Page 48 of The One Before

I agree with her on this point. I always thought the city and its people were loud. Now I know people there are quieter than they appear. They stick to their huddle, their group. It only seems loud because there are so many groups. Whisper Falls is the opposite; everything is wide open. When people here talk, everyone hears.

“Don’t listen to Regina,” Roman says, taking on a slightly more serious tone. “She’s a pessimist.”

“I am not a pessimist,” she says, making a poignant pause between each word. The statement is so untrue, even she laughs.

“You won’t give this town a chance,” Roman says.

“Me?” Regina stands unsteadily. “This town doesn’t give me a chance! They don’t take a chance on anyone unless they act like everyone else. There’s no room for diversity or growth. This place—” She stops talking, suddenly frozen. She sprints to the downstairs bathroom and slams the door.

Roman and I can’t help but laugh when, minutes later, there’s the unmistakable cry of a person getting sick.

“This is a new one,” Roman says.

“What?”

“Usually Regina is the one taking care of me when I’ve had one too many.” He sips his beer, but he can’t seem to shake his sister’s comments from earlier. “She’s always beating up on Whisper, and I get it—life here hasn’t been the easiest for her. But Regina only focuses on what this town lacks. Whisper has some nice people. They might talk shit from time to time, but they’re also on their knees praying when the bad times hit. Like when Dad died.”

He pauses, reflecting on the words he’s said and the life he’s lived.

“It’s definitely a tight-knit community,” I say. It’s odd to see the contrast between how Roman and Regina view their hometown. From what I can tell so far, I tend to side with Regina.

“There’s good here,” Roman continues. “We’ve got some of the best carpenters in the south. They might make a tenth of what your people in the city make, but they’re a lot better at the job. People here care about things. They garden and they fish. I’m not trying to convince you to love Whisper Falls. I guess I’m just saying you and Cooper can be happy here, if you want to be.”

I finish the rest of my wine, thinking about what he’s said. “You two didn’t have to come over here, you know.”

“It felt like the right thing to do,” he says, leaning into the headrest. “Coop would have done it for us.”

“The three of you are very close.”

“We might fight, but we’ll always have each other’s backs.”

“I think most families are like that,” I say. “The good ones, anyway.”

“I worried we might have scared you off after your first few dinners with us.” He laughs. “I know we take some getting used to.”

“Maybe a little.” We both laugh. “You’ve all really been there for me ever since the incident with Celia’s mom. That means a lot.”

“It’s not fair what that woman’s put him through over the years.” He puts down his beer and crosses his arms. “She really did a number on him after Celia died, and Cooper didn’t deserve any of it.”

“That’s been the hardest part to understand.” I look at Roman, who has moved closer to me. He wants to hear my take. Tonight is the first time we’ve really talked. “Whenever I was around ‘Anne’, she never seemed spiteful. She never made it seem like she wanted to ruin the wedding or Coop. It’s like she just wanted to get to know me.”

“Maybe she picked up on the fact that you’re new to Whisper Falls, new to this family. That was her way of isolating you.”

“Oh.” I think back to my interactions with ‘Anne’ with a renewed sting. She predicted my insecurities and used them to her advantage. It hurts more because her plan worked. Our appointments were the only time I felt I was making decisions as Madison Sharpe, not Madison soon-to-be Douglas. “Based on the way your family has described her, I didn’t think she’d have the patience for that.”

“To be honest, I thought the same thing.” He opens another beer and takes a sip. “Every time I saw that woman, she was either crying or yelling. She was drunk a lot, too. Must have been her way of coping.”

“It would be an unimaginable thing to live with. The thought someone murdered your daughter.”

“Thing is, no matter what people told her about Celia’s death being accidental, she refused to listen.” He shakes his head, his brown curls falling over his forehead. “She had her version of what happened, and that was all that mattered. That’s what made her dangerous.”

“Coop wants to have her arrested for fraud, or whatever. I’m not sure it’s worth the hassle.”

“She’s been in and out of Cooper’s life for more than a decade now. He wants to make sure she won’t do this type of thing again. You want to know the saddest part in all of this? None of this is about Celia. Her mother was barely around when she was alive. She didn’t give a damn about her daughter until after she died.”

That’s another detail that doesn’t make sense about the ‘Anne’ I knew. The one time she brought up her daughter’s death, she didn’t make Celia sound like a pawn in a game. She sounded like her whole heart had been ripped from within her. I felt her pain. Not once did I see a bitter woman desperate for revenge; I saw a grieving mother.

“Time does things to people, I guess.”

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