Page 57 of Henhouse
“And you’re willing to throw what we have away for someone you haven’t even met yet?”
“Bug is as real as we are,” Brayden said between gritted teeth, andif she wasn’t clawing for the salvation of their relationship she might have swooned at the protective edge that sharpened his voice.
“Yes, but Bug’s not here yet. We have time to fix this before that happens. Let me fix this.” Hope thought she might have received a full pardon after everything they’d already discussed. Perhaps it had been naive to think that his understanding of her actions and the fears that led to them meant that he would also forgive them. But she thought he just needed space to clear his head. She didn’t realize he’d taken that time to build a fortress to keep her out. The irony that she had done the same mere weeks ago was not lost on her. She let loose a dark laugh before burying her face in her hands.
“You once asked me if we could choose to be happy,” Brayden started tentatively. “I wanted to say yes, but it’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is,” Hope argued but she knew she lost this battle. She might as well be bleeding out with a sword through her heart.
“I can’t just choose happy. I can’t keep being blindsided. I need security right now, Hope. It’s the only way I know how to start off on the right foot with Bug. Please, let me do that. Let me focus on you and the baby as a dad. Not as Brayden. Not as us. Please.”
“Is that forever?”
His hesitation was healing magic for her battered soul. It was a tattered shred, but it was still hope. “It’s just what I need.”
He hung his head, a crack in the wall showing his weariness and words he wouldn’t dare say tonight. Hope pushed aside the goading inner voice that wanted to unravel his stoic facade, and merely said, “Okay.”
The next morning, Effie snuck into the house well before anyone would be awake. There was no shame in her return, but she valued her sanity and her privacy, so she didn’t dare walk in on a group of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed meddlers. Instead, she crept up the stairs past the many school portraits and family photos that lined the wall and let herself into Hope’s room.
Effie’s heart dropped as she read the room.
Used tissues littered the floor and the comforter. Hope still had one in the viselike grip of her hand as she slept, mouth agape, her red-rimmed nose probably stuffed beyond breathing. Whatever joy Effie had come to share stalled out before it left her lips, and she charged for Hope’s side instead.Her eyes were puffy as they fluttered open. Hope leaned into Effie’s embrace as the tears threatened an encore. “It’s too late. I lost him.”
“Then he’s an absolute idiot,” Effie asserted, her high opinion of Brayden be damned. If he couldn’t come to welcome Hope’s love, he didn’t deserve it.
“He’s not though.” Hope sniffled. She pulled back and rubbed her weary eyes. “He made a lot of sense. It just wasn’t what I wanted.”
“But you two love each other,” Effie said incredulously. How it wasn’t enough to draw them back together was puzzling, upsetting, fear-inducing.
“Bug is more important. That’s what he wants to focus on. Whatever he felt for me pales in comparison to his sense of responsibility.”
Effie nearly popped a blood vessel trying to refrain from rolling her eyes. “How romantic,” she scoffed, but she had to admit that it was admirable to put the baby first, even if it left Hope weeping all night.
“Don’t hate him, Effie,” Hope pleaded and Effie startled. “He doesn’t deserve it and it isn’t worth your energy to be mad at him. We’re moving forward with what’s important.”
Effie nodded, but it was no small change for Hope to be so open. Love had done that.Braydenhad done that. Where Hope had clung to her rage or her hurt in the past to prove a point or to protect herself, she was now surrendering it for something greater. If only she and Brayden could see how much they’d done for each other because Effie clearly remembered the man who laid his heart bare to her over candle wax and charcuterie. And this didn’t sound like him.
Effie kept all that to herself, not presuming to know how babies and parenthood changed things, but she decided to carry the torch of faith for the both of them that they’d be reunited. She owed it to them as her own newfound happiness had sparked with their hearts daring to love in the first place.
Later that afternoon, Effie wandered to the hobby room. Aunt Bea sat behind her drawing desk studying her extensive portfolio of watercolors. Effie dipped into the chair opposite the desk and peered over at the pile of perfect paintings.
“Whatcha doin’?” Effie asked, her voice singsongy with the joy she’d suppressed in Hope’s presence.
“Trying to decide if I’m finished.”
“Finished?” Effie was startled. She didn’t think Beatrice had an end goal in mind, not when she’d had Effie and everyone else sit for multiple portraits over the years.
“Yes. I want to share them, I think.”
“At a gallery? Or would you make a book or something?” Therewere all kinds of options for the portraits from a live show to a coffee table book of faces to postcards of Issa the parrot.
“I think a gallery might be fun, but I’d have to rent it out myself of course. They wouldn’t be accepted into an existing show.”
“Pish posh.” Effie huffed. “They’d be accepted.”
Aunt Bea waved her off. She pulled her bifocals from her nose and rubbed the bridge like she was warding off a headache. Her face turned pensive as she scoured the pile once more. “I was too afraid to be seen for so long. I missed out I think.”
“What do you mean?”
