A Magnolia Friendship - Anne-Marie Meyer

1

Shari

The package sitting on my dresser was hard to ignore. It was as if a giant dragon had perched itself there and was staring at me, daring me to pick it up. It looked innocent enough. The light-brown paper with the black lettering shouldn’t be as intimidating as it felt. But in its plain appearance, it mocked me. I knew exactly what it held inside.

My divorce papers.

I sighed as I finished buttoning up my shirt and pulled my hair out of the ponytail it had been in all day. My soft brown hair swished at my shoulders. In an effort to reinvent myself, I’d allowed Clementine to convince me to visit Mia at Clip and Snip, the local stylist here in Magnolia.

She’d done a fabulous job trimming the dead and fraying ends that I’d allowed to accumulate while I was going through the drama with Craig. Getting it cut felt symbolic for what I’d done when I walked out on Craig the night I discovered exactly why our marriage was failing.

When I’d discovered the other woman.

Freeing myself from the damage he caused helped me see the kind of person I wanted to be, even though I wasn’t that person yet. Going from an intact family to a broken one was never going to be simple—I knew that—but I just hadn’t anticipated how soul-crushing it would be.

Seeing Bella tear up and Tag close down when I told them that their dad was moving out and living across the bridge was enough for me to fear that I’d made the wrong choice. It was almost enough for me to drag Craig’s sorry butt back here and attempt to make it work.

But then the memory of living under the same roof as my cheating husband washed over me, and I pushed those thoughts from my mind. Instead of getting back together, I was going to figure out how to make my new normal work for my family.

It wasn’t ideal. But I was going to make sure that my children never wanted for anything. They were my world, and I was going to make sure that they knew that. Every day.

After slipping on my sandals, I opened my door and made my way out to the kitchen. The sound of Jake and Clementine’s laughter mixed with Bella’s was like music to my ears. Tonight was a book club meeting, and Jake had offered to watch the kids so that Clementine and I could have a night out.

It’d been three months since he’d moved back home. Once I’d decided to leave Craig and Jake had decided that he couldn’t live without Clementine, we’d spent most of the summer camping and fishing with the kids. It had been nice having them around. They helped me feel less lonely and isolated. They forced me out even if I didn’t want to go.

Clementine was consumed with getting her dance studio together, and Jake was learning the ropes of the hardware store he was going to take over. I was happy that they both had found a place to put down roots and a person to love. They were happy, and if I were completely honest, I was jealous of that happiness.

Was I ever going to feel that way again?

“Uh oh.” Jake’s teasing smile popped up in front of me. I blinked a few times as I brought my thoughts back to the present.

“What?” I asked as I whacked his arm.

Jake pulled back, pinching his lips and shaking his head. “Nothing. Nothing,” he repeated.

I shot him a dirty look as I crossed the kitchen and pulled open the fridge to grab out a bottle of orange juice. I was in the middle of pouring when he made his way over to me. Just as I set my glass down, his arm wrapped around my shoulders, and suddenly, I was being pulled into a side-crushing hug.

I wiggled, but when I realized there was no way I was going to be able to escape his embrace, I relaxed and turned to glare at him. “Can I help you?” I asked. Even though I enjoyed having him around, I didn’t enjoy the fact that, every so often, he looked at me as if to ask “Everything okay?”

It only made me realize that, perhaps, I wasn’t okay. And then all of my doubt, all of my worry, would creep up, causing butterflies to attack my stomach and take over my nerves.

It was as if he were sawing at the very thin thread that was