Page 42 of My Favorite Lost Cause
There’s a tick of silence, one that sets my heart beating in my throat. “But why?”
There’s so much embedded in thatwhy.
She’s sayingWhy does he suddenly matter to you? I sense drama, and this is something I could get upset about!
“Mom, it’s not a big deal. I like house renovations, and he needed help.”
“Where are yousleeping?” she asks, and this question isn’t innocent either. Her tone implies that I’m not simply in the same bed with Charlie but actively sleepingonhim, with his penis wedged inside me all night long.
I sigh heavily. “Jesus, Mom,” I hiss, glancing over my shoulder to confirm that Charlie’s still not in the vicinity. “I have my own cottage. Charlie has his own too.”
“Keep it that way,” she warns. “You could ruin everything if you…”
She trails off without specifying, but I’m pretty sure I can figure out the rest of the sentence on my own. “I know, Mom. I know. God, what do you think of me? I just told my husband I want a divorce twelve hours ago.”
“I think you’re single and so is he,” she replies, “and that leads nowhere good. That’s what I think. You shouldn’t be down there. You need to come up here and get your career back on track.”
She’s probably right. I’ve got nothing now. No home and no idea what happens after South Carolina, and the timing of it is really not great, with Kit’s upcoming engagement. I know her—she’s going to feel guilty and there’ll be nothing I can say that will entirely erase it.
And yet, despite all this, I’m sort of…happy? I think perhaps it’s just a break from all the worry—about ticking biological clocks, and where my future is headed, and angering a man who couldn’t be pleased. Most of those things arestilla concern. But for right now, I’ve got my puppies and I’ve got Charlie, and the whole world just feels as if it’s finally been set right.
22
MAREN
I’m woken by Echo and Narcy yipping at the window. Charlie’s outside, tying his shoes as he prepares to run along the path.
I open the French door and step onto the little deck. “I think the puppies want to come with you.”
“Hard pass, unless you’ve had them on an intensive cardio regimen for at least a year.”
“They’re barely a year oldnow.”
“I guess that’s a no then,” he says, putting in his AirPods and vanishing down the path. He’ll come around to them eventually, I’m sure.
“I guess it’s just us, guys,” I tell them. “You want to go for a run?”
I change into jogging clothes and head in the same direction Charlie went a few moments prior. The puppies crap out before we’re ten minutes from the house, but I’m sort of relieved because I was exhausted five minutes in.
I need to get back into shape. I need to do a whole lot of things—get my career on track, remember what it’s like toenjoy myself, get to the point where I can run a few miles without wanting to die.
But the most pressing voice, the one I’m fighting myself to ignore, tells me to find a replacement for Harvey as soon as possible.
Sure, I could pursue IVF on my own, or adopt, but I watched my mother raise kids solo and it isn’t ideal. Which leaves me stuck finding someone new, the sooner the better, and it’s haste like that which can lead to disastrous choices. I almost wound up with Harvey, a man who’d give away my dogs to punish me, and I wasn’t evenhastywhen I chose him.
I shower and meet Charlie in the kitchen for breakfast. I love these mornings with him, drinking coffee, watching him eat, bathing in that quiet smile of his when he glances up from his empty plate.
My phone buzzes on the table and I ignore it, lifting my mug instead. Harvey’s been relentless for the past day. Sometimes he sort of apologizes. Most of the time he calls me a whore and details the pornographic things he assumes I’m doing with Charlie down here. I thoughtIwas the one of us with an imagination, but Harvey’s puts mine to shame.
When my phone and Charlie’s buzz with a text at the same time, I’m terrified to even look. It’s one thing to read it myself. It’ll be another entirely if Charlie knows what’s being said.
But it isn’t a message from Harvey. It’s from Kit.
Kit
I’m engaged! And I didn’t even run away this time!
This is followed by a picture of her beside Miller at Everest, holding up the ring to the light. Charlie’s gaze darts to me, as if he’s assessing how this information hit.
