Page 126 of Boston
“Oh, come on, Cora,” Kat said.
Cora’s irritation climbed. “Come on, Cora, what?” she asked. “It’s entirely possible that he broke up with me.”
“Why would he do that?” Kat asked.
“Because I’ve been working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week since you had the babies,” Cora said. “Since Momma doesn’t come in anymore, and Jeremy’s been on paternity leave for five weeks, and you’re not doing anything.” Cora held Denim securely, so she couldn’t gesture toward the rest of the property, but she wanted to. “Who do you think is running everything out there?”
Kat’s jaw hardened, and then she looked away. “I’m sorry, Cora,” she said.
To her horror, Cora sniffled. She hadn’t even realized that she’d been about to cry, and she adjusted Denim so that she could reach up with the corner of his blanket and wipe her eyes.
“There’s no time for a boyfriend, Kat,” she said. “It wasn’t fair to him.”
“Honey, if this is just about time, you can make time.”
“No one canmaketime,” Cora said, another sniffle slipping out.
Kat got up and took both the baby and the bottle into the kitchen. She was never one to leave a task for later, and Cora leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes as Kat ran the water to rinse the bottle. She heard her sister moving around in her bare feet, and a moment later, she said, “Give him to me.”
“I like holding him,” Cora said, her eyes fluttering open. They met her sister’s, and so much was said between them.
“I miss him,” Cora said, her voice breaking. “And I didn’t mean to blame you.”
“You didn’t,” Kat said. She let Cora keep Denim and she sank down onto the couch next to her. “Honey, you should go talk to him. I’m okay here.”
“I know you are.”
“But do you?” Kat asked. “You’ve always watched out for me, Cora, and taken care of me, and you’ve come over here every night since the twins were born. And you don’t have to do that.”
She gently swept her hands through Denim’s hair. “I love the babies.”
“Yeah, but do you love Boston?”
Cora looked up, pure lightning moving through her. “How could I possibly love Boston?” she asked, though part of her hoped that she did. “We’d only dated for six or seven weeks.”
“Yeah, and you weresohappy.” Kat smiled at her. “When Jeremy and I had been dating for a couple of months, we got in a big fight,” she said. “I bet if you asked him what it was about, he wouldn’t even know.” She giggled and shook her head.
“But I do. I wanted to go to the Apple Festival over in the orchards on the other side of town, and he said that was dumb and that he would never go to that. To me, it sounded like he didn’t care about the things thatIliked and thatIwanted to do, and that he would never compromise. Of course, that wasn’t it at all. He just hates apples and has an allergic reaction to the pulp.”
“I didn’t know that,” Cora said.
“I didn’t either,” Kat said. “I made my assumptions that we would only ever do the things he liked to do, and we kind of went on a freeze.”
“And then what happened?” Cora asked, because she didn’t know this story at all.
“When I finally started thinking rationally again, he was able to explain why he really didn’t want to go to the Apple Festival, and then I felt like an idiot.”
She paused and linked her arm through Cora’s, helping her to hold up Denim’s head. “But the reason I went talk to him in the first place,” Kat said. “Is because I missed him. He was who I wanted to share things with. When something happened at the lodge, I wanted him to know. When I saw a cute pair of shoes, I wanted to send them to him.”
Cora grinned at her. “And I thought I was the only one you sent cute shoe pictures to.”
“Oh, you get them all too,” Kat said. She eased baby Denim out of Cora’s arms. “Where is Boston right now? You have his calendar, don’t you?”
Cora did, but it had hurt too much to look at it in the beginning, and she’d stopped. She only knew about tomorrow’s hike, because Ernie had told her.
“I know your relationship isn’t that old,” she said. “And you’re not going to get engaged tonight, but maybe you could just…talk to him. Maybe he, or you, or both of you, just misunderstood what it would take to continue to have a relationship, the way I did with Jeremy.”
Cora nodded, though she didn’t quite know what to do about Boston. Could she honestly just text him out of the blue? And what would she say?Hey, just wondering what you’re doing tonight.
