Page 41 of Frosted and Sliced

Her eyes widened. “You went to MIT?”

He shook his head. “A condition of the contest was that you had to accept the prize in person, and my mother wouldn’t let me go. I had to forfeit.”

Before she could ask why, he continued.

“When I was twelve, my appendix almost ruptured because my mother didn’t want me to go to the hospital. When they wheeled me into surgery,shehad to be sedated. She ruined every opportunity I ever had, every friendship I attempted, wouldn’t let me out of her sight, barely let me out of the house. I don’t know how I found the fortitude to escape, but I did. As soon as I was eighteen, I left home and disappeared, going no contact fora while. I thought if I could prove myself, gain independence, get my footing, then I could return and things would be different.”

She reached out and clasped his hand, holding it gently. “But they weren’t,” she guessed.

He shook his head. “As soon as I reentered her life, it was as if she picked up where she left off. Maybe worse. She called me thirty, forty times a day, invented stories to get my attention, that she’d been robbed, that she’d fallen down the stairs.” He let out a heavy breath and took a replenishing one. “So I found a facility for her, more like a senior village than a retirement home. I put her in there and set up some boundaries and parameters for my life. Twice a week I call her on an encrypted line, and occasionally I visit. She doesn’t know where I live, and she doesn’t have my number. The place where she lives has my number, in case of emergency. And, yes, she’s tried to get it from them. But they understand the situation and they guard my privacy. It’s been a little better since she moved there, she has other people to focus on, other outlets besides me to think about. She’s started acting in their theater group and has occasionally been a member of the board. She’s up for election again, but I don’t know if she’ll make it because, not surprisingly, she’s sort of a dictator when she gets a taste of power. Like the president of the home owner’s association run amuck.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes, pushing away the tension.

Georgie studied him, reading all he left unspoken, that he loved his mother, that it pained him to not be able to contact her, that he wished things were different and he’d had to let go of a whole lot of emotional baggage to arrive in the space he now dwelled. She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry, about all of it. I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with that all on your own. And I’m sorry for my part of it. In my head I know I can’t resent people who still have their parents, but sometimes my heart betrays me and I find myself resenting things I shouldn’t. And I’m sorry.”

He gave her a little nod of acknowledgment.

“What now?” she asked, because she was helpless to know. It should have been awkward to stand in the entryway of the inn and stare at each other with the heavy weight of his confession over them, but somehow it wasn’t. It felt intimate and safe, as if they’d forged a deeper awareness of each other, two people who understood what it was to be outcasts.

His free hand reached out and gently touched her jaw. “Now I hang your wreaths.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” she asked, gripping his hand tighter. What if something happened to Burke? How would she stand it?

He nodded. “I have more than a rudimentary understanding of physics.”

She laughed, and he smiled. “I have more than a rudimentary understanding of cocoa. Maybe I’ll make some and have it ready as a reward.”

“I’ll take it,” he said, offering her a tiny smile that wrenched her heart for reasons she couldn’t articulate. She watched him go, shivering when the wind blew in the open door and rattled around her.

CHAPTER 18

Georgette couldn’t stop thinking about Burke’s revelation. Her soft heart pictured a younger Burke, alone with the weight of his mother’s narcissism or mental illness. He must have felt so helpless. The fact that he’d managed to escape, to make something of himself and become his own man was nothing short of a miracle. And yet he was alone, like her. No wonder they worked so well in her inn of quirky outcasts, they both knew what it was to live in isolation.

After revealing so much of himself and his past, he had naturally retreated, but Georgette didn’t take it as a rejection. Growing up with a mother who allowed him no space or retreat, she knew it was important for him to have that and to test the boundaries of their friendship by occasionally backing off and hiding behind the walls he’d constructed for his safety. Perhaps more than anyone else, Georgie understood because she had the same sort of walls. Hers were sometimes perceived as flippant nonchalance, but that was only because she had taught herself to smile through the rejection, to turn her attention to other things, as if she didn’t care or need the acceptance of others. But of course she did, and Burke did, too, even if he didn’t know or admit it.

So she let him retreat and find the space he needed, but she didn’t give up on him completely. She still set out food for him and, like a feral cat, he showed up to eat. He showed up for other things, too, she noted. Even if he didn’t talk, he arrived whenever she needed something heavy carried or lifted or reached. And he continued to work steadily on the inn, chipping away little things she’d let slide, like sagging windows and the Big Bird-shaped water stain in the hallway. Slowly, bit by bit, her inn didn’t look so derelict and neglected anymore. While not fancy, it had the air of a place that was well cared for and well maintained. Georgette didn’t realize how much weight had eased off her chest since Burke’s arrival, but how could it not? He took care of everything she didn’t know how to do, silently and without complaint. If there was such a thing as a stealth handyman, everyone should have one.

“What are you doing?” he asked, startling her. She hadn’t heard him approach, of course. He gently touched her hand to alert her of his presence, but because she hadn’t expected him to appear—let alone speak—the touch acted as an electrical shock. She jumped. He raised his brows at her in question.

“You scared me,” she said, placing her hand over her heart to try and stop its erratic thump.

“What are you doing?” he repeated, ignoring the part where he’d nearly made her jump out of her skin.

“Staring forlornly at my Christmas tree,” she said.

“Any particular reason.”

She sighed. “No.”

He nudged her, urging for the truth. She batted his hand away but answered. “It’s stupid.”

“Probably, but I want to hear it anyway,” he said.

She wrinkled her nose up at him. “You get more like my brother every day.”

“You love your brother,” he noted.

She faced the tree again, a confusing swirl in her chest. Did he want her to love him? In a brotherly fashion? She didn’t think of him that way. Then again, she had no idea how to think of him. He was just Burke. “I was thinking about theAnneMarie.”

“The boat that brought the pilgrims?” he asked.

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