Audrey for a moment. She was special, even if she didn’t see it herself. She was sharp and hardworking and deserving.
And she was no longer his student.
…
Audrey had a “date” with Ronan to meet at the Harrison Beech campus library at six thirty p.m. on Monday. He was going to take her through the class she’d missed the previous week due to canceling her enrollment, and they were going to talk about his book.
But first she had to finish her shift.
“Audrey, darling, can you come here?” Harriet called from the back.
Audrey left the Game of Stones front counter to see what her aunt needed. She found the older woman high up on a ladder, a long velvet skirt embroidered with silver stars and moons covering her feet.
“Don’t move,” Audrey said. “Why on earth are you climbing a ladder in a skirt like that? It’s all tucked under your feet!”
“Who’s the boss here?” her aunt said peevishly. “Now, take this.”
She handed Audrey a box which had “oracle cards” written across the top in black Sharpie. Hefting the heavy box with one arm, Audrey held out her other hand to help Harriet down.
“You’re going to give me a heart attack one day,” Audrey muttered. “You have no sense of occupational health and safety.”
Harriet eyed her sharply. “And you’re going to give me a heart attack one day, young lady. I know you pulled out of that class.”
Audrey’s head snapped up as her aunt walked past her into the front of the store without so much as a sideways glance. “How do you know?”
“I called the house yesterday. I was hoping to chat with Georgie but your father answered.”
Audrey carried the box out to the front counter and set it down, fetching the box cutter and dragging it along the seam. “What did he have to say?”
“That you’re an ungrateful so-and-so and that education is a waste of money.” Harriet’s eyes narrowed, and Audrey caught a rare glimpse of her aunt’s true feelings about her father. Usually, she tried to hide it. “I told my sister not to marry him, you know.”
“Why?” Audrey’s attention was ensnared. Harriet didn’t talk about her sister much, since it was so painful, and therefore Audrey had been starved of many details of her mother’s life before she had kids. “I thought he was a good man before.”
“He always had a streak of something…selfish inside him. He had a single-mindedness for his own desires.” She slid the box along the glass counter toward herself and pulled the flaps open. Inside were dozens of identical, ornately decorated card boxes. “He was a good man before because he had what he wanted, and it’s easy to be a good person when the universe is singing your song.”
Audrey leaned against the counter and reached for one of the decks. She’d seen her aunt use these decks before, whenever she was having trouble with a decision or life event. “I guess that’s true.”
“It’s how I know you’re a truly good person,” her aunt said. “With everything life has thrown at you, it would be hard to judge you for being angry or spiteful or selfish. But you’re none of those things.”
Selfish. Isn’t that what her father had called her? Isn’t that the fear she’d cradled in her mind as she crawled into bed that night with Deanna tucked in beside her? She wouldn’t stop crying because she thought Audrey wanted to leave them.
Wasn’t she being selfish worrying about her own needs and spending money they didn’t have?
“Don’t you dare listen to him.” Harriet cupped Audrey’s face. Up close, she smelled sweet and familiar, like incense and sandalwood and fresh-cut roses. Her aunt’s crystal bracelets brushed her cheek, cool and comforting. “Your father wouldn’t know goodness if it smacked him upside the head with a wet fish.”
Audrey laughed. “That’s quite an image.”
“I mean it. I heard his vitriol on the phone, so I can only imagine what he said to you.” Harriet closed her eyes, and for a moment Audrey wondered if she was in actual, physical pain. It’s certainly how it looked. “You can still come and live with me, you know. Bring the kids.”
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “Your place is tiny, and the twins are struggling enough as it is, barely having any privacy. At least Oliver has his own room at Dad’s.”
“Well…when they go off to college, then, and it’s only you and Deanna.” Her aunt’s gaze bored into her. “You can come then.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Promise me.”
Audrey