Oof.
I open my mouth to try to explain, when there is no way to explain it at all, but Chase says gently, “Liv has to go to Denver to take her perfect job, doing what she is best at, marketing.”
“She is best at nannying,” Katie pouts.
“She is very good at nannying,” Chase says. “But she deserves to have a chance to do the job that she went to college for, and for that, she needs to go to Denver. And we need to let her go, because that is one of the things you do when you love someone. You let them go be who they need to be.”
Tears fill my eyes, but I blink them back.
I am determined not to cry, because it will only make things harder for Katie.
Gillian arrives as I am packing the car. She’s brought a tub of little troll dolls and a stack of different-colored pieces of felt and some kid-friendly scissors. She gets down on the floor and shows Katie how to cut holes in the felt to make rudimentary troll clothes. Katie is enchanted, and before too long, she and Gillian are immersed in their troll world.
I kiss Katie on the top of the head and tell her goodbye. She stops cutting troll outfits long enough to hug me, then throws herself back down on the floor.
I walk with Chase to the door.
“I’ll walk you to the car,” he says.
I put my suitcase in the trunk.
“Oh, um,shit,” he says, and fumbles in his pocket. He pulls out his wallet and, to my horror, begins counting out money. The rest of what he owes me.
“Chase, no,” I say, but he keeps counting, carefully, bill after bill, and then he hands them to me, still without looking at me.
I fold the money over, trying not to cry.
We stand there awkwardly for a moment, and then I get in the car.
I wave to him through the window. He waves back, his gaze faraway and impersonal.
I almost get out of the car. But I don’t know what I’d say.
You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.
These have been two of the best weeks of my life.
I wish things were different.
I’d stay if I could, but I can’t.
When I’m out of sight, I throw the money across the seat and burst into tears.
Chapter 45
Chase
Later that afternoon, I pass her room and stop in the doorway.
She left everything. I mean, not her clothes and stuff, but all the decorations. The quilt and the curtains, the white fabric and the doodads and knickknacks, the photos on the walls.
I sink down on the bed and Liv’s scent rises up around me, and I clench my hands into fists to keep from just—
I don’t know. I don’t know if what I want to do is scream or punch something or rip something to shreds or whip my phone out of my pocket and call her right now. Beg her to turn back. Tell her I will promise her anything she wants. I will be anything she wants me to be.
Will she start over in her room in Denver? Will she make a shopping trip to a new Goodwill, to one of the Denver Target stores? Will she come home with a hundred dollars’ worth of scraps and make another room, somewhere else, beautiful?
This is what homeisto her. Trappings. Stuff. Visuals.