“Thanks, I, uh … yes. He is nice.”
Nice. For an English lit grad she really should do better than “nice.” It was a half-assed compliment for the so-called man of her dreams. Laurel was polite enough not to call her on it.
“Sorry the house is in such rough shape,” her mom said. “I forget sometimes how badly it needs to be fixed up.”
“Eric doesn’t care about that kind of thing. And it’s not so bad. I think he was a little impressed, even.”
Their home was impressive—from the road. Or when squinting at a great distance. It was large and white and grand, but shabby at its core, the inside comprised mostly of knotty wood and must. Billed as a “fixer” when Laurel bought it fifteen years before, there’d never been any plans for fixing.
But Laurel and Annie loved the house, even if neighbors, friends, and college boyfriends questioned its value, market or otherwise. Didn’t they know what they had out there? Everyone from inside the Beltway wanted a horse farm in Middleburg, more so given that plane-sized hole now in the Pentagon. With even the slightest effort, Goose Creek Hill could be a gold mine. The whole deal would have to be renovated stud to stud first, of course, but the place had potential.
“I do love our rambling shack,” Laurel said, frowning at the desk and the old blue book on top of it. “Even if it costs a gazillion dollars to heat.”
“Mom, you seem kind of preoccupied. Is everything okay?”
She braced herself for the answer. Because while Laurel had been perfectly pleasant to Eric, it was clear she did not approve.
“I’m fine.” Laurel lowered herself onto the green leather chair. She rubbed both eyes with the backs of her wrists. “Just anxious about our trip. Oh, Annabelle…”
“Mom. Please.”
“So you’ll go through with it?” She looked up. “This marriage?”
“That’s why I said yes when he asked me. You think I’m making a bad decision.”
“I do. But you’re in love,” Laurel said, not unkindly.
“I am. And just to put it out there, I’m not knocked up or anything.”
Laurel laughed and then more seriously added, “Have you even been together long enough to get pregnant and also realize it?”
Annie bristled, but it was a fair statement.
“I’m glad you’re happy,” Laurel said. “And Eric is a charismatic young man. A sweet Southern military boy who loves his mama—every parent’s dream.”
“So what’s the problem, then? You said it yourself. I’m happy. He’s a great guy. What more do you want?”
“God, if it were only that easy,” Laurel muttered. “It’s not that I want any one specific thing for you. I just don’t want my baby girl to choose the wrong guy, even if it’s for the right reasons.”
“You can’t name one bad thing about him,” Annie said, her voice getting high. “How can you call him the ‘wrong guy’?”
And what experience did Laurel have with right or wrong men anyway? As far as Annie knew, her mother hadn’t entertained a single significant relationship in the last twenty years. Work, horses, Annie. Annie, horses, work. No room for frivolity. No room for falling in love.
“You think I don’t know what I’m talking about,” Laurel noted. “That I’m some doddering old lady who can’t recognize a good love story when she sees one. But, believe me, I have some experience in matters of the heart.”
“Who was he?” Annie blurted.
Laurel jolted.
“Excuse me?” she said.
They never had this conversation. They danced around it. They flirted with its edges. But mother and daughter did a hero’s job of ignoring the subject of him.
The two women lived a mostly sweet life at their ramshackle farm, enjoying their good fortune and pretty views. Who he was didn’t matter. It had no bearing on their lives. Or so Annie had told herself, out loud and in her mind, ever since she was a little girl. Laurel said early and often the man wasn’t worth knowing, and so Annie took her mother’s word for it.
Until now.
“My father,” she said, as if it needed clarification. “I want to know the details.”
“The details aren’t important,” Laurel insisted, as she had a dozen times before. “He was someone I thought I knew. And he didn’t want any kind of life with us. What else do you need?”
“A name would be nice.”
“His last name was Haley.”
“Yeah, I gathered,” she said. “So why does it say ‘unknown’ on my birth certificate? You two were married. We both share his name. He is known.”
“I don’t understand why you suddenly care so much about a man who was incapable of caring about us.”
“I’m getting married. And I don’t even have the words to tell my fiancé where I came from, who I am.”