“You have?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” she replied. “I thought I told you that.”
Cadence shook her head.
“So because you’re my granddaughter, I can be blunt with you.”
“Uh oh.” Cadence braced herself.
“You’ve let anger and bitterness twist your heart, Cadence. It’s made you an ugly person. You’ve gone so far backwards that I fear I’ll have to teach you how to walk again.”
Cadence hung her head.
“I tell you this because I love you very much. I care for you. I don’t want to see you in pain. It hurts me to see you like that. It hurts me more to watch you try to cover it up with bad decisions.”
“How do you—”
“Doesn’t matter how I know. And no one is talking about you, so relax. I feel it in your bones.” Fanny stroked her arm. “Relax.”
Cadence took a deep breath.
“Mark was wrong to keep his past from you. He should have been honest from the beginning. He should have allowed you the chance to understand him. He was selfish to only give you one part. He knows that.”
Cadence said nothing.
“But you must let go of your feelings of betrayal. They’re like a cancer, spreading throughout your body, taking over all the goodness. If you don’t fight it, you’ll die in that darkness. You’ll destroy all the goodness in your life.”
“I can’t let it go,” Cadence whispered.
“Because you’re not asking for help,” Fanny replied.
“Whose help? I don’t want Mark’s help. Avery’s help. I love you, Fanny, but I don’t even want your help.”
Fanny chuckled. “Honey, none of us could help you if we tried.”
Cadence looked at her confused.
“What? Like a therapist? I should go to therapy?”
“I don’t think a therapist could help you either.”
Realization spread over Cadence’s face, lighting it up for a half-second before a scowl clouded the brightness.
“I don’t wanna talk to God,” she mumbled.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I think he’s indifferent.”
“Do you really think that? Because I suspect that when you lie in bed at night crying and feeling awful for the way you’re treating the people you love, that’s God speaking to you. That’s God being very involved in your life, your heart.”
Cadence shrugged.
“You have a hope that you refuse to cling to when it’s right there for you, waiting for you to reach out to it. Why are you refusing it?”
“Because I hurt.”
“Do you not think he knows that? Do you not think he feels what you feel?”
“I don’t know.” Cadence wanted to cry. She’d wanted to cry for weeks now, but the anger squelched her tears. She was a walking zombie, void of anything human.
“You won’t find a greater love to heal your pain, honey. You know that. I understand you’ve gotta go through this—feel what you’re feeling. But don’t let it destroy you. Search for the forgiveness because it’s still inside of you.”
“Avery said that I’m mostly upset about Mark having a wife, not that he kept it from me. She said it’s because I realize if she’d never died, I wouldn’t be with him.”
Fanny squeezed her arm. “Well, how do you feel about that?”
“I think she’s right, and I hate her for it,” Cadence said softly.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Cadence,” Fanny warned. “The ‘what if’ game. That’ll get you nowhere.”
“I know.”
“His circumstances were by design. So were yours. You were destined to be together. That’s what I believe. So there’s no room there for ‘what if’? Shouldn’t even be a fleeting thought.”
“He’s still in love with her!”
“In love? There’s a big difference between being in love with someone and loving her.”
“And what’s the difference?” Cadence asked. They found an empty park bench and took a seat.
“I think being in love takes two. You fall in love with another person because of the way he makes you feel or because of the little discoveries you make about each other. It’s a reciprocal thing. To be in love, you’ve gotta experience it back and forth. You following this?”
Cadence nodded.
“But loving someone doesn’t require the other person to do a damn thing. People love others who don’t even know they exist. It’s personal and private—to love someone. And it’s not selfish. You aren’t expecting something from that other person. You love him because that’s your gift.”
Cadence remembered something from her past. “Mark said a long time ago that his love for me wasn’t conditional—that he doesn’t love me because I love him.”
Fanny smiled. “Then what the hell are you doing, Cadence? People would give their right arms to have someone tell them those exact words. He loves you! Forgive him.”
Cadence rubbed her forehead.
Fanny took a breath. “So those are the differences between being in love and loving. Mark can’t possibly be in love with Andy because she’s no longer here to reciprocate. Be he’s sure as hell in love with you. AND he loves you. So if I were you, I’d pay attention to that.”