your future. Hell, on anything other than that woman.”
I shook my head. I needed to know.
Edie looked around. Her shoulders sagged with a sigh. “If we open this can of worms without telling your dad, he’ll be devastated when he finds out. And he will find out. I can’t betray him, Lu. You realize that, right?”
I looked up at her. I didn’t want to do it. Every fiber in my body didn’t want to do it, but I dug out my manipulative streak, dumping it between us on the kitchen island, baiting her. Guilt-tripping her. For the first time in my life, I did something completely selfish.
“I don’t have the money for this, Edie. Or the connections. I deserve to know.”
Edie’s teeth sank into her full lower lip. She examined her sugar-dusted fingers, her huge wedding ring catching the sunlight streaming from the large windows.
I thought about Knight. About how he refused to open his adoption case. Last time we’d spoken about it, he’d said, “I have two functioning parents with their shit together. Why would I let some random walk into my life and mess it up?”
He had a point. But Knight wasn’t like me. He didn’t need answers. He dripped validation. He was vastly loved and admired by everyone we knew.
Edie turned around, giving me her back. She braced herself on the kitchen counter, thinking. I hated myself so much for putting her in this situation.
“I’ll hire a PI, but you have a week to tell you dad,” she announced metallically. “I’m not lying to my husband, Luna.”
As a gesture of good faith, I spoke the words to her, “Thank you.”
She dipped her finger into cookie dough on the glossy marble of the counter, licking the pad of her finger thoughtfully.
“Whatever it is you’re looking for, I hope it’s peace and not a relationship. She doesn’t deserve you, Luna. She never did.”
My perfect streak of avoiding Knight (and vice versa?) ended on a Wednesday afternoon, the day before Christmas Eve. I was headed down to the dog shelter on Main Street for a pre-Christmas adoption day, one of the busiest days of the year. Clad in my checked Vans, mustard-hued beanie, boyfriend jeans, and a cropped sweater that showed a hint of abs from all the cycling I did, I hugged Eugene and Bethany, the elderly couple who ran the shelter. Eugene had white caterpillar eyebrows and wore a uniform of suspenders and hiking boots. Beth was a willowy thing who was always on the move. I’d come in before the other volunteers to help clean up, arrange the refreshments on tables, and print out leaflets for prospective adopters.
Since Eugene and Beth didn’t speak sign language, I had to type on my phone to communicate with them. I’d been volunteering with them for many years, and communicating was never an issue, but today, they were squinting at my phone more than usual, rubbing their eyes when staring at the tiny text. I hadn’t considered that they were getting older.
My heart was drenched with sorrow. I tried to open my mouth and speak. The wall had been pierced—why not try again? But nothing came out. I closed my mouth, snagged a blank page from the printer, and wrote with a thick Sharpie, I’m so sorry. Maybe I should go?
Beth ripped the page in half while it was still in my hand, snapped her fingers together, and smiled.
“Our grandson, Jefferson, studied sign language. He’s going to become a speech therapist. Let me call him.”
The last thing I wanted was someone else added to the mix. As it was, the place was going to be teeming with people, my least favorite creatures to hang out with. But I couldn’t exactly shut down the idea, either. So I watched as Beth coaxed her grandson (rather aggressively) to stop by the shelter on his way back from the gym.
Half an hour before we opened the doors to the general public, the volunteers started trickling in. They were mostly faces I recognized, but that did nothing to calm my social anxiety. Most people smiled tightly when they saw me and made themselves scarce to keep things a little less awkward—for them, not for me. Not that I cared either way, as long as I was back to being my blissfully invisible self.
I was arranging leaflets on red-clothed tables when Beth shrieked behind me and said, “Oh, lookie here! My favorite English rose.”
My blood froze in my veins. I could practically feel whatever was left