Page 28 of A Lullaby for Witches

She had no idea where her mother had heard that, but she nodded as if she agreed. After they set the table—her mother insisted on using the “good” china—they sat down to eat. Augusta had barely picked up her glass when her mother raised the dreaded topic.

“So what happened with Chris? Did he break up with you, or was it mutual?”

“I broke up with him,” Augusta mumbled into her lemonade.

Her mother shook her head, gold hoop earrings jangling. “I always liked him—so good-looking and so polite,” she said with a wistful sigh. “Why didn’t it work out?”

“I don’t know,” Augusta said between gritted teeth. “It just didn’t.” How could she tell her own mother that her boyfriend was an asshole and had treated her like crap? Having to explain everything out loud only made it all the more mortifying that she had stayed so long.

“Okay, okay. Message received. I know when to leave well enough alone.” But Augusta could tell it was killing her mother not to have all the details.

Augusta ate around the chicken on her plate, pushing her food around while her mother brought her up to speed on all the neighborhood gossip. When Pat paused long enough to take a breath, Augusta took the opportunity to broach something that had been on her mind. “So I thought while I was here, I might go through some of Dad’s stuff.”

The fork stilled in her mother’s hand and there was a beat of silence. She pressed her lips. “If you want.”

At some point over the years, her father had become a taboo subject between them. Augusta wasn’t sure why exactly; her mother had seemed to get on with her life after his death, had even dated sporadically. Everyone grieved differently, but something told her it was more than just grief. Coupled with the fact that her mother had always been hesitant to talk about their relatives and family even before her father’s death, Augusta was starting to see little red flags everywhere.

“I mean, yeah, I do want,” Augusta said, a new sense of determination giving her courage. “I feel like we’ve just shoved Dad under the bed and agreed to not talk about him. I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Setting down her fork, her mother pinned her with a stare. “Augusta, you are a grown woman. If you want to go through your father’s stuff, I’m not going to stop you.”

Augusta didn’t have a chance to respond before her mother abruptly pushed her chair back and stood up. “I’m doing a Paint and Sip party tonight with the girls at that new place by the mall,” she announced, her dark expression gone. “Will you be all right here alone? Do you want me to run to the store first to get you any snacks?”

Still rattled from her own outburst, Augusta answered without looking up from her plate. “No, I’ll be okay, Mom.”

After her mother had left, Augusta changed into some sweats and headed to her old room. She had thought going through her dad’s stuff would be a good distraction, but the pile of boxes was bigger than she remembered, and suddenly she felt exhausted from the emotional whirlwind of the day. She had envisioned sitting at the kitchen table with her mom, dumping everything out of the boxes and going through it all together. Doing it alone was not only daunting, but she wasn’t sure she was emotionally prepared for what she might find. Well, the boxes would be there later. For now, all she could manage to do was push aside the pile of teddy bears and decorative pillows on the bed, slip under the covers, and close her eyes. Now that she was home, there would be time to talk to her mother, to really talk to her. And maybe, just maybe, she would find the family she had always been denied.

16

Augusta

Augusta still dressed in her same capris and ballet flats every morning, still battled with her curly hair, still tracked all her food in her calorie counter app, yet she was a new person. She’d thought she’d cry a lot more than she had or be depressed in general. But once she’d broken up with Chris, she’d realized that she’d already said goodbye long ago. Her body was simply joining her mind and heart now.

Between the breakup and moving in with her mom, she had lost track of time and had almost forgotten that she was supposed to go to the archives with Leo today. She’d avoided him for the past week, though he’d mostly been in Boston anyway. When she heard his knock at the door and looked up, her breath caught in her throat. It seemed a cruel trick of the universe that he looked extra handsome that day in a dark blue button-down, his chestnut hair adorably tousled.

“Ready for a road trip?”

If she had been afraid that seeing him so soon after the breakup might complicate her feelings, she was right. How could she share the same room, let alone car, with someone who made her heart race just at the sight of him? And that was not what she needed right then. She needed time and space to find herself. But they had already arranged the trip and he didn’t have any clue about her feelings or the storm that was raging in her heart. Besides, she was dying of curiosity about what might be in the archives concerning Margaret.

“Yep,” she said, trying not to appear flustered. Gathering up her notes and water bottle, she followed him out to his car.

Outside, Leo clicked a key fob and a sporty black sedan beeped from the road. Cars were not something Augusta really ever gave much thought to—they were meant to get you from point A to point B as far as she was concerned—but for some reason she found herself intrigued by his. Maybe it was because it reminded her of him: sharp, understated and playfully sophisticated. “You can throw your stuff in the back,” Leo said as he hastily brushed aside some papers from the passenger seat.

It was a strange, intimate thing to be sharing so small a space with Leo. Everywhere there were little glimpses of his personality, like the seasonal pool pass hanging from the rearview mirror, the gym bag and stack of library books in the back seat. He was polite and kind as ever, but there was a slightly more formal edge to his demeanor today, and Augusta wondered if it was because of their encounter with Chris the week before.

Leo plugged in an old-school adapter into the dashboard and began scrolling through his phone. “What kind of music do you like?”

The old Augusta would have carefully curated her answer before she spoke, trying to anticipate what kind of music someone like Leo would like and matching that. But she had wasted too much of her life already trying to mold herself to what she thought a man would want from her. “Florence and the Machine is my favorite, but I also love Stevie Nicks, Rihanna, Adele...” She’d been listening to a lot of powerful female vocalists since the breakup, and though she would never admit to it, belting out anthems in her car on the way to work made her feel empowered.

“I definitely have Fleetwood Mac,” he said. As they pulled out, he hit Play and the sound of “The Chain” filled the car.

They stopped for coffee and doughnuts, and Augusta randomly chose a giant, chocolate-glazed monstrosity that she held in her lap, picking at it without really eating.

“Any plans for the weekend?” Leo asked as he brushed powdered sugar off his pant leg.

Her only plans consisted of dodging her mother’s attempts at setting her up with a coworker’s son, and maybe finally going through her dad’s stuff. “Not really,” she said, gazing out the window. Maybe she would finally pick up her sketching again, a hobby she’d let fall by the wayside over the past few years.

“Are you okay? You seem...distant.”

---