Page 76 of Marrying the Gardener
Combing my hair back as I use the ol’ ab muscles to get myself upright again, I say, “Sure,” then I catch sight of Charlotte, hobbling toward the car on crutches, face ghostly pale. “Is…she all right?”
“She’ll be fine. They put a few staples in, told her to keep off it for a little while.”
Carefully, Charlotte reaches for the backseat door handle. “I’m so sorry for the trouble…”
“Dear, don’t you worry about that,” Ava chides.
Charlotte’s weeping eyes fix on Kaleb once she’s tucked herself into the backseat. Swallowing hard, she murmurs, “T-thank you for carrying me into the hospital, sir.”
Kaleb, fully himself, offers her a gentle nod. “I’m glad they got you patched up.”
“This whole thing took four hours,” she whispers. “I’ve made everyone miss dinner. Adelhilde will be so upset.”
“Adelhilde will be fine,” I say. “We can reheat dinner.”
Once I settle myself correctly in my chair, Charlotte’s eyes slip to me. “I hope I didn’t stress out baby…”
Baby?
Oh! Right, yes. Baby. The baby, which I don’t think would even be large enough right now to compare to any fruit. Why are we worrying about it? It didn’t cut its foot open four hours ago. “It’s okay. This is good Mom practice.” Surely. I lift a finger, nodding affirmatively. “Next time, grab shoes.”
“Hopefully,” Kaleb murmurs, starting up the car after Avagets in, “next timewill be when you’re giving birth.” His suggestive smile is absolutely unnecessary, and I do hope my responding eyeroll makes it clear that I have no intention of actually giving birth to anything anytime soon.
Chapter 24
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Love is scary, and hate is complicated.
Crimson
“I’m sure everyone here is just waiting for me to die,” my grandfather says, looking down the long table at select portions of our family, whom he’s invited here today. Among everyone, I am the only woman, but I suppose that makes sense. My father was his only son, the obvious favorite, and I’m my father’s only child, who married the new obvious favorite—Kaleb.
Still. Something aches inside me at the knowledge that my grandfather didn’t invite his daughters to be here, at the knowledge that the three of them moved across the country after their children were old enough to stand on their own, at the knowledge that the sons they raised treat them how they learned to treat all women because of the influence of their grandfather and influences of the men who most reminded their poor mothers of him.
The abuse cycle really spun in my family.
And it’s too plain to see now that it led to nothing. The solemn airs in this room are fake, hiding an anticipatory joy that’s been hanging like a wraith over my grandfather’s life for the past month.
He’s absolutely right.
At the end of his life, everyone around him is just waiting for him to die.
Maybe that’s why when his gray eyes settle on me, sorrow leeches into my soul. His gaze lingers, traces over all the men at the table, then returns. “Matters of my will won’t be madepublic until I’ve dropped completely, so don’t think any of you can weasel your way into it now.” He barks a laugh that ends in a coughing fit, several deep breaths, and chugging his glass of water.
Wordlessly, my father refills it with a nearby pitcher.
Grandfather proceeds, “You’re all here because out of everyone in my family who wants me to kick the bucket, I at least believe you want me to kick it a little less. Whether that’s true or not, who knows?” He settles. “What’s important is that each of you, in some way, has made an old man more comfortable in his final days. I know I haven’t always been the best patriarch. The best father. The best grandfather.” His eyes skim me again, and I can’t fight the stupid tears that well.
No one else is crying. I shouldn’t be. These people were treated a thousand times better by this man than I was. Athousandtimes. I do not get to give them the satisfaction that even here I’memotional.
Kaleb’s hand discreetly lands on my leg under the table, tightening, and I draw strength from it.
My grandfather says, “I do still hope that I am leaving something worth remembering behind.”
One of my idiot cousins blurts, “Like your money!” And several of my other idiot cousins laugh.
I glare directly at Larry until he shuts his stupid mouth. The man’s apreacherat a mega church, for crying out loud. And, yet, once he trapped me in a biblical conversation to explain how man was made slightly below God, and woman drastically below man.
