Sunday had been torturous. Sheldon had been acting suspicious of every comment or expression, and he’d insisted they spend every moment together. When Margot had told him she was supposed to go to brunch with her parents and sister, he’d said they had things to do as a family.
While they drove to the sporting goods store in Sioux City, she’d wanted to ask if it meant he was going hunting, after all. She needed that reassurance. Thankfully, the cooler purchase signified he hadn’t entirely ruled it out.
She redoubled her efforts to be the cowed, obedient wife—to act as though nothing had changed. But the arrival of her sister, together with the brief flash of defiance she’d shown in the kitchen on Friday night, seemed to have put him on high alert. He knew if she ever told Gia she was unhappy, he’d have a real fight on his hands. Margot finally had the possibility of some support—beyond two parents who tried not to get involved and couldn’t now that they were dealing with the last stages of cancer.
She was folding the laundry on the couch after dinner on Monday night while the boys were playing in their room and Sheldon watched golf on TV when she heard a knock at the door.
“Who’s that?” he asked, but he didn’t leave his recliner. Answering the door was apparently her job.
She set the T-shirt she’d just folded aside and went to find out. She could see her father’s SUV in the drive through the front window, but when she opened the door, it was her sister standing on the stoop. “Hey, where’s Mom and Dad?”
“Mom wasn’t feeling up to coming over. She was ready for bed, and Dad stayed home with her in case she needed anything.”
“Other than working a few hours a day—when he can—he’s barely left her side, poor guy.”
“He was able to work as long as he needed to today. So I think he’s eager to tuck her in and spend some time alone with her.” Gia lifted the sack she was carrying. “I brought the kids a present. Do you mind if I come in?”
Margot didn’t want to let her. She couldn’t afford a confrontation with Sheldon, and since Gia never curbed her tongue, putting them in the same room was a risk. But how could she turn her sister away? Gia hadn’t seen the boys since she’d returned to town. “Sure. It...it would’ve been easier had you called. Then we could’ve arranged something—”
“Arranged something?” she broke in. “I didn’t think it would be a big deal to stop over and see my nephews.”
“It’s not,” Margot reassured her. “Of course not. I just meant... Never mind.” Reluctantly, she stepped back to admit her sister and called out, “Matthew! Greydon! Your aunt’s here to see you.”
They came running from the back bedroom and threw their arms around Gia’s legs, nearly bowling her over as she laughed. “Wow! You two have grown so much since I saw you last.”
“I’m going to be bigger than my dad,” Matthew announced.
“So am I,” Greydon said.
Sheldon didn’t so much as turn down the television. He eyed Gia as if he was wondering whether he had to tolerate her presence, and it wasn’t until the boys had ripped the packaging off the new Lego sets Gia had purchased for them and begun to build a Harry Potter castle that her sister looked up and addressed him. “Hey, Sheldon.”
He merely grunted, which embarrassed Margot. Given what was going to happen in the very near future, she couldn’t say why. Maybe it was because Sheldon’s behavior was just more evidence that Gia was right about him—he was a subpar husband. She wondered why Sheldon didn’t try to keep up appearances with Gia like he did with both sets of parents and everyone else in town and supposed it was just too difficult to do that with someone who’d already seen through him.
After reclaiming the sack she’d carried in, Gia reached inside it and brought out a pocketknife with Sheldon’s name engraved on it. “Thought you might be able to use this when you go hunting next week,” she said and crossed the room to give it to him.
He took it and studied it for a moment. “You got this for me?”
“Has your name on it, doesn’t it?” she said jokingly.
“It does. And not many things do.”
“Yeah, well, your name isn’t a popular one in the hunting world. But a buddy I met through Eric does a lot of woodworking. He personalized it for me.”
“Thank you,” he said, his voice only slightly grudging. “Maybe you’re turning over a new leaf, eh?”
“If you’re asking if I like you now, the answer’s still no,” she replied, but she was laughing when she said it.
Margot could tell he couldn’t figure out if it was a joke—and she certainly wasn’t going to enlighten him that it was probably more of a peace offering for her sake than any real change in Gia’s opinion.
“Yeah, well, I don’t like you, either,” he grumbled. “But I like this,” he added with a grin, holding up the knife.
“Good.” Gia shrugged. “Now you can’t say I never gave you anything.”
