“You don’t like it?” Rhiannon asked, reading my face.
“I…well…” I drew in a deep breath. “It’s gorgeous. She loves it. So I’m really sorry to say this but this stuff is going to blow half our budget and this is the first store we’ve been to. I’m worried about—”
“This is from me.”
I wasn’t thinking that was any better.
She read that too, turned her face away and it looked like she was deciding something.
I let her, watching her and seeing Mickey did have a type.
His type was me.
Sure, Rhiannon had dark blonde hair, but she also had hazel eyes, a pretty face, she was my height (maybe an inch taller) and she was very curvy in a nice way. She wore classy clothes that were a bit edgy. She took care of herself.
In fact, watching her, I noted that now, miraculously, she didn’t look five years older than me. She looked my age. Her skin brighter, healthier, the flush from the cold outside still on her cheeks.
She interrupted my musings on Mickey’s type when she looked back to me and declared, “It’s time for honesty.”
Oh God.
We’d been together for less than an hour, Ash was off getting a cart, I wasn’t ready for honesty.
I braced.
She noticed it and her voice softened. “Not bad honesty, Amy. But honesty for me, after a while where I wasn’t honest at all, is a good thing.”
“I…okay,” I said, not knowing what else to say and not saying what I wanted to say, which was that I didn’t know what she was going to say but I still wished she wouldn’t say it.
I didn’t get my silent wish.
She started talking.
“I know it seems weird, me buying my daughter sheets and stuff for her room at her dad’s. But I have a feeling Mickey’s told you about me so I have a feeling you know I haven’t been mother of the year. Not this year, or the last, or any for a while.”
When she meant honesty, she wasn’t kidding.
I decided it best not to respond, however, I kept my expression open for her to continue.
She did.
“I have a problem,” she declared.
I fought against my mouth dropping open.
Was she saying what I thought she was saying?
“I’m working on it,” she went on. “I’ll be working on it forever but at least I’ve started working on it. When they were with me, the kids were talking about you and I knew the way you were around, knowing Mickey, that you meant something. I didn’t…that didn’t…” her voice dropped to a whisper, “that upset me.”
“Rhiannon.” I was whispering too.
She lifted her chin slightly. “They liked you. I…you were…it seemed like you were making a family. And I…I…” she shook her head, “I didn’t handle that very well. Then I missed Cill’s birthday—”
“Mickey and I weren’t even together then,” I told her quietly.
“Yes you were,” she replied.
We were. We were in the throes of a bizarre mating ritual but we were into each other. I just didn’t know it and he was fighting it.
I made no reply.
“That was…” she held my eyes, “a mother doesn’t do that, Amy. Miss her boy’s birthday.”
“No,” I agreed carefully.
She straightened her shoulders. “So I missed Cill’s birthday. Ash was slipping. And I was wallowing. Mickey and I got into it and I didn’t even know how some of the stuff I was saying was coming out. I knew he wasn’t like that. I knew he’d never do the stuff I was accusing him of doing. And when he gets angry,” she smiled a melancholy smile, “I’m sure you know, he lets loose. So, even still angry at me, when he phoned about his scene with Aisling it was dawning on me I had to wake up. Everyone was being adult about the situation, even the kids. The only one who wasn’t was me. Then I came to the house and saw you.”
I kept eye contact, unsure of what was coming.
She kept speaking.
“You were nice. You seemed comfortable there. That didn’t sit well with me either. It hurt. But you were nice. You weren’t cold or mean. You were…you were…nice.”
“I’m divorced too, Rhiannon, I have kids. I know it’s important to try to keep things good with all involved, doing that for the children. Saying that, my ex and I haven’t actually accomplished that feat,” I admitted.
“Well, I’m sorry,” she replied. “I hope that gets better. I’m actually surprised to hear it because I walked away from meeting you and I thought, if that woman could stand in the home that used to be mine and be friendly and welcoming, which had to be hard considering all that was going on, but it would always be awkward, and you did what you could not to make it that way, then what was wrong with me?”
“Rhiannon—” I started.
“I went right from there to Reverend Fletcher.”
I blinked.
She continued, “There’s a meeting at the church, Wednesday nights. I started going.”
Oh my God!