Page 11 of Kiss From A Rose

She put her hand on mine.

I sat beside her on the bed, and in that moment, I felt an intimacy that I had only ever shared with Gray. Over the years, Malou and I had slept side by side many times—during childhood sleepovers, when I visited her as an adult, and she had no spare room, and more recently, through her chemotherapysessions. Each instance had woven a deep connection between us, rooted in countless shared moments of support and vulnerability.

"They have no way to reach me," I pointed out to her.

"Youdid that so you didn't have to feel bad if they didn't call you."

I took a deep breath. "I don't know how I went wrong with the kids that they see me like Gray does, a burden."

"You've never ever been that, Rose. You're the kindest person I know. Your family is a bunch of shits who I hope will realize now what they lost. I'm really hopin' they come back and find you while I'm still alive. Cause you deserve that, and I deserve to dish out a can of whoop ass on that man of yours."

I rubbed my face with both hands and got out of bed. I stretched and rotated my shoulder.

"Or maybe you can find a young buck to take some of your edge off," Malou cackled.

I grinned. "You think I'll make a good cougar, Miss Malou?"

"Yeah. I mean, look at you. You're nearly forty, and you got a bangin' body and tits. And then there's your face."

"I have wrinkles and stretch marks, and I feel about a million years old," I confessed. "Now, why don't you get some rest, and I'll start on the bread."

Malou served fresh bread at the B&B for breakfast. She used to work the dough the night before, but the past year, she'd been ordering bread from a nearby bakery and whining about it not being good enough. Now that I was here, I wanted to make sure her home smelled of baking just the way she liked it.

She'd fallen silent, and I realized she was sleeping. She dozed off a lot. I set her iPad on the bedside table, where she continued reading her smutty romance novels—bless her heart. I pulled her duvet up over her shoulders and then turned off the televisionand the lights, leaving her to rest so she could live another day as fully as possible.

CHAPTER 6

Gray

It felt like someone had died.

The kids and I hadn't heard from Rose for a whole week. Christmas was three weeks away, and there was absolutely no cheer in my heart. The house was without a soul, just me, half alive, puttering around.

I returned every day from work, hoping this would be the day she came back.

"Dad, let her figure out her mid-life crisis slash nervous breakdown, and then she'll come home," Jude told me callously over the phone.

"Cut it out, Jude. I'm serious. You're fuckin' disrespectful of your mother."

"What?"

"He's right, Jude," Willow said on the group call. "Mama doesn't deserve this. We haven't treated her well. Mike mentioned that he wasn't surprised Mama left."

"Your boyfriend met Mamaonce," Jude countered.

"Yeah, and that was enough for him to see that we didn't treat her well. He said he talked to her and found her fun and interesting and was surprised that we didn't engage with her…except…."

"Except when, Will?" Jude asked.

"I'm so ashamed, Daddy. Mike remembered that you were talking about Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mama said that she'd been to one of his houses, and it was too stark for her liking. Jude said she didn't understand his style because she didn't attend college."

"I didn't say that," Jude said defensively.

"Mike remembers it word-for-word, Jude. You said,I don't think you can appreciate his genius, Mama, because you didn't study it like I did at school. I mean, did you even finish high school?And then the topic changed. Mike said Mama had been shell-shocked and then got up to bring something from the kitchen. When she came back, she was her smiling self, but she didn't talk for the rest of the evening. He thinks you're a dick, Jude, and that Dad and I are bigger ones for letting you get away with treating Mama like that."

"Mike was stoned, Will. I wouldn't put much stock into what he says," Jude muttered.

I did remember this,butwe talked openly about how Rose didn't get an education beyond high school because she got pregnant. It wasn't a secret.Butit was also not a reason to invalidate how she felt about a random architect.

---