Page 48 of The Trust We Broke
“Are you coming to see your father today?” Mom asks when I answer the phone. “He wants an update.”
Talking to her is the last thing I feel like doing as I look at the cases loaded into the back of the truck that I need to carry up the stairs.
Not even the fact that Grudge is less than happy I’m living here can make me feel any less excited about my current life choices. It’s an interesting dichotomy that my parents’ home, a sprawling house with multiple wings in almost unlimited acreage, feels suffocating, and yet, this small apartment feels like it has so much more space and air.
As I look up at the second-floor windows, I feel like I can breathe here.
“I’m not. I’m working on something,” I say vaguely.
“That isn’t good enough, Lucy. I would have hoped that you?—”
“I moved out, Mom. I can’t do this. I can’t be around you and Dad like this. You need to give me a few days. I turned my life upside down to come here, but now I’m feeling…”
Lost. Trapped. Happy. Confused.
Settled?
Like I’ve finally put the first brick in place to rebuild.
“Lucy, you’re being irrational. And selfish. We need to come together and put your father first, not indulge this tantrum. Adam, that junior associate of his, took it upon himself to come to the hospital to see him. I got there just in time to tell him to leave, but people are finding out what has happened.”
Occasionally, my mother reminds me exactly who she is. Thankfully, it’s rare. But I can’t humor her today. Not with everything I learned about my father in the last twenty-four hours.
Quinn opens the door to the street and waves me inside.
“Mom, I can’t do this right now. Someone is waiting for me. I’ll call you when I’m ready.” I end the call and tug my scarf a little higher up over my ears. “Hey, Quinn.”
“Need a hand?” she asks.
“I barely have anything to take up.” There are two large suitcases, one carry-on wheelie case, and my overstuffed workbag.
I can figure out everything else I might need as I go.
Quinn glances into the back of my father’s truck. “Still, let’s do it together, and we can have you in and out of this cold more quickly.”
“I appreciate that.” It takes a couple of trips up the stairs, but finally, everything sits on the kitchen floor.
On the counter is a basket containing freshly ground coffee, some pastries, and a large bottle of sparkling water. “Happy housewarming,” Quinn says as she sees me looking at the gift basket. “It was the best I could do with a minute’s notice. But there are a couple of boxes of clean bedding and towels I hadn’t moved out of here from when we slept over while renovating. You can feel free to use them until you get settled.”
“Thank you so much, that’s so thoughtful. Is Smoke okay with me staying here?”
Quinn stops shuffling the cases around, so they take up less space. “Of course, why wouldn’t he be?”
“I just wondered because of how…”
Quinn chuckles. “How mad Grudge was? No, Smoke doesn’t mind. In fact, between you and me, he’s kind of curious about you. Most of the men only have vague recollections about you. And yes, we asked.”
“We?”
“Me, Raven, and Ember. Ember admits she didn’t pay a lot of attention to who was dating who, at the time, just as long as they weren’t dating Atom, of course. But she saw you and Grudge together a couple of times. She said she remembers it was really romantic when the two of you got married.”
I think about our wedding day. The day after Thanksgiving, we’d gone to get a license, but found the offices were still closed. But that only served to give us a few days to lay out a couple more plans. I bought a dress on the Saturday. Not a wedding dress, but it was white and pretty and I threw on a fake, ivory, fur coat that had belonged to my grandmother to stay warm. And Grudge cleaned his boots and ironed a shirt.
We took the time to write vows. Mine were flowery, about soul mates and true love. His were all practical, how he would protect me and provide for me forever. We agreed they were representative of what and who we were to each other.
Grudge came up with this idea that we should abstain from sex until we were married, for the whole three days until the wedding.
It was edifying.
