Chapter 5 - My Mother’s Signature
My mother opened her front door holding a dish towel.
For one absurd moment, I noticed she had bought new curtains.
Then I held up the copy Denise had sent me.
“Tell me you didn’t.”
She looked at the paper.
Her hand tightened around the towel.
“Laurel, come inside.”
“No. Tell me.”
A neighbor’s sprinkler clicked across the grass.
My mother stepped back.
I entered because I wanted an answer more than I wanted a scene.
At the kitchen table, she read the agreement without turning the page.
“You signed my name?”
“I thought you would understand once you saw the opportunity.”
I sat down because my knees had become unreliable.
“What opportunity?”
“Grant said there would be a position for you at the hotel. Events. Flowers. Something stable.”
“You helped him trade my shop for a job I never wanted?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then explain it so it becomes something else.”
She flinched.
For years, that would have stopped me.
This time, I waited.
My mother folded the towel.
After my father died, she said, the household bills had frightened her. She had refinanced the house. Then she had borrowed again.
Grant had helped arrange the second loan through a Mercer family company.
“How much?” I asked.
“Forty thousand.”
I looked at the new curtains again.
Not because curtains explained forty thousand dollars.
Because suddenly everything in the room felt like something I had never been allowed to see.
“He said the debt could be settled,” she whispered.
“If I left the shop.”
“If the block was delivered vacant.”
The phrase sounded rehearsed.
I wondered how many times Grant had said it until it became less ugly.
“Did he tell you to sign?”
“He said you were too attached to make a sensible decision.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
I stared at the woman who used to check the temperature of my bathwater with her wrist.
“Dad helped me build that business.”
“Your father left me with bills.”
“He left you with a grieving daughter too.”
She began to cry.
I wanted to comfort her.
The wanting made me angry.
“You’re going to tell my attorney exactly what happened,” I said.
“Will I get in trouble?”
“I don’t know.”
“You would do that to your own mother?”
I stood.
“No, Mom. I’m asking you to stop doing this to me.”
Outside, I sat in my truck without starting it.
Wyatt called.
I answered because I couldn’t bear another minute alone.
He listened while I told him everything.
Then he asked, “Where are you?”
“Outside my mother’s.”
“Would you like company?”
“Yes.”
He arrived twenty minutes later with no driver and no speeches.
I climbed into his car.
He handed me a paper cup of tea.
“I guessed,” he said.
“It’s right.”
We drove to the beach.
For a while, we watched a dog chase a tennis ball near the surf.
“I keep thinking there must be a version where this is my fault,” I said.
Wyatt looked at me.
“If it were your fault, would that make it easier?”
I swallowed.
“I could fix it.”
He nodded.
“I used to think that after my mother died. If I could find something I should have done differently, maybe the world would make sense.”
“What did you decide?”
“That some things remain terrible even when you understand them.”
I leaned against him.
He put an arm around my shoulders.
Neither of us pretended anybody was watching.
Later, when he walked me to my apartment, I stopped outside the door.
“I need to know something.”
“Ask.”
“If this arrangement ended tonight, would you still be here?”
His answer came slowly.
“Yes.”
I searched his face.
Then I kissed him.
It wasn’t graceful.
My hand caught in his coat, and I stepped on his shoe.
He laughed against my mouth before kissing me back with such care that it nearly broke my heart.
When we finally separated, his forehead rested against mine.
“Laurel.”
“I know.”
“We should talk about this.”
“Tomorrow.”
He nodded, though I could tell it cost him.
Inside, my phone lit up on the counter.
May you like
A message from Caroline.
I need to show you something. Please don’t tell Grant.
