Page 14 of August
“Right,” she replied. “I’ve been burned before.”
“By a cheating wife who didn’t have the guts to tell youthat she wanted something more or different before she had sex with someone else while you were still married and then didn’t tell you for years,” Melinda said. “And, honestly, Myra, that’s on her, not you. I wasn’t there, but from what you’ve told me, she never even talked to you about being unhappy or that she had changed her mind about kids.”
“She didn’t. I would’ve considered it,” Myra replied. “I never really saw myself with kids, but I would’ve at least listened to her.”
“Elisa has kids,” Jill noted.
“Elisa isn’t my wife.” Myra laughed. “Besides, they’re eighteen. I wouldn’t have to raise them.”
“I can’t wait to raise ours,” Melinda said to Kyle.
Kyle smiled at her and replied, “Same.”
“They’re annoyingly cute,” Jill said.
“Willa was in the office yesterday, and I sawyoumaking goo-goo eyes at her,” Melinda replied.
“I do not make goo-goo eyes. I don’t even know what those are,” Jill argued.
When their food was brought to the table, and they all started eating, Myra tried to pay attention to what her friends were talking about next, but she kept thinking about Elisa, who was probably at home right now since she’d told Myra that she didn’t have a new job yet. Myra considered bringing something to the house for Elisa for a minute, like a bottle of wine, but Elisa had wine. She had even offered it to Myra last night. Flowers weren’t an option. It was a job, not a date. A plant? It could be like a housewarming gift or something.
“Hey, what plant means, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood,’ or something like that?” she asked.
CHAPTER 6
“This is the last trip, I swear,” Elisa said.
“You said that last time,” Archie replied. “And I can’t help it; I need more stuff.”
“The room you will be living in is the equivalent of a prison cell when you add in the fact that it’s only half yours. How do you need more stuff?” she asked.
“Mom, it’s college. It’s not like we’re just getting stuff for a few months. It’s for four years.”
“So, you won’t be asking for anything else for the next four years?”
“Not what I meant,” he replied. “The bed is an extra-long twin. I didn’t know that.”
“I told you to read the details. You swore to me that it was regular, even when I asked you to check when I found out that Adele’s would be extra-long.”
“I know. I did. I thought I read it right,” he replied. “It said standard, but I guess I read the wrong line in the email.”
“I guess so,” she said.
They were standing in line at the department store, and Archie was holding a giant white bag filled with the bedding set they’d bought for him just last week. He had wanted it in plain blue, and that had been pretty easy to find, so Elisa had been happy to have one more thing off this monster supply list checked off, but that hadn’t lasted long as they were now returning that very purchase because of the dimensions. And to think about it, she had thought she was done with school supplies after their senior year. She hadn’t anticipated needing to buy the twins basically a full apartment worth of stuff, despite the fact that they’d be living in dorms. She had failed to think about the fact that they borrowed supplies at home or had whatever they needed in their classrooms, but college was different. She should’ve remembered that, but she had only been in school for a couple of years, one of them beingduring her pregnancy, so she had been a little preoccupied with planning a life with twins and a guy she knew she could never fully love.
“Is there anything else we haven’t gotten yet, Arch? I’m not making another trip to the store. When I drop you off, if we realize then that there’s something we forgot, we can get it on campus or nearby, at least.”
“Is Dad going to drop me off, too?” he asked as they moved up one spot in the return line.
“I don’t know. Have you asked him?”
“Yeah. He said he didn’t think he could.”
Archie shrugged a shoulder, but Elisa knew her son.
“Have you told him that it’s important to you for him to be there?” she asked.
“It’s not a big deal. It’s just driving me there since I can’t have a car on campus and, like, helping me unpack. He has more important things to do.” Archie seemed to have realized his mistake then and turned to her with wide eyes. “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean–”