“That’s true, but don’t expect a gift in return.” He laughed uproariously, as if his reply had been the wittiest thing ever.
Gia gave him a wry grin. “Considering how long you’ve been in the family, why would I expect you to start being nice now?”
Relieved that their banter was fairly friendly, despite the more serious undercurrent, Margot jumped in before it could turn to something worse. “I made a red velvet cake we had after dinner. Why don’t you come into the kitchen, and I’ll get you a piece?”
Gia insisted on playing with the kids first and helping them build the Lego sets she’d brought them. When it came time, she also put them to bed and spent at least a half hour reading them stories.
When she finally came into the kitchen, Sheldon had just turned off the TV and headed down the hall to get ready for bed.
Grateful for some quiet time with her sister, Margot cut a piece of the cake, added a large scoop of ice cream and set it on the table.
“Those boys are turning out great in spite of Sheldon,” Gia said as she sat down and picked up her fork. “Must be our genes.”
Margot started to laugh.
“What?” she said, obviously surprised. “You’re not going to get mad at me for that comment?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Would it do any good?”
“Probably not.” Gia gave her a wicked grin but then sobered. “What’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“With the weight loss. It seems kind of extreme. And there are dark circles under your eyes. I’m getting worried about you.”
Margot sobered instantly. “It’s fine. It’s nothing. I just wanted to slim down.”
“By eating red velvet cake?”
Margot laughed. “I didn’t have any. I haven’t had much interest in sweets lately.”
“It’s not just the weight. Tonight’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh since I got home.”
Margot lowered her eyes. “Mom has cancer, Gia. She’s dying. What’s there to be happy about?”
“What’s happening to Mom is horrible,” Gia said. “But...is that all of it?”
“Of course.”
Gia took a bite before leaning in close. “You’d tell me if there was something else, if you were in financial trouble or had bad news about you or one of the kids, wouldn’t you?”
Margot got up, covered the cake and straightened the counters. “The business is going well, and we’re all healthy as can be.”
Gia studied her closely. “Promise?”
Margot was dying to tell her sister the truth. She knew better than to do it, but she needed to talk to someone so badly. She opened her mouth to say something—she didn’t know what—but then a noise at the edge of the room caused her to turn and see Sheldon.
“It’s getting late,” he said with a scowl. “Aren’t you coming to bed?”
Margot’s heart started to race. She’d almost blown everything, almost opened up.
Thank God she hadn’t.
She cleared her throat as she tried to decide how to respond. She knew what Sheldon had said was more than a suggestion. There’d be hell to pay if she didn’t come to bed because he’d interpret that decision as choosing her sister over him. “Yeah, um... I... We were just finishing up.”
Obviously surprised by this sudden turn when they hadn’t even had time for a full conversation, Gia looked from her to Sheldon and back again. Margot recognized the steely determination in her sister’s eyes. Gia was tempted to tell Sheldon to mind his own business and leave them alone. But something about Margot’s sudden panic must’ve shown in her face because Gia seemed to change her mind.
After shoveling the last bite of cake into her mouth—she probably did that to show she’d at least finish her dessert before she let him drive her away—she handed Margot the plate. “Cake was delicious. Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“I’m leaving,” she told Sheldon in a voice that sounded like Have it your way.
Still trying to avert any problems, Margot spoke up before he could respond. “Sorry, we...we have to be up early.”
Gia gave her a brief hug as she said goodbye but simply walked past Sheldon. That was much better than what Margot was afraid she’d been about to do, though.
After the door closed behind Gia, Margot held her breath for fear Sheldon would say he didn’t dare go on his trip if her sister was going to be coming around, hanging out with her and the kids while he was gone. But he surprised her by handing her the knife Gia had given him instead. “Can you believe she brought me a present? That’s a first, isn’t it?”
Margot took it from him, turned it over and ran her thumb over the engraved letters. “Looks like a nice one,” she said and wondered, knowing how much her sister disliked Sheldon, why she’d bothered.
“Must’ve cost her a pretty penny.”
He seemed flattered she’d spend so much, so Margot couldn’t help taking some of that away from him. “Yeah, but I get the impression she makes good money.”
“Since when did you start thinking your sister’s all that?” he said with a scowl. “She might do okay for herself, but she doesn’t make anything close to what I do.”
