Page 29 of Almost True
And with that, she spun and left without a backward glance. I watched her go, desperate for a sight of her friend, a woman I couldn’t get out of my head no matter how I tried, but finally pushed on with work when she slipped inside and Maddie was nowhere to be seen.
For the rest of the day, Juliet’s words floated around my head. What did that mean? What could she be insinuating with the suggestion that what she’d heard about me was good… depending on me?
* * *
As everyone packed up, I lost track of Luca. He might’ve taken a load of supplies to the truck, but we’d likely leave most of our gear at the site since we’d be back tomorrow. Maybe he was just packing up his stuff.
Since nothing had come easily lately, I rounded the corner and caught sight of him talking with Juliet and Maddie.
Of course.
My pulse spiked and my mind scrambled for how to manage this as I neared the small group. Juliet burst out laughing, and Maddie sent Luca an endeared smile. Who knew what he’d said, but the kid was precocious as all get out, and apparently, he’d left the moody pre-teen behind in the dirt.
“There’s your dad now, Luca.” Juliet touched Maddie on the arm. To give her strength? Warn her?
“Oh. Okay. Thanks for the invitation, Ms. Reynolds. Nice to talk to you again, Juliet.” He nodded at them in a way that told me he’d reveled in talking to the two women, then headed to the truck.
Who would blame him? He was starved for attention this summer as it was, and aside from his grandmother, great-aunt, and occasionally Dahlia Price, he didn’t actually speak to women. He got a face full of me, John, and all the people who worked the tree farm. Our neighbors only had boys, too.
A pang hit. Smaller and smaller each year, but lately, entering this preteen phase made me wish I wasn’t doing it alone. What a stupid thing to feel as I faced down these two.
“Luca was telling us about his latest read. We told him he should feel free to come hang out inside tomorrow, if he has to come back.” Juliet took a large step back. “I think I… left something in the oven. I’m going to run and check it. See you tomorrow, Aidan.”
I nodded to her, but my eyes wouldn’t leave Maddie’s, especially since hers were pinned on me. Looking into their hazel depths had me feeling like I’d lost my footing.
She spoke first. “You have a son.”
“Yes. Luca.”
“He… looks like you.”
I couldn’t read her tone, but it wasn’t angry or negative. Maybe not leaping for joy at this discovery, but what did I expect?
“Thanks. Yeah. He’s got his mom’s lighter eyes, but yeah.”
We breathed through the awkwardness of another truth uncovered. Instead of waiting for her to ask why I hadn’t told her, I offered it up. “I didn’t mention him before for the same reasons both of us held things back.”
We hadn’t discussed those reasons, but we knew they existed between us. She nodded, waiting for more.
“I didn’t say anything last weekend because it just… I didn’t see what difference it made. You knowing I had a son. It just…” It made people’s pity swell larger than when they found out I’d lost my wife. It made me an object to be coddled and cared for instead of a man who had obligations to his family and himself. I hadn’t wanted to submit myself to her pity any more than the truths I’d admitted already did.
“Okay,” she said, giving absolutely nothing away.
Was she masking pity? Was she embarrassed for me, that I’d kept this from her? Dread and guilt and all manner of nastiness swirled in my gut. Maybe the heat of the afternoon and a long day after little sleep pushed me to say it. Maybe it was the knowledge I still had to go home and work on the accounts for the farm.
Maybe it was something in me that needed to provoke her—to get something other than this blank space between us.
“Don’t pity me. If that’s what you’re thinking, what you’re hiding. I don’t—”
“I don’t pity you, Aidan.”
I swallowed and ran a hand over my face. “No?”
Something in her shifted. I couldn’t have said what, but it was like herenergyshifted from standoffish to almost predatory. Her eyes slipped from my neck, where I swallowed again, down to my chest, where my shirt stuck to me like a second skin, and continued their path right down to my dirt-covered shoes.
When her gaze returned to mine, fire lit low in my gut. My breath came in odd, uneven gusts. She took a step back, hands laced behind her. “No. There’s nothing pitiful about you.”
With that, she turned and left, confirming that these women loved to make an exit. And more importantly, leaving me more confused than I’d been since she’d interrupted her houseguest and revealed herself as Madeline Reynolds.
