Page 51 of Snowflakes Over Starr's Fall
Her steps slowed as she came up to the mercantile; there was a car parked by the porch, the light dusting of snow on top suggesting it had been there awhile.
“Who—” she began, only to stop when she saw the woman stepping out of the driver’s seat with a wobbly, uncertain smile, her hands deep in the pockets of her coat.
“Hey, Jenna.” The voice wobbled as much as the smile, and even though she couldn’t see the woman all too well in the dark, she still recognized her.
It was her mother.
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“Goodness, it’s been a while.”
Jenna didn’t reply, watching silently as her mother stepped gingerly into the kitchen, looking around the shabby space with something like wonder. They had already stuttered their greetings out in the parking lot, and Jack had tactfully taken his leave, promising Jenna he’d call her in the morning.
When, Jenna wondered, was the last time she and her mother had seen each other? Maybe eighteen months ago, two years? Her mother had invited her and Zach to come down to Florida awhile back, and Zach had coaxed her into road tripping it. That part had been fun, but the five days sharing the guest bedroom of her parents’ condo with her brother had not been. Her father had pretty much played golf the whole time, and her mother had flitted around, more or less waiting for him to come home. Jenna and Zach had ended up going to the beach by themselves, although Jenna was not a fan of it because no matter how much she slathered herself in factor fifty, she always got sunburned.
“It has been a while,” she agreed in a guarded tone. “Five years, almost, since you’ve been back here.” Her parents had not returned to Starr’s Fall once since their retirement, which had been yet another piece of the puzzle that was her parents that Jenna didn’t understand. They’d made this town their home forfortyyears. How could they have turned their backs on it so completely?
Her mother was standing in the center of the kitchen, her fingers pleated together, her expression both abject and pleading in a way Jenna didn’t think she’d ever seen before. What on earth was going on?
Jenna opened her mouth to ask just that and instead heard herself ask, “Would you like a cup of tea?”
A look of gratitude came over her mother’s face and she gulped and nodded. “Yes, please. Thank you.”
Jenna moved to fill up the kettle. “So what brought this visit on?” she asked once she’d filled it and put it on the stove. “I mean, it’s nice to see you, and this is, of course, your house still, but…” She shook her head slowly. “I feel like something is going on.”
Her mother nodded and then gulped again. “Yes,” she agreed, tucking her hair behind her ears—the same auburn hair that Jenna had, except her mother’s was in a neat bob and starting to silver. “Something is going on.”
Jenna waited for more and her mother started speaking in staccato bursts, like the words hurt coming out. “I came back… because… I think… I might have… left your father.”
For a second, the words, spoken in such jagged spurts, did not compute. They were phrases Jenna could not put into a comprehensible whole, even as she recognized them in their discrete parts. She opened her mouth and then closed it again as the kettle began to whistle.
Neither of them spoke as Jenna set about making tea. Her mind was whirling, and it wasn’t until she’d handed her mother a cup of tea and taken a sip of her own that she managed to say cautiously, “YouleftDad?” It still didn’t make sense.
Her mother nodded, her gaze lowered toward her mug. “Yes. I think so. I packed a bag and booked a flight and came here, anyway.”
“For a visit.”
“I… I don’t know.”
Jenna shook her head slowly. “Mom… you and Dad… you and Dad are…”
“No,” her mother said quietly. “We’re not. Not anymore. And really, we never have been. I wish… Iwishwe had. Maybe more than I should have.”
Okay, this was her mind officially blown. Her parents’ marriage had always been the gold standard. How many times had her dad blown into the house with a bouquet of roses and a smacking kiss for his mother? How many times had her mother laughingly let herself get swept up in his arms? And when they’d all been together as a family? Well, Jenna had never been able to shake the feeling that she and Zach were interlopers in the greatest romance in the world, one she’d wanted for herself with Ryan. Her parents had always been a unit, solid,toosolid.
And now her mother was basically saying that wasn’t the case at all?
“I… I don’t know what to say,” Jenna said at last. “Maybe I should just ask… what do you want to tell me?” And what did she really want to know?
Her mother didn’t answer right away, just took a sip of tea. All around them the house creaked and settled, and the snow continued softly down, blurring the view from the kitchen window.
“Well…” her mother finally began, her tone hesitant, her gaze faraway. “The truth is, I probably should have left him a long time ago.”
What?Jenna found she needed to sit down. She lowered herself into a kitchen chair, landing with a thud so a drop of tea splashed out onto her wrist, burning her, but she barely noticed. “I always thought you guys had an amazing marriage,” Jenna said faintly. “Too amazing, even. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I started wondering if maybe there was something… unhealthy… about it.” She winced in apology, but her mother was already nodding.
“Yes, there was something unhealthy about it, Jenna, right from the beginning. I loved your father madly, and he—he loved me back, but…” She took a gulping sip of tea, her gaze lowered. “He loved a lot of other people, too.”
“Are you saying Dad hadaffairs?” Jenna demanded hoarsely. Was this what Henrietta Starr had been intimating, by saying how her father was charming, and how her mother had certainly loved him? It all made sense, and yet it totally didn’t.
