Page 14 of A Family Affair: The Plan
Sam plucked another cookie from the container, sipped his hot chocolate. “By the time I leave Mimi’s, my jeans won’t fit.” He laughed, studied the cookie in his left hand. “My scrubs probably won’t either, and they’re a loose fit.”
“I doubt that’s true.” Those hazel eyes shined with humor and a hint of curiosity. “How long do you plan to stay here? Or maybe I should ask how long it’s going to take to renovate your house?”
“Not soon enough.”
“So…did your parents want you to move back in with them?”
He didn’t miss the curiosity as though she didn’t understand what that would be like. “I told them what I planned to do before they could offer.” He lifted his mug, took another sip. “My parentsloveto offer critiques and suggestions if they think you’ve taken a wrong turn.” Sam set down his mug, blew out a deep sigh. “I just wasn’t up for them offering a play-by-play of my missteps and the necessary corrections according to Edgar and Joyce Harrington.”
“I wouldn’t like that either, but at least they care.” She paused, clutched the mug of hot chocolate and confided, “I don’t blame you for choosing this place over your parents’ house.I would have moved into a one-bedroom apartment before moving back in with my mother.”
Wow, there was some serious feeling in those words, not the touchy-feely, I-love-you-so-much kind either. “That bad, huh?”
The expression on her face said cringe and her words said never happening. “So much worse. My parents are both gone now and I’m an only child, so it’s not like I would have a home to go back to anyway.” She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated a few seconds before she continued. “My dad died when I was twelve. He went fishing, a storm came up…”
“I’m sorry.” His parents might annoy him, but he couldn’t imagine them being gone.
“Thank you. My mother never recovered from it. She shut down and became obsessed with keeping me safe and reworking my life. I wasn’t allowed to get in a car with anyone under thirty or babysit or go to the lake with friends or be a normal kid. The only reason she was okay with me going away to college was because according to her ‘the right college’ mattered.” Big sigh and a resigned, “It was all about working the plan she’d created for me, the one that provided success, protection, and lots of accolades.”
Wow, talk about a controlling mother. Hope Newland had just shown him another side of herself. Emotional. Sincere. Vulnerable. “No happiness tucked in there?”
A shake of her head, a quiet “Happiness for its own sake was frivolous and inconsequential, at least that’s what my mother claimed. If it were a side benefit from the other achievements, then it had merit and could be deemed acceptable.”
Sam tried to separate her feelings from her mother’s beliefs and when he couldn’t he asked, “But you don’t buy that nonsense…do you?” She’d grown very still, her face pale. “Hope? Do you believe happiness doesn’t count?”
The woman who’d become more of a mystery since the first time he met her, locked her gaze with his, eyes bright. “Sometimes I guess I do.” She bit her bottom lip, said in a soft voice, “It’s easier to protect yourself from getting hurt so you won’t be disappointed when the reality doesn’t meet your expectations.”
Boy, the mother sure messed her up. No wonder she hid under the buttoned-up persona. “I get that, but everybody deserves a shot at finding their own definition of happiness—not their parents’.”
“Is that what you did?”
He’d never heard anyone question the right to their own happiness and maybe that’s why he answered her. “I tried and I thought I’d found it, but all I did was buy into someone else’s vision of what I should want.” Oh yes, Celeste had laid it all out for him with her sultry voice and sophisticated style. And she’d been wrong, but he’d been more wrong to listen to her.
“I see. That sounds as bad as ignoring your right to be happy.”
It was actually much worse but he couldn’t admit that one to her, not when he could barely admit it to himself. “It carries its own problems, damages relationships, sometimes kills them.” Like the one between Sam and his father…was their relationship salvageable?Time would tell and right now it could go either way. This topic had gotten too deep and he had to find a way out. Sam grabbed onto the next question that flitted through his brain. “So, do you live in the same town where you grew up?” The mother sounded like she’d been a nut job… Was she behind the pearls and designer labels?
“No.” A shake of her head, a deep sigh, and then she shared information he figured she may later regret. “I live in Alexandria, Virginia, but I grew up in Ohio. I haven’t been back there since I finished college. Too many reminders.” A shake ofher head and a laugh. “I have a hard enough time keeping my mother’s ‘voice’ quiet. I do not need physical reminders of a past I’d rather forget.”
What to do with that admission? Sam should keep quiet, but the words fell out before he could stop them. “Do you think she needed professional help?” He’d been willing to go to counseling with Celeste, share his feelings with a stranger and he hated sharing touchy-feely stuff with people he didn’t know. But he would have done it for the woman he loved. Celeste wasn’t interested.We’re so far past that, Sam. I don’t know how you can’t see that.
Hope stared at him as if he’d asked her if she thought the sun was yellow. “Of course she needed help, but guess what? It was never going to happen, because my mother didn’t think she had a problem. Oh, no, it was everyone else who had the problem.” She leaned back in her chair, eased her hands around her mug. “She was petrified of getting hurt again and built walls so no one could ever get close to her again—not even me. Play the protection game she said; keep your heart safe. It will be much easier to initiate damage control when the other person hurts you, dies on you, or leaves. And according to my mother, sadness and despair were always on the horizon, just a blink away. That philosophy really messed up my idea of what a relationship should look like. I could never one-hundred-percent commit, because who wanted to risk getting hurt like that?” She darted a glance at him, eyes wide. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud. Can you pretend you didn’t hear that?”
No, he was never going to forget that piece of information because it could come in handy in the next few weeks. Hope Newland was an interesting puzzle, one he’d like to solve. In some ways, she reminded him of himself. Floundering. Lost. Trying to pretend she had it all together. If he figured her out,maybe that would provide insight into his own issues…where he was headed, and how to get over the past… Or not.
Sam smiled, raised a brow. “Forget? Probably not, but I won’t bring it up unless you do.” The frown said she didn’t like that answer. “Look, I know what it’s like for people to dissect you and assume they know what you’re thinking when they don’t have a clue. Trust me, I’m not going to do that to you. We’re having an after-midnight snack, raiding Mimi’s cookies, which I’m sure she’ll discover in the morning and that’s it. We’re just two people who landed in spots we never pictured ourselves in and we’re trying to figure our way out.”
Those hazel eyes grew bright, shimmered. “Yes, yes, that’s exactly correct.”
A nod and then he eased the cookies toward her. “So, let’s talk about something else. Do you want to hear about the dog who stole a dozen half-frozen meatballs from the kitchen counter while his family was at the grocery store?”
Equal amounts dread and curiosity sifted through her next words. “I don’t know… Do I?”
“Yeah. I think you do.” Sam laughed, pictured Harry Blacksworth telling the tale of how his wife and kids returned from Sal’s market with rolls for meatball subs and the meatballs had disappeared!
With that, the mood shifted, and they were on equal ground again, but something changed that night and he knew it. And he bet the woman sitting across from him knew it, too.
7
