Agnes asked, clearly appalled.
Since Agnes decided to move away with Charlie, maybe? For starters.
Molly was having a really hard time keeping it together.
The last thing she needed was to feel worse about things. “You broke it off with Gavin?” Agnes asked, forehead
scrunched up to her no-longer-gray hairline.
Molly nodded.
“When?” Agnes asked, firm.
“Right after you announced you’re engaged and moving to Minneapolis,” Rachel not-so-helpfully supplied.
“Is nothing sacred to you?” Molly asked her. “Not when I’m trying to help you fix your mess.”
“Oh, dear.” Agnes helped herself to a cup of coffee and pulled up another chair. “Baby girl, the reason I can go to Minnesota is because you have Gavin.”
“What?” That made no sense.
“But if you don’t have Gavin, that changes everything.” Agnes looked like Gavin had eaten one of her kittens for breakfast.
“Why?” Molly asked. “You made a decision. I respect your ability to make that decision.”
Agnes studied her for a long beat.
“You respect my ability to make that decision?” Agnes asked, slower than slow. And, oh dear, there was a storm brewing behind those words.
“Agnes, you made it clear what matters, and I get it. You’ve got Charlie now. You’ll have his son. You’ll have grandkids.” She’d have a whole ready-made life in Minnesota.
“I also have Oliver,” Agnes said. “I have you. I thought
we could both go on ahead and live our lives happy with our choices, but I can’t leave you here by yourself. Who will make sure you remember to water your flowers in the summer?”
“I can help with that,” Rachel volunteered, pausing from noshing on the chocolate, graham cracker, marshmallow glazed donut in her hand.
“I sent Gavin off into the world to go find his future,” Molly said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“You’re both miserable because of that,” Rachel pointed out, really unhelpfully.
Though she wasn’t wrong. Molly was miserable. But it was easier to be miserable for the right reasons than to be happy for the wrong ones.
“How do I know?” Molly asked. “How do I know that Gavin’s meant for me and not someone else?” Not Cassidy? These two women…both of them had figured out the answer to that question. She gave all kinds of tips, all kinds of advice, but in the end, she didn’t know the answer to that question.
“How do you not know?” Rachel threw the question back at her. That was a very Rachel answer, Molly had to give it to her.
“How did you know?” Molly asked Agnes. Agnes probably wouldn’t do the rhetorical question thing. It wasn’t her style.
“He stopped wearing his wedding band.” Agnes stared into the depths of her coffee. “I watched that man for an entire year walking back and forth in front of my house. Knew his wife had passed. Knew he was a good man. But I didn’t know until he took off that wedding band.”
“Gavin took down the pictures with the zebra in the bathtub,” Molly said. Apparently, that meant something.
“I don’t know what that means,” Agnes said.
“I think it’s like the wedding band thing. His old fiancée painted them. They’re like these pictures—it’s a whole art thing—of animals in various bathtubs,” Rachel said. Molly started tuning her out after the initial description because she just didn’t want to think about Dakota or animals in bathtubs.
“Ah.” Agnes nodded. “Then yes, the bathtub zebra is like the wedding band. I understand now.”
