When I walk out of Adam’s room, I verify that there are definitely voices coming from downstairs, and it’s not from the television—I know because we didn’t have time to set it up last night. See: sexual activities.
I make it halfway down the stairs before I identify who’s talking.
Adam’s mother.
Son of a—
“I was just as shocked as you are. I mean, she just showed up on my front porch! What was I supposed to do?”
“Put her on the first plane back to Chicago,” Adam responds in frustration.
I want to scurry back up the stairs, but now I’m close enough to know for sure that there are fresh baked goods in that kitchen. My love of warm carbs outweighs my ability to heed social cues. Maybe they can keep on having their private conversation as I slink in, load up a plate, and slither right back upstairs.
“Madeleine! I had no idea you were here.”
I freeze on the bottom stair as Diane takes in my dirty attire, my ruffled hair, and the hickey I just now remembered. I slap my hand up to cover it and she winks.
“Oh, yeah…” I fumble for a reasonable excuse. “I was just checking up on Adam to make sure he, uhh, knows where all the light switches are.”
Adam shakes his head and laughs.
His mom arches a brow, humoring me. “What a fancy outfit for a Sunday morning.”
I shrug. “Oh, you know, just because it’s the day of rest doesn’t mean you can’t dress for success!”
I can drop the act. I’m not fooling anyone, not even Mouse. He’s sitting beside Diane, staring at me with what I swear is a knowing grin.
“I think you have a sock stuck to your shoulder,” she points out.
It’s actually a pair of socks, and they’re Adam’s. I peel them off slowly and lay them down on the counter. I think momentarily of making a Dobbie is a free elf joke, but I think the timing is all wrong. Instead, I smile awkwardly and shrug.
“Mom, Madeleine isn’t here on real estate business. She’s my girlfriend. For real this time.”
GIRLFRIEND.
Take that, Daisy.
I offer Diane a smile, but I know it more closely resembles the straight-mouthed, teeth-clenched emoji I employ in moments of panic.
Diane slaps a hand to her chest and feigns shock. “What?! No. I could never have possibly guessed that.”
I drop my hand from my neck. There’s no point in trying to keep up appearances at this point.
“If I’d known you were here, I would have tried to make myself a little more presentable,” I admit sheepishly.
“I think you look great. My son, on the other hand, could use a shower.”
I glance over and smile. Adam is leaning back against the kitchen counter in a t-shirt and pajama pants. His light brown hair is sticking up in every direction, and he looks sleepy and adorable. I would maul him if his mother wasn’t standing ten feet away.
“Long night?” she asks, and I turn into a strawberry.
“Mom, why do you ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to?”
“Because I like to watch you squirm,” she says with a confident smile.
“Could I maybe steal one of those pastries?” I ask, pointing to the light pink box on the counter. If I’m going to be subjected to interacting with my boyfriend’s mother this early on a Sunday, I need to do it while I lick icing off a cinnamon roll.
She pushes the box toward me and then passes me a paper plate. “Take as many as you’d like. I brought them for you.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know she was here,” Adam points out.
Diane grins. “I’m not half as naive as you seem to think I am, son.”
He nods. “Noted.”
I take a bite of pastry and silence falls across the kitchen. I’m reminded of the conversation I interrupted with my arrival. After I finish my first bite, I tell them I’ll be on the porch with Mouse. Neither one of them tries to follow me. Clearly, they have something to finish discussing. Unfortunately, even outside, I can hear every word. The French doors do nothing to muffle the discussion about Olivia.
I gather up the details I missed while I was sleeping. Olivia apparently showed up unexpectedly at Diane’s house last night. Diane let her in and gave her the guest room to sleep in for the night, a fact that makes me want to crush my cinnamon roll in the palm of my hand. I resist, though, because…cinnamon roll.
“What does she want?” Adam asks.
“To talk to you, of course.”
He laughs and it sounds scary, menacing. “There’s a little thing called a telephone. If she wanted to talk, she had the last five months to call me.”
“She assumed you wouldn’t answer.”
“Well she was right about that,” he says. “I probably wouldn’t have.”
“She brought Molly.”
His beloved dog.
“Why the hell would she do that? Some kind of guilt trap?”
His mom tries to calm him down. “I don’t know what she wants to talk to you about, but if you want me to tell her you aren’t open to it, I will. However, I’m going to give you some advice that I think you should take to heart. You and Olivia left things in shambles. There was no closure, no little bow to tie up loose ends. Those are the things that haunt you when you get to be my age. If you want to move on, to leave Olivia in the past, I think you should have a conversation with her, in person. If you react in anger now, I think you’ll regret it down the line.”
NO. No you won’t!
I hate Diane. I fling her cinnamon roll out into the pasture—I will not eat the bread of my enemies, and that’s exactly what she is if she wants Adam to sit down with Olivia. He loved her for so many years. God, he probably still loves her. If they see each other, all those feelings are going to come flooding back, and the fact that she brought Molly—that underhanded bitch knew exactly what she was doing. I stomp out into the pasture and kick the cinnamon roll another ten feet. It feels good to demolish something, though I am now admittedly starving.
A few minutes later, when Adam shouts for me to come back inside, his mom is gone. Her stupid pastries still sit on the counter, but I’m not even a little tempted to take a new one.
“So apparently Olivia showed up at my mom’s house last night,” he volunteers.
He’s getting ready to relay all the information I already know from snooping, so I hold up my hand to stop him. “I could hear you guys talking, even from out there.”
“She thinks I should talk to her.”
I can’t meet his eyes. I stare down at Mouse, who is blissfully unaware of what it feels like to have your heart sliced down the middle.
“And are you going to?”
He drags a hand through his hair and turns away. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess. She came all the way from Chicago.”
My stomach churns.
“You should,” I say, and the words taste like acid on my tongue.
“You think?”
I shrug. “Closure is always a good thing, right?”
“I don’t love her anymore, Madeleine.”
I finally meet his gaze and find that he’s been studying me, his head tilted to the side. There might even be pity in his eyes. I suddenly want to get the hell out of Dodge.
“I know—I mean, I don’t know, but it’s…” I shake my head, trying to clear my scrambled thoughts. “You should do whatever you think is right.”