No man’s voice followed Aimee’s, just silence. Still, Jen peeked carefully around the corner, one eye scrunched shut, for fear of what she might see. But Aimee was merely sitting at the country table, head in one hand, the other pressing the phone to her ear. She was nodding and saying “Uh-huh, uh-huh. I’ll ask Jen.”
“Hey,” Jen whispered, and knocked lightly on the door frame to catch Aimee’s attention.
Aimee startled, her head snapping up. Her face turned chalk white. Her wide, terrified eyes belonged to someone who’d been caught with a bloody knife. She pulled the phone away from her mouth and stared at it like it was the murder weapon and she hadn’t realized the horror of what she’d just done.
Jen had no idea what was going on, but her stomach dropped.
She eased into the kitchen, whose light suddenly didn’t feel so soft, and pressed both hands into the back of the chair opposite her sister. “Everything okay?” she mouthed.
She could hear a garbled woman’s voice inside the phone, but no distinct words.
Aimee licked her lips and said into the receiver, “I have to go. Talk to you later.”
She hung up, her hand shaking.
“What’s going on?” Jen nodded at the phone. “What are you going to ask me?”
The back screen door opened and Ainsley pounded into the kitchen in her tiger-striped pajamas. The garage wasn’t attached to the Thistle and you had to cross the backyard to get from the apartment to the inn. “Okay, Mom, it’s nine. My turn to talk. Oh, hey, Aunt Jen.”
“Hey, Sleepy McGee.”
Aimee rose from her chair and was turning toward her daughter when Ainsley saw the silent phone on the table. “You already hung up? Crap. I wanted to tell Grandma about Bryan’s slingshot.”
“Watch your language,” Aimee said in a dull voice that lacked authority.
“Grandma?” Jen squeaked. No way. Couldn’t be . . . “Not Mom. You weren’t talking to Mom. Were you?”
Aimee brushed her dark bangs off her forehead and took forever to answer. At least she looked Jen in the eye when she did so. “Yes,” her sister said, with a forced strength cut by a clearing of her throat. “Yes, I was.”
Jen still wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. She looked to Ainsley for a second opinion, but the girl seemed as confused as Jen felt.
“What’s going on?” Ainsley asked, her big blue eyes darting between her mom and her aunt.
“Ainsley, could you go back to your room?” Aimee asked quietly.
“Can I take your phone? Call her back?”
“No.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Ainsley left, but not before Jen saw the disappointment smeared over that young face. What on earth was going on?
“Ainsley wanted to know her grandma,” Aimee said before Jen could ask. “And I thought it couldn’t hurt to try.”
Oh, Jesus. “Seriously?” Jen fell into a chair. “How long has this been going on?”
“A few years now. After we left you in New York. It started slow, a phone call every couple of months, just so they could connect, you know?”
“And now?”
“And now”—Aimee pulled out the chair she’d vacated and sat, lifting pained eyes to Jen—“It’s a weekly thing. Mom and Ainsley . . . they talk a lot.”
Jen just stared, the explanation difficult to process. Did Aimee even remember all the shit Mom had put them through? Didn’t they have the same memories, the same hurt, even if they didn’t have the same father?
“You know Ainsley,” Aimee said with an artificial laugh. “She can talk to anyone, be friends with anyone. But she wanted a grandparent, and Mom was the only one I could give her.”
In a terrible way, Jen understood. Whatever Mom had inflicted upon her and Aimee growing up, the woman was half a country away. And Ainsley wasn’t Aimee or Jen.
“It sounded like you talk to her, too,” Jen said, and Aimee nodded. Jen ground fingers into her temples. “So does she know what you’re doing with Owen?”
Aimee sat up straighter. “That’s none of your business, Jen. Owen is mine and I know what I’m doing.”
“Are you forgetting what Frank did to Mom? All those women around town, flaunting themselves in front of her? All those scenes? Do you remember bailing her out of jail for attacking that one who came to the house? Owen isn’t divorced. I heard he’s still living with his wife. You don’t think this sounds horribly familiar?”
Aimee thrust out a hand. “Stop. There is nothing to be ‘fixed’ with Owen and me. You don’t know the whole story and, honestly, it’s none of your business. Stay out of it.”
Jen wondered if Aimee kept any vodka in the freezer.
“She’s different now.” Aimee laid her hands flat on the table. “She really is.”
Jen highly doubted that. The woman had just gotten worse every year her girls had aged. “You were talking about me. She knows I’m here?”
Aimee swallowed. “Yes. She wanted to talk to you.”
Jen froze, her body welded to the chair. “She said that? In those words?”
“Well . . . no.”
A strangled laugh escaped Jen’s throat. “Of course not. Was she drunk?”
Aimee’s cheeks flushed. It was clear she wanted to say something, then gave a little shake of her head. Heavy silence weighted down the air between them. The kitchen was fogged with tension. Aunt Bev’s grandfather clock chimed the incorrect time out in the hall.
“It’s been ten years, Jen. You have no idea what she’ll say now—”
“I don’t have to know! She slurred enough the day I left for Austin. That I was ungrateful. That I was abandoning her. That I thought I was all high and mighty, but that I really wasn’t worth anything. Those are the kinds of words that stick.”
Aimee nodded sadly at the table. “I see.”
It was then Jen finally noticed the smell of cookies and the timer on the stovetop counting down the final seconds of baking. Just another normal evening for Aimee. A normal, weekly evening. The buzzer went off and Aimee rose to pull out the tray of chocolate chip.
“What did she want you to ask me? I heard you, before I came in.”
Aimee shoved a spatula under each cookie and slid them one by one onto a cooling rack before answering, her back still to Jen, “She wanted to know if you were planning on sending a check this month.”
So now Aimee knew. Jen fought against the urge to scream in frustration. To kick a chair halfway across the room. To stomp out of the house. “See? She hasn’t changed at all.”
“Jen.” Aimee finally turned around, hands braced behind her on the counter edge. “That’s not the point. You’ve been sending her money?”
Jen shook her head, but not in denial.
“If you’re so worried she’s still drunk all the time, if you hate her that much . . . why?”
Salty, stinging tears filled Jen’s eyes. The day had finally caught up with her—first facing Leith and his indifference, then clawing her way uphill with Sue, now this.
She calmly rose. “If you’re going to play the ‘that’s none of your business’ card, then here’s me, playing mine.”
Chapter
6
Leith had his bare feet kicked up on the rickety coffee table with the angel inlays and the chipped legs, TV muted and tuned to the Red Sox game he wasn’t even watching. Ten o’clock at night and Jen still wasn’t back. He knew this because he’d positioned the pink velour recliner to perfectly view her driveway and side door.
The security light over 738’s porch flicked on as Jen appeared, walking slowly, head bent, that damned purse dragging one shoulder down. She carried a brown takeout bag from the Stone in the opposite hand.