“So Bobby never told you anything about this? He never hinted to you that he was unhappy with . . . with the marriage?” That felt easier than saying, “with me.”
“Are you fucking nuts? I wouldn’t keep something like that from you.” Olive cocked her head and did this thing she did with her lips, like she was blowing a smoke ring, even though she’d quit smoking years ago. The smoke ring was her unspoken way of saying, I think that what you just said was full of shit. “He may be my brother, but you’re my best friend, Cami. You were my sister long before you married him.” She set down her wineglass with a clink. “That jackass is going to make me tell our mother, the damn baby. For Christ’s sake, is he just going to let everyone show up here for the party? Shit. He doesn’t deserve a damn party.”
I agreed wholeheartedly.
Olive paced the kitchen. Her ring caught the light and sent sparkles across one wall.
“Your ring. Let me see it.”
She hid her left hand with her right. “I feel bad . . . under the circumstances . . .”
“Don’t be silly. You have something monumental to celebrate. Your happiness doesn’t mean you care about me any less. Now let me see the damn ring.”
She showed me. “It was so perfect. He actually got down on one knee at Fountain Square.”
“And I take it you said yes?”
She beamed. “When we got back to the room at the bed-and-breakfast, there was champagne and roses. He thought of everything. He made it wonderful.”
She slid down on the floor, her back to the cupboards. She patted the floor beside her, but Max moved into the place first, so I sat on the other side, my head on her shoulder. We looked up at the glasses we’d left on the counter. Neither of us had the energy to retrieve them.
We sat that way for several minutes before she said, “I would do anything for you, Cami. What do you need most right now?”
“I need to sleep. I can’t sleep. I’m a zombie.”
“I can remedy that.” Olive stood, then held out her hand and hauled me up. She directed me into a hot shower. When I emerged, she had lotion ready and warm. I crawled into bed and lay on my stomach. Olive massaged my neck and shoulders with her miraculous hands. She expressed dismay over my wounded arm and put her hands on it in a magical way, soothing it better than any painkiller or ice.
Olive kneaded the bruised tenderness in my muscles, working them loose and fluid again. Before long I drooled. And blinked. Unable to hold my eyes open, I drifted off into blissful sleep.
I WOKE UP LATER TO ANXIOUS SORROW AND A RACING heart. I was buried under quilts and blankets, Gingersnap sprawled on my chest, snoring her slightly fishy breath into my face.
It was nearly 1 a.m. My massage had to have been around 7:30 or so. This was the longest I’d slept since Bobby walked out. I got up and dressed. Gingersnap stayed in bed, but Max followed me as I stood in Gabriella’s doorway listening to her deep, sleeping breaths. I felt guilty for missing her return, missing the chance to wish her good-night.
I thought about going to the barn but was stopped by a childhood memory of standing in the shadows, watching my mother, in her nightgown, weeping in the barn lot.
You’re not like her. You’re strong. You don’t need him.
I hadn’t eaten and was ravenous, but most of the containers in the fridge were full of food Bobby had made. Knowing it was melodramatic, I emptied every last one of them into the sink and forced the mess down the disposal with a wooden spoon. Pesto. Seafood risotto. His fried polenta I craved like a junkie every time I had my period. Some old rigatoni. I wouldn’t eat his food. I didn’t need anything from him.
That bastard left me. For a girl. The same age as Helen’s daughter, Holly, for God’s sake! I’d put up with his bitchy moodiness! I’d walked on eggshells around him! I’d offered to support him, and all the while he was fucking a waitress? Okay, she was only a waitress at my suggestion, but that thought made me shove the food down the drain until the disposal’s motor groaned.
When I turned off the disposal I almost shrieked as someone rapped on the front door.
Max barked once, then stopped.