Page 16 of The Marriage Deal
I relax, but just a bit. “Mom?”
“I thought the man asked you for dinner?”
“A job interview,” I correct.
“Huh. Tara said it was dinner when she stopped by the café today.”
Tara. Of course. “It’s a job proposition. Over dinner.”
“Well, in that case you might be a tad overdressed. That color is?—”
“Bold. Beautiful. Confident,” Dad finishes.I love Dad.
“Well, that. For sure, that, yes,” Mom stammers. “I just mean…” She shakes her head, frowns, presses on. “Do you want the man to wink at you again? Because, honey, that man is going to wink at you without a doubt in that shirt. And you didn’t seem very receptive of it the first time so…”
Frick, I love Mom, too. My parents are amazing, even if I do kind of hate that I live with them again at twenty-seven.
I wasn’t in a hurry like some of my friends to get out of the house. Mom and Dad had always been great and easy to live with. My relationship with them had slowly, but naturally turned from the typical relationship between parent and child to a relationship that, although still points to them being my parents, is friendly and enjoyably teasing. Comfortable.
I’d moved out at twenty after working for a couple years to help save for my education. I studied sociology with a focus in business and marketing while working between a greenhouse in the summer, and reception for life insurance in the winter. Lord, my winter’s had been dry, but they’d shown me exactly what I didn’t want from life.
Cold calling clients is something I’m confident is reserved for the second circle of Hell.
That being said, I’ve been on my own since I was twenty. I’d been doing well enough. And then, at twenty-six I met Michael. Now, I’m back home.
It’s the safest place to reconstruct the ruins of me.
But it still hurts. It hurts that I’ve failed so grandly, the only place I can fix the mess of my life is here in this little town, in my childhood home. It hurts that I’ve failed so spectacularly in one aspect of my life, that it oozed the infection of Michael into every other part. It hurts that my heart isn’t quite as soft as it once was.
And it hurts when I catch that look in my parents’ eyes. The look that says they hurtforme.
I don’t want them to hurt for me.
I’d always wanted them to be proud of me.
I’d wanted this town—that’s always been an extension of my family—to be proud of me.
I resent the fact I did them so dirty that I fell for the terrible lies a pretty man fed me.
Most of all, I hate that Mom and Dad had loved Michael. I hate that he served them the dream I’d always dreamed. That we would one day move back to Sunset Falls together, and with my understanding of sociology and a degree in business, we would help to revitalize this town I love so much. We would breathe life back into it and in turn make it easier for the people tobreathe. For Mom and Dad to breathe.
I never imagined I’d be back, a burden to all I one day imagined I’d help save.
I’d stayed in my cheap studio apartment in the city and saved for the day I’d come home to pour all I’d worked for into the town I loved, where the people I loved lived.
Nan always said it only takes one person to light a fire. I’d told myself I could be the one to light the fire in Sunset Falls. The fire of hope and prosperity, of new beginnings and inspiration. The one to bring a burning life back into the town that currently gasped for air.
Now, I don’t even have enough money to buy the match to light that flame. Everything I worked for is justgone.
Dad brings me back to the here and now. “I think she wants another wink, Brandy.”
Mom twists her lips to the side in thought, and I make a show of rolling my eyes. “Perhaps, Martin.”
“You guys are ridiculous. It’s business.”
“With a side of?—”
I cut Dad off before he can speak whatever shenanigans with a, “He’s here! He’s here, thank God he’s here.”
