Page 30 of Marrying the Gardener
“Only every three minutes, which you can stalk, because I shared it with you. Please tell me what’s wrong. Don’t we tell each other everything?”
If I told her about this, she wouldn’t stop until she’d fixed it. But I can’t spend the rest of my life trying to pay back the startup loan I’d need to get anything off the ground. I can’t live indebted to the Bachelors. I want my due, which would have been mine anyway if I’d just not had the gall to be born as a woman.
“Please, Crim. I’m here for you,” Crisis says.
My chest tightens. “I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can. Okay?” General comes back, drops his ball, and barks, so I turn away from Kaleb to throw it again. “There’s just a lot going on with my family stuff right now.”
“You know you can rely on me, too, Crim. It doesn’t alwayshave to be you saving me from crisis. I am yours to deposit in the castles of your enemies. I’ll take a stroll. Their pipes will burst. Their chair wheels will break. Their walls will crumble in my wake. And then we’ll go get boba.”
I laugh. “We’ll see.” If only that were the solution…
Maybe I’ll take her with me to the hospital once my grandfather’s on life support, just to speed up the process a bit.
And…I’m already contemplating murder.
I haven’t seen my grandfather for several years. He could have changed. I doubt it. But impending doom does have a character-building nature to it, usually, I think.
Right now, I’m waiting on a call from my father demanding I explain myself, bring my husband before him, and allowthe mento chat. If I know my father, after I called yesterday, he concocted a grand scheme in his brain that goes something like: pay peasant man to go away, hit daughter, send daughter to get abortion—or make sure she miscarries if she refuses.
With how many times I’ve been kicked in the stomach after that man has sent me to the ground, I doubt it makes a difference to him. Heck. He’d probably prefer to save the money.
Even though I know I’m not pregnant, my fingers still find their way to my midsection as memories I wish I didn’t have play in the back of my mind.
I need to be free. Soon.
I need the independence that has been stolen from me.
I need…
Against my ear, in the middle of Crisis regaling me with tales of how it’s us against the world, my phone begins to vibrate. I swallow and pull it away to stare at theJared Nightingale callingplastered across my screen. “Cris?”
She pauses her narration. “Yes, my dearest darlingest love?”
I free a breath. “I’m getting another call, but I’ll connect with you again soon. Okay?”
Soft seconds of silence spill over the vibration in my hand, then Crisis says, “Okay. I love you. So much.”
“I love you, too.” I end our call to take my father’s, and bring out a hesitant, fragile, little woman’s, “Yes, Daddy?”
Predictably, he says, “I want to meet him.”
As my lips curl, wicked, I lilt, “Oh, Daddy! I knew you’d come around!”
“Tonight. Five. Don’t keep me waiting.”
The line dies, and I clench my fist around my phone as General returns with his ball. Petting his soft black head, I mutter, “Don’t worry,Daddy. I would never.”
Chapter 10
?
Raise your butter knife if you think murder’s the answer.
Crimson
Women are better seen, not heard.
Don’t take up space.
