Page 4 of Between the Shady Groves
She supposed she had kind of gotten out of the habit of touching people. Where they lived in Cincinnati, it wasn’t in the heart of the city, definitely not downtown, but she had close neighbors, and they were city neighbors. Not the small-town kind, who hugged without reserve and talked about everything.
She wasn’t even sure what the neighbors on the left or right of them were named. And she didn’t even know quite how many people lived in the house across the street.
She supposed those people knew her just as well and probably didn’t even notice that she’d left.
“I heard about your mom,” Grace said as she pulled back.
“Yeah. That was hard.”
Grace nodded. “I kept hoping she’d get better and come back. We all miss her.”
“You live here now?” Lauren said. She was almost positive that Grace and Claire had both moved away around the time she had. They might have been back for summers in college, but according to her mom, she hadn’t seen them much at all.
“Yeah. Not that long ago. Claire’s back too.”
Lauren nodded. Not really wanting to get the gang together again. There were too many memories, and they weren’t easy ones. Although, there were a lot of good ones.
It’s just the good ones were overshadowed by all of the bad.
“That’s nice. I… I’m not sure I’m back to stay. I needed to do something with this.” She didn’t want to get into everything. About her mom dying, and her not being happy in her marriage, and drifting apart from her husband and leaving him. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and she was a little embarrassed to admit that she just walked out. It would be hard to explain to someone who didn’t understand that they just didn’t talk anymore. It was like living with a stranger. It had to be that way for him too, and she didn’t want to hold him back. He deserved a good woman. He was a good man.
And she felt like a shell of herself.
Not to mention the black cloud that hung over her, hot and heavy.
“Well, whether you stay or whether you don’t, I’d love to get together with you sometime. I…don’t want to barge in if you’re dealing with memories.” She looked around. “It feels like yesterday that your mom was standing behind the counter laughing and making her cinnamon rolls and the most delicious coffee anyone ever made anywhere. I think she always put extra caramel in mine, because I can’t get anything else to taste as good.”
“Yeah. Mom just had a knack for those kinds of things.”
“You’re like a carbon copy of your mom. You have a knack for those things too.” Grace narrowed her eyes and looked at her like she was looking over a pair of wire-rimmed glasses like a schoolmarm.
Lauren had a look like that. She’d used it in the classroom oftenenough. But she didn’t like it being used on her. Not by her friend, and not when she said something like that. Like Lauren should be able to easily pick up where her mom left off and carry on. It felt like the shoes that she was trying to put on were sixteen sizes too big, and she would never be able to fit into them.
“I don’t really have a knack for anything.” She didn’t even have a knack for caretaking. After all, her mama had died.
“Is everything okay?” Grace asked with far too much perception. Lauren just wanted to be left alone. To curl up and hide. Except, she wanted to be here in the bakery too. Because it was here in the bakery where she felt the closest to her mom.
“Everything’s just fine,” she lied through her teeth. “I just wanted some time alone to process. You know. Sometimes you need to do that when you have big changes in your life.”
To say the least. Change was the right word though. Not only was her mom dead, but so was her marriage. However, she wasn’t going to go into that with Grace.
“Would you at least try to be able to spend some time with me before you have to leave?” Grace asked, sounding so humble and hopeful that Lauren couldn’t tell her no.
“Sure. Say when.” It wasn’t like she had a job or anything.
“Tomorrow. In the afternoon. We could meet at the healing garden. Have you seen it?”
“No. I just got in last night and didn’t do anything more than step out back and look at the peach trees.”
“They’re so beautiful. Your backyard was one of my favorite spots in town growing up. Besides here. But you’ll love the healing garden. There are shady groves there too. And a path that walks between them. It’s…beautiful and calming and healing too.”
It was like Grace somehow knew that something inside of her needed to be healed. Although, Lauren highly doubted a garden would be able to do that.
“Sure. We’ll meet between the shady groves. What time?” she asked, wondering if she could possibly have something come up that would make it so that she couldn’t make it.
“Would two o’clock work?” Grace asked, and she nodded.
It wasn’t like she had anything planned. “Two o’clock should be fine.”
