Page 8 of That Reunited Feeling

Not only is she the most delightful woman on the planet, she and Uncle Jim took me and my brother in after our parents were killed in a car crash. I was eleven. Walker was ten. They already had their own three boys and sure as hell didn’t need us stretching their thin resources any thinner. Jim’s salary as a Boston city bus driver wasn’t made for a family of five, never mind seven.

I pick up the knife and fork and attack the bacon. God, this is good. Travel always makes me feel like I haven’t eaten for a decade. “Go on then. Fill me in. What’s the story?”

A huge—and this time natural—smile spreads across her face. “Well…” She grabs two mugs from a shelf and fills them from the full coffeepot. “I was in Find Your Roots, the plant storein the village, like I have been a hundred times, and she walked out from the back. Just like that!”

She opens the fridge and pulls out a carton. Her expression suggests she’s pleased, like the cat that got several canaries. “Didn’t recognize her at first and wondered why this woman was standing stock-still and staring at me.” She slops cream into both mugs, gives them a stir, and returns the carton to the fridge. “Then she said, ‘Mrs. Dashwood?’”

Maggie takes a seat on the other side of the island and slides a mug toward me. “And I still didn’t get it until she said, ‘It’s Hannah.’”

She clutches her hands to her chest. “Couldn’t believe it.”

I smear some egg on my toast. “What on earth was she doing in Blythewell?”

“Well, this is the weird coincidence. She’d been living just a few miles away, in Fullerton, for years.”

“What?” The Hannah I knew would never live in the countryside, or a village, or anywhere more than two minutes from a vintage record store. “Why? What the hell brought her here?”

Maggie cups her hands around her mug, leans toward me, and lowers her voice. “She was living with”—her eyes dart over my shoulder to the door, presumably to check Hannah’s not about to walk in—“a man.” She exaggeratedly whispers those two words, just in case.

“Horrible business.” Maggie’s pained expression makes me wonder what the hell that story is. “Anyway, she’s saving up for a fresh start. She could only have been making peanuts helping out Jude at the store, and you boys are constantly saying we should get some help here. So”—she shrugs as if to say this was all my idea—“I got us help.”

I mop up the rest of the egg yolk and bacon fat with the last slice of toast. “You just gave someone you hadn’t seen for closer to two decades than one, a job? In your house?”

“I took her for coffee first.”

“Oh, well, then that makes everything okay and perfectly normal.”

“It’s not like she’s a stranger, Tom. She spent enough time at our place when you were dating. And she was obviously going through a rough patch. We have more resources than we know what to do with these days, and I wanted to help. But it’s not like I could just give her an envelope of cash, so I gave her a job. She’s too independent to want to be treated like a charity case.”

Independent. That’s Hannah to the end.

And generous is what Maggie is to the end. “I bet you’re paying her double the going rate.”

“One and three-quarters.” She peeps at me over her mug. “And we also have more space than we know what to do with, so it only made sense that she moved into the guest suite. Lordy, it’s so good to have young energy around the place again. You know, I didn’t realize just how much I miss?—”

“Moved in?” I stop with toast halfway to my mouth, my blood stilling in my veins. “She’slivinghere?”

“It’s a win-win. For everyone.” Maggie beams. “A total delight.”

She’s fucking living here.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and screw up my eyes. I came here to get some desperately needed away-from-it-all rest, for Christ’s sake. And judging by the encounter outside my bedroom, Hannah being here will make this anything but a restful atmosphere.

“I’m so worried about you.” Maggie stretches across the island and squeezes my arm. “These last few months have taken their toll, haven’t they? I’ve never seen you this exhausted.” Shegrabs my chin between her thumb and forefinger. “Didn’t even catch a glimpse of the famous Tom smile last night.”

Ever observant Aunt Mags.

I shake my head. “Guess ending a marriage is exhausting even if it’s all your own idea. And even if the divorce is a quickie.” And my God, has this been draining. Knowing it was the right thing to do didn’t make walking away from the relationship any less upsetting. The sense of failure is unavoidable. So apparently are the bad feelings—on Louisa’s part anyway. And the lawyers suck the life out of you…dear God, the fucking lawyers.

“And the holiday season at work is always stressful.” I leave out the part about this year being made worse by one of my executives somehow setting a Christmas tree on fire at our annual party. That would have been bad enough by itself, but one of our young singers who sports a spiky hairdo was standing right next to it—turns out, the hairdo was held in place with enormous amounts of highly flammable hair spray. Thank God someone threw their beer over her before more than just her hair was burned. But then there were more lawyers…

“And there was no spring in your step even when you were here for the wedding.” Maggie tips her head and looks at me like I’m a puppy with a broken leg. “Even Max commented on it. And it’s not like him to notice things like that. Particularly when he is the center of attention.”

“Isn’t he always the center of attention?” I bite off the eggy, bacony part of the toast and put the crust back on the plate.

“Oooh, careful. You almost gave me a smile.” She snags the crust. “The best part,” she says and pops it into her mouth.

Max and Polly’s wedding was amazing. And it was great to be with the family. But two transatlantic flights in four days amid all the other stress and fatigue was too much. It knocked me a couple rungs even further down the ladder.

---