Page 23 of Over the Verdant Hills
Okay.
She could worry about where the closest exit was when they got to that point. Eventually things would work out, and they would have a place that they normally met, and things would go smoothly.
The thought depressed her. Years from now, she would still be moving her kids back and forth between Boston and Lake Michigan.
She didn’t want to think that this was going to go on for so long, but she knew it wasn’t going to get better. Not unless one of them died—that would be the only way that they wouldn’t be doing this anymore. Because she was never taking him back. Even if he apologized, which he honestly had, but he hadn’t meant it. For a while, they’d tried to work it out with him saying that he wouldn’t do it again. That was when he’d had the affair with the therapist.
After that, she’d figured that there was no point. Whatever he said was probably not going to be true. And she might as well accept that—the sooner she accepted that, the better off she’d be.
She was still thinking about that while listening to John when she noticed a couple she hadn’t seen before walking toward her, holding hands.
As they came closer, it seemed like the woman might be about the same age as she was, in her mid-thirties. The woman didn’t have the slender, reed-willow-thin figure of a teenager, and while the man looked athletic and strong, he didn’t put her in mind of an older person or a young man either.
She braced herself. They might be people she knew growing up.
Really, she didn’t want to see anyone, but there was one person she absolutely did not want to see. Grace.
She had ignored the few messages Grace had left on her phone and completely deleted the number so she wouldn’t be tempted to use it at any time.
The area code wasn’t from around here, so she’d assumed Grace must’ve been calling from wherever she’d moved. Chicago? Cleveland? She wasn’t sure. Some big city, where Grace had ditched the rest of them, riding out with all the confidence and arrogance of youth. Claire had felt the same way. But she hadn’t been quite as flamboyant as Grace had been in her exit.
But Grace was one of the people who knew what had happened, who had gone through the tragedy with her.
And then Claire had deliberately pushed Grace away with her accusations, and they hadn’t had a relationship since high school.
And that was really the way Claire wanted to keep it. She had zero desire to revisit the past.
Of course, the Lord was going to put the one person in her path that she didn’t want to see.
She knew it was Grace before they were closer than twenty feet. The sea-green eyes, the gorgeous, picture-perfect smile, along with the honey-brown hair that hadn’t changed at all.
Grace might have been a little bit heavier than she had been at eighteen, but she definitely wasn’t fat. She looked fit and trim and extremely happy to be holding onto the hand of… Could that be Trevor?
Great. Claire now had the perfect reason to not talk to them.
But she couldn’t quite manage to make herself continue putting one foot in front of the other when the couple stopped in front of her.
“Good morning. It’s a beautiful day for a walk,” Grace said, her eyes narrowing, but her voice not holding the familiar recognition that Claire assumed would be there if Grace had recognized her.
“Good morning,” Claire said, not adding anything at all to it, hoping that they would just start walking again.
“Claire?” Trevor said. She knew as soon as she heard his voice it was Trevor. She gritted her teeth.
“Yes. It’s me. I’m not sure who you two are, but I’d rather keep the past in the past if you don’t mind. Have a good day,” she said, and then she moved so she could go around them and continued on.
It was rude and unkind, and she could almost feel the two of them turning around and watching her go. But she didn’t care. She didn’t want to talk to them. Didn’t want to dredge up the tragedy, didn’t want to have to deal with the past. She had told Josiah that she couldn’t have her grandma get sick because she couldn’t handle it. She definitely couldn’t handle anything popping up from her past. That was all safely buried, and she wanted it to stay that way.
“Claire!”
Claire heard Grace’s call, and her first instinct was to continue to walk.
Her feet stopped moving, although she didn’t turn around.
“I’d really like to talk to you. Please?”
She wanted to say no. She definitely didn’t want to meet with Grace of all people. She sighed and turned partway, but did not look directly at Grace. “Maybe sometime. Not right now, though. I’ve got to get back, and I need to get my walk in.”
She turned around before Grace could suggest that they walk together and started moving quickly.
