Page 19 of That Reilly Boy
CARA
Yes. And he has an adorable dog.
MEL
NO. That’s very bad. Do you remember when you cried so hard you blew a blood vessel in your eye and looked like something out of a horror movie? You’re not doing that again.
CARA
I just want him to buy the house, Mel.
MEL
Gin will never.
She’s not wrong, but I’m not ready to give up hope yet.
CARA
Maybe not, but I got free Chicken Parmesan out of it. And cheesecake.
MEL
If anything else happens, you better tell me IMMEDIATELY.
CARA
I will. Gotta go.
“Who was that?” Gin demands when I slide the phone into my pocket so I can wipe down the stove.
“Mel,” I say, even though I’m not a teenager and it’s none of her business who I’m talking to. But I’d like to put an end to her sulking, not make it worse.
She makes a sound that implies she doesn’t believe me. “I don’t like you running around with that Reilly boy.”
I laugh, even though I know it’s the wrong thing to do. “First of all, he’s not a boy. And secondly, I’m not going to refuse to talk to a man I like because my great-great-grandfather stole his great-great-grandfather’s girlfriend. It’s ridiculous.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“Then explain to me why you won’t sell a house we can’t afford to keep up anymore to Hayden Reilly even though his offer is more than generous. There has to be a reason beyond a very old family grudge and a promise you made to Dad even he knew you wouldn’t be able to keep.”
“Cara, why can’t you leave this alone?”
“Because we sell the house or we lose the house, Mom.” I’m done dancing around the subject. “We can barely pay our bills now, even though we keep the heat so low in the winter, we have to wear heavy cardigans and wool socks. And it’s decaying. The house is falling apart and someday it’ll reach a point where we can’t live in it anymore, but it’ll be too decrepit to sell. Assuming we haven’t lost it for back taxes by then.”
Gin looks startled by my tone—or maybe by the hard facts—and I have to fight back guilt. There’s no reason for me to feel guilty. It would be worse to let my mother keep pretending everything is okay until the moment we actually lose everything. Making her understand our circumstances are dire is the right thing to do.
“What’s your plan, Mom?” I ask, wanting to dump some of the emotional and mental responsibility back on her shoulders. “Are you hoping we’ll win the lottery? That’ll be tough since we can’t spare the cost of the tickets and you have to play to win. How do you see this playing out?”
Gin lifts her chin. “In a perfect world, you’ll marry some guy from Sumac Falls. You’ll live here and fix it up and fill it with children, and I’ll have a little mother-in-law’s space until I die. Then it’ll be yours.”
I don’t even know how to respond to that. We can’t even use the third floor because we can’t afford to heat it, and we have a window we can’t open because we’re afraid too much pressure will make it fall out of the wall. But she thinks somebody’s going to want to marry me enough to put all of his money into updating this house? To say nothing of renovating some part of it into a little apartment for his mother-in-law?
I know most of the men in Sumac Falls and I’m more likely to win the lottery. And since I wasn’t kidding about not spending my money on buying tickets, that says a lot.
“That’s not going to happen,” I say firmly. “I’ve lived here my entire life and I’ve yet to meet a man I want to marry. I don’t have the time or energy to date. And even if I do somehow meet a guy I’m interested in, do you really think he’s going to want to sink his money into this house and supporting you?
“It could happen.”
