it aligns with a puzzle piece that’s stuck inside the back of my head.
The invisible wall isn’t just down between us, it’s collapsed for good. Might as well put it all out there now. So I ask in a soft voice, “Who’s Drew?”
Her hands still inside the box. But she says nothing.
“I saw his inscription inside your high school yearbook,” I say. “And I’m pretty sure he was in the navy and came back to town. I know Aunt Franny was surprised you were willing to come back to Beauty with him here. Who’s Drew, Mom?” I ask again.
She exhales heavily and rests against the stool behind the counter. It takes her a long time to answer, but she finally says,“Drew was the love of my life. We were going to run away together after we graduated from high school. Your grandmother caught us and put a stop to it. Told his parents. They were furious. Made him enlist in the navy, and he got shipped off to the Persian Gulf almost immediately. That was that. One day he was there, and the next, he was just … gone.”
“Oh my God,” I murmur. Like me and Lucky.
She sighs. “Oh, in retrospect, maybe she was right. Maybe we were too young to get married. I don’t know. I wasn’t sensible like you are. I was ‘Wild Winona,’ who made a lot of mistakes and did a lot of impulsive things. Running off to Florida with no plan seemed like something fun to do, so I’m not even sure if I was in it for the right reason. But then I went to college, where I met your father, and the rest is history.”
Right. Everything went to shit after that. Now I’m starting to see the root of the problems between Mom and Grandma.
“Still, I think about him a lot,” she says, wistful.
“Have you kept in touch with him?”
“Not a peep. I saw him once, at your uncle’s funeral last year. We didn’t speak. I was shocked to see his face again, honestly. I think he was shocked to see me, too. I know he was married to a woman when he was stationed on a naval base in Japan, but they later divorced. I don’t know what’s going on with him now. I’ve made an effort to steer clear of him since we’ve been back in town. The Saint-Martin curse … ,” she says weakly.
A little tingle starts in my fingers and races up my arms.“Mom … what does Drew do now that he’s retired from the navy?”
“He took over his family’s business.” She gives me an uncomfortable, awkward look. “On Lamplighter Lane.”
The portal to hell. The place mom avoids. It’s not the root of all evil in town—it’s the place where she left her broken heart.
And I know exactly one business on Lamplighter Lane.
The blacksmith where Lucky is apprenticing.
“Drew … Sideris,” I guess.
She nods. “Lucky told you?”
“No,” I say. “Actually not. He’s apprenticing for him, though, and I think he must know, because he’s been cagey about it.”
“The night of the boatyard window breaking, Kat told me that Lucky was learning metallurgy, so I kind of figured …” She shrugs, face pulling to one side. “Drew’s parents live down the street from the Karrases. They’ve done a lot of the ironwork around Beauty. His father made Salty Sally out front,” she says, gesturing toward the bookshop door. Then she crosses her arms and sighs. “Beauty’s a small town. Everyone’s trees are growing over each other’s fences.”
Maybe knocking a few fences down.
“So … Lucky got lucky, huh?” she says.
“Mom.”
“Sorry,” she says, turning her head to give me a soft smile. “Do you need to … talk about anything? He for sure used a condom, right?”
“Yes, and no, I don’t need to talk about anything. I’m perfectly fine.”
“I mean, I know you were angry when you said it on the tugboat, but I guess I kinda did hope you’d wait until you were married, or whatever the right way to do things is.”
“Is there a right way?”
She throws up her hands. “You’re asking me? How would I know? I’ll tell you what, though—there’sdefinitelya wrong way. That, I know. The wrong way is when you immediately think, ‘Oh crap. I’ve made ahugemistake.’ Did you think that afterward?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Not a bit.”
