Page 108 of My Favorite Mistake

“Happy Monday! Happy Tuesday!” Caroline chirped as she shimmied her backside and made large circles in the pan. “Happy Friday! Now back to Monday! Sing, sing, sing them happy weekday blues!”

“Oh, sugar,” Sunny said, clasping her mouth. “Caroline, honey, you can’t stir that like that.” Sunny grabbed Liza’s hand and tugged her to stand up. “Can you go help her do a slow figure-eight?”

“Sure.” Stirring a pan in a slow figure-eight was exactly what Liza needed right then to distract her from the fact that Connor was currently on the other side of the house discussing how topropose. Her hands shook as Caroline handed off the whisk and then moved to the center of the kitchen to spin on the ball of one foot.

The sound of a giggle and a kiss drifted through the open doorway, and Ophelia reemerged a moment later, hands on her pink cheeks.

She cleared her throat. “Okay, baby. I gave Daddy a stern talking-to, and he said to go out back and help Pop-pop hold the ladder while he fixes the shingles.”

“‘kay!” Caroline skipped out of the room, swinging her long hair from side to side as she disappeared through the doorway.

Ophelia placed her hand on Liza’s shoulder. “I can take over from here.”

Liza withdrew her trembling hands, which Ophelia apparently noticed, and then turned her eyes up to meet Liza’s.

Ophelia pursed her lips and lowered her voice. “I know you’re not dense.”

Liza clasped her hands together to still them. “No, I’m not.”

“They’re talking aboutproposing, right?” Sunny piped up. “Or is my brain really starting to go?”

“Yes, Grammy,” Ophelia said through her teeth.

“You watch that temper with me, young lady.” Sunny waggled her finger at Ophelia and then smacked her palms together. “I’m not too old to take you over my knee.”

Ophelia sighed as she turned down the heat on the stove and then crossed the kitchen to kiss Sunny’s head. She pulled out two chairs, sitting in one and gesturing for Liza to sit in the other. “You don’t look thrilled. Come sit. Talk.”

Liza sat and then reached for the bowl of green beans simply to occupy her hands and eyes. She snapped three as she felt the weight of two pairs of eyes on her, and then swallowed.

“Idowant to marry him, Ophelia,” she finally said as quietly as she could and still be heard. “I’m going to say yes when he asks.”

“But…” Ophelia prompted.

Liza held a bean in her hand, spinning it back and forth. “But something happened a long time ago.” She cut her eyes at Ophelia. “Like before. We were together before. I’m sure you know that.”

“I do.” Ophelia folded her hands under her chin. Sunny stuck her neck out, captivated and listening intently.

“And what happened is something I have to tell him before we commit to a marriage because there can’t be any secrets. Especially not…” Liza drew in a deep breath and looked at the bean again. “A few weeks back, he had a little too much to drink, and I drove him home. His dad was waiting for him next door.”

“They got in a fight.” Ophelia nodded. “I remember.”

“Well…before I left, his dad told me about Javier.” Liza paused and glanced at Ophelia again, whose eyes slowly began to glisten as a subtle pink tinged her nose. “Morales.”

“Yeah. That was um…” Ophelia cleared her throat. “Hard.”

“I know it had to be, and I didn’t—” Liza pinched the bean and knitted her brows hard. “He was myfriend, too. And Connor didn’t—” She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head, and then looked at Ophelia again. “That’s not the point. We discussed that, and we dealt with it, and that’s not the thing.”

Ophelia slid away the bowl of beans and placed her hand on Liza’s forearm. “What is the thing? Whatever you say stays between us.” She paused and cut her eyes to Sunny. “Right, Grammy?”

Sunny clapped her hands together. “I’m like a vault!”

Liza’s lips quirked. “So, the thing. The thing is.” She drew in a deep breath. There was no time like the present to practice for the main event, right? “About a week after he left Fort Hood, I found out I was…uh.”

Her breath caught, and she couldn’t finish the sentence. Fortunately, it was quite easy to read between the lines.

“Pregnant,” Ophelia finished for her.

Liza glanced at her and then clasped her sour stomach. “Right.” She sucked in a deep breath. “So, I tried to get a hold of him. He’d stopped calling me, and his text messages had become sporadic and angry, and they were the only thing I could go on. They made him sound like he’d turned into a completely different person. It was so abrupt and starkly different that part of me thought someone had stolen his phone or was playing a prank on me or something.”

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