Page 18 of Hidden Memories

“Okay. I’ll find something.” Julia bends down to pat Mila on the head. “I need to run, but keep me posted.”

I wink. “You’re a saint.”

She bats her hand in the air like I’m silly. “Stop trying to butter me up. I said yes.” She stands on her tiptoes and hands me the paper bag. “Is she pretty?”

If she is even a sliver as pretty as she used to be, I’ll have to do everything in my power to pretend she’s not.

“Julia. Someone I used to know asked for a favor… simple as.”

“All right then. Can’t fault an old lady for trying.”

I take the paper bag. “Thanks for the treats.”

Julia turns, raising her hand in the air by way of goodbye.

I mostly solved this problem. It’s unlikely I’ll have to run into Kat. I do go to Heritage quite a lot. Julia lives next door to her shop, so I’m often nearby, but it should be easy enough to send stable hands in and avoid the store for a while.

But while I watch my dear friend walk away, I do wonder. Will Julia pry? Will Kat tell her we were… once… something?

I shake my head.

Kat wanted me in the past.

And that’s where I intend to stay.

Chapter Five

PRESENT

Since checkingmy email this morning, I’ve been on edge. I’m not sure I should have reached out to Santi, because on top of all the things I have going on right now, confronting yet another part of my painful past probably wasn’t a good idea.

“Mom, can you help me do the buttons?”

Theo climbs out from inside the duvet cover where he is trying to smooth it edge to edge. He’s never made his own bed. Nicholas insisted on having a lot of help around, just like my father did and still does. I’m glad I can startteaching Theo basic life skills so he doesn’t leave home like I did not knowing how to get that last corner of a fitted sheet to behave or how to make sure your laundry doesn’t bleed.

If it wasn’t for those nearly three years I got at college, nearly three years where my father tried to punish my life choices by taking away my so-called privileges, I would have never learned about separating whites from colors or learned that adding peanut butter to even the most random stir fry combination makes it taste good.

I start buttoning one end, Theo working from the other.

Glancing around the room, I decide despite the good things coming, this isn’t where I’d like him to be right now in the wake of all that’s happened. The room gives creepy Scottish castle vibes. The intense plaid wallpaper creates a certain kind of claustrophobia, like I’m being suffocated by a kilt. The combination of the garish wallpaper and Theo’s duvet cover with millions of bugs and their scientific names combines enough patterns and colors to make me nauseated.

I don’t think he’ll be sleeping in here much.

We’re about to meet in the middle of the row of buttons when my phone buzzes with a phone call and my heart stops.

Dad.

I didn’t reply to his previous texts. I recall the last few messages from him He’s texted at least thirty times. More than when I went to college and stopped feeling compelled to respond to his every whim. More than when I bothered to tell him I had cold feet about marrying Nic. More than when I got a tattoo. More than any other time where he found his control slipping.

If anything happens to Pacific Dreams, you willbe to blame.

How can you live with yourself?

I taught my daughter to be loyal, not a traitor.

Designed in the same way they always have been, the first lot of texts intended to shame me. But the last ones were to bring me back.

Katinka. Stop this nonsense. You’re lucky I have money for a rainy day because it will soon rain on you.

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