I stare down at my plate. “I think I lost myself, Birdie.”
She doesn’t say anything, just waits for me to continue. She reaches out and clasps her hand to mine.
“I don’t know what happened,” I continue. “But somewhere along the way, I stopped being me and started being...what everyone expected me to be. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I don’t like who I see when I look in the mirror.”
Birdie’s eyes soften. “Sounds like you needed a break, sugar.”
Tears sting, and I laugh weakly. “That’s one way to put it.”
She squeezes my hand again. “You don’t have to figure it all out today. You just need rest, baby.”
“Okay,” I say feeling exhausted.
“Eat your food. That’s the first thing we’ll do. Get you nourished,” she says as she pulls my head to her and kisses it.
“Thanks, Birdie.”
“Of course. I’m so glad you’re here. And I’m also glad you didn’t marry Tyler the turd. That boy never made sense for you. I know why you were going to do it. But it wasn’t right.” She shakes her head.
“I’m running out of time, Birdie,” I say softly.
My stomach twists just thinking about my predicament. None of my friends or peers or anyone I know has to deal anything like this.
“There has to be another way,” she says as she shakes her head. “I will never understand why your grandmother had that stupid stipulation in her will. You’d think it was the 1950s. Better get barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen while you’re at it.”
Bile creeps up my throat at the thought of chaining myself for life to Tyler. What a miserable existence that would have been. It was almost my sentence, and I escaped just in time.
“I only have a few months to get married, or the company defaults to a trust. Then, my family loses it,” I say, feeling anxious just saying it. “We could lose everything. I can’t do that to Dad.”
“Tyler was not the answer,” she says dryly, “and your father would understand.”
But he wouldn’t. Our entire lives revolve around the business. It would mean ripping everything away from too many people I care about.
“My grandmother had her reasons.” She was one of the good ones in my family. While her stipulation doesn’t make a lot of sense on the surface, I understand her reasons.
She was fighting the patriarchy. Well, sort of. In her own, slightly warped way, she was protecting her legacy and her eldest granddaughter by forcing her to choose love and marriage, first and foremost, which would then secure her future.
Unfortunately, in her efforts to do a good thing, she tied my hands. This idea of hers likely made sense for a woman of her time, but not a modern woman. I was going to college and learning the ropes of the business. Finding a husband was low on the priority list.
And then, time just sort of slipped by rather quickly.
Now we’re down to the wire.
“I thought we were in love,” I say as I think about my almost-husband and how close I was to completing this requirement. “Now I know it was all bullshit.”
The anger feels good burning through my veins. Hurt over the cheating and the feeling of failure at keeping our company compete for space in my head, but it’s fading a bit. There has to be another way through this will stipulation. If anyone can find it, it’ll be me.
As far as the pain Tyler and Belladonna caused me, I vow to drag my way through it and to the other side.
Birdie leans back in her chair. “I have an idea.”
I take a bite of eggs. “Okay...”
“What if you stay here for the summer and I help you figure out what you want to do?”
“Like, thewholesummer?”
“The whole summer,” she says as if it’s already decided. “You were supposed to take six weeks off to travel with Tyler the turd anyway. I highly doubt your father would mind if you worked remotely from here in Coconut Beach. It’ll do you good.”
