She pops up from her seat. “I need to see them.”
When she dashes in the door ahead of me, she gasps. Which is exactly why I should have risked being late and just put them in water at home.
“You’re joking.” She inspects them with her jaw dropped. “These are actually insane.”
“He has so many flowers, I'm sure this isn’t?—”
She whips her head to face me and tilts her head. “This is the biggest bouquet of flowers I have ever seen. This is at least three dozen flowers.”
“He has so many flowers this probably doesn’t even make a dent.”
“Hannah.” Her head tilts. “Come on.”
“I'm not going there.”
“Let him take you out! What’s the worst that could happen? What could go so wrong?”
“I could really like him!” I snap. “That’s what could go wrong! I could realize how real these feelings are and then when I leave in a couple of months, I will be heartbroken and so willWinnie. I would only be making it worse than it’s already going to be. She’s already asking if he’s my boyfriend.”
“Well.” Lauren looks from the flowers back at me. “It sure looks like it’s getting harder to deny.”
“Well, he’s not my boyfriend. There is only the truth and what’s not the truth, and right now, the truth is that you need to plan for a wedding in two months, and for a baby after that.”
“Red tulips,” Rhett notes as he comes in and grabs some paper plates.
“Yeah?”
“They represent everlasting love. My mom used to write about them.”
“I doubt he picked them with any meaning in mind.”
Rhett shakes his head. “A few years ago, that would be true. But since he met you? I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“What am I going to do?” I ask and I don’t know if I'm asking Lauren, Rhett, the flowers, or the cabin’s wood paneled walls, but nobody answers.
18
One thing I did not pack on what was supposed to be a week-long trip, was a bathing suit for Winnie or myself. And since we are tackling the public pool in Marnmouth today, I am now sweating in a Walmart parking lot, shoving new beach towels, sunscreen, floaties and bathing suits into my duffle bag.
Winnie picked the brightest one she could find, and I found a one-piece I typically would have bought. High coverage, cute enough to not be super lame and tame enough to not annoy Ethan. And the one Ethan would have berated me over. A simple black string bikini that honestly doesn’t leave much to the imagination. I shove both into my bag and shut the hatch.
It’s not until I am standing in the pool’s locker room with Winnie in her long-sleeve sun-protection bathing suit that I decide to slip on the string bikini. I feel naked as I walk out into the sun and I try to talk myself out of the thought that everyone is staring and judging. Or somehow that someone was going to tell on me for wearing something that would “givemen the wrong idea.”I chew on the inside of my cheek and follow Winnie as she tugs meby the hand to the kiddie splash pad area where there are lounge chairs lining the pool’s edge.
All around, kids are laughing and screaming. There are older kids in the swim lanes across the way and a diving board with dripping swimmers lined up all the way to the snack shop. Families and groups of friends all claiming their own tables and chairs. Some people are laid out tanning, while others are trying to perfect their backstroke. It smells of sun-soaked concrete, chlorine, sunscreen, and summer vacation.
“Can I go play there?” Winnie asks, pointing at the splash pad in front of us.
“How about I go with you?” The suggestion is met with an immediate pout. “Fine. But stay close. I will be right here on the edge. Don’t talk to strangers and don’t even think about going anywhere deeper than your belly.”
She nods, then runs off with her sunscreen not even fully rubbed in. In a moment she is running through the fountains and splashing water with a gleeful smile. She scrunches up her shoulders when she runs under the rainbow fountain, and I feel a touch of pride at the sight.
Lauren and I never made it to the public pool as a kid. We spent our summers in the backyard with a garden hose and a plastic bucket filled with dollar store barbies. Something Mom would deny to this day.
Her wealth now—or well—Paul’s wealth, seems to have tainted her memories from our childhood. She forgot how poor we were, or how much she worked, leaving Lauren and I to our own defenses on summer breaks. I know younger me would be proud to watch my daughter splash around without a single care in the world and white streaks of sunscreen across her face.
My phone pings with a text from Tanner. It’s a photo of the sheep.
Tanner: poppy and ava are doing well.