Gia and her partner had built their business from the ground up. It hadn’t been handed to them by someone else. That was worth noting. But she wasn’t going to mention it. Sheldon didn’t like having any competition—especially when it came to her sister. “There’s no way she makes as much as you do,” she concurred even though she had no idea whether that was true. She didn’t care. She just wanted to be done with him, and if playing it this way made that more likely, she’d say almost anything.
“Do you think she’s really going to stay for the whole winter?” he asked, somewhat speculatively, as she handed back the knife.
Margot needed and wanted him to leave town so badly, she couldn’t give him a reason to stay. “Oh, no. Before you came in, she was already talking about going back.”
“How soon?”
Margot wasn’t a good liar, but she scrambled to come up with something that would make her comment completely believable. “She didn’t say when. She just mentioned the pressures of work, since the business isn’t quite shut down yet, and how she really hated to miss that photography trip she’d been planning with her business partner. I could tell it’s only a matter of time.”
He clicked his tongue. “Told you so.”
“Yes, you did,” she said and breathed a sigh of relief when he left the room, suddenly no longer concerned with whether or not she was coming to bed.
Something was wrong with her sister. The dynamic that Gia had just witnessed was...odd. Sheldon had always held more power in the relationship, and Gia had seen him abuse it over the years, but in subtler ways.
Now, the relationship was even more out of balance. Over a decade of working hard to please him, thinking he’d be happier and treat her better if only she could meet every demand, had obviously backfired. All he had to do was walk into the kitchen and suggest Margot come to bed, and her sister scrambled to obey, even though it’d looked as though she’d been about to confide something important.
What was it she’d wanted to say?
If Margot and Sheldon weren’t getting along, Margot would’ve spoken up, wouldn’t she? Why would she hold that back? She knew Gia didn’t like him.
It was only nine fifty when she got home, but except for the kitchen light, which her father had left on for her, the house was dark and quiet. She figured she’d eventually get used to going to bed early, but if she tried to sleep now, with the anger and resentment she was feeling toward Sheldon boiling in her blood, she’d just stare at the ceiling for the next two hours.
She decided to pour herself a glass of wine, get in the hot tub and watch a movie on her laptop while she was outside. So she washed her face, brushed her teeth, piled her hair in a messy bun on top of her head, put on her bikini and searched Netflix for a series she wanted to watch. After deciding on the latest true crime offering, she took her laptop, a glass and a bottle of wine out with her.
After she removed the thick foam cover, steam roiled from the surface of the water and wafted toward the black expanse overhead, and a quick check showed the thermometer at a toasty 103 degrees. Relieved that she wouldn’t be sitting out in the cold like she had on previous nights when she’d come out to get some air, she set up her laptop so she’d only need to press Play, pulled off her Alaska sweatshirt and kicked her flip-flops to one side before climbing in.
The heat felt so good, and she closed her eyes as she sank beneath the water and rested her head on the lip of the hot tub for a few minutes, relaxing. She’d just sat up and poured some wine when her gaze landed on the chaise where she normally sat.
There was a big rock on it, which was strange. Who would’ve put that there? she wondered. These days, her parents rarely came into the backyard. It’d gotten too cold outside. A professional handled the pool, and since her mother’s diagnosis, a yard service had taken over the mowing and trimming from her dad. Gia had wondered why Sheldon had never offered to lend a hand. She knew Margot would’ve done everything she could to help if it’d been his mother who was battling a life-threatening disease. But maybe he was too busy.
Spotting something white sticking out from beneath the rock, she got out to see what it was.
Paper, she realized as she approached it. Someone had put a piece of paper on the chaise and secured it with a rock so it wouldn’t blow away. But who would do that?
She looked back at the house. Every room was still dark, except the kitchen, which had the same light burning.
She peered over the fence, but Cormac’s house was dark, too. There wasn’t so much as a porch light on there. Either he wasn’t home or, like her parents, he’d already gone to bed.
“Weird,” she muttered and dried her hands on her cast-off sweatshirt, since she hadn’t bothered to bring out a towel, before lifting the rock.
It was a note. And it was addressed to her.
Gia,
We’ve had to live with what happened in high school for nearly two decades. That’s a long time. I remember confronting you over it at school and that memory makes me cringe. I acted so badly. If you didn’t deserve what I said, I’m sorry.
But I’m not going to lie—I still find myself torn and confused as to who might be telling the truth. My father insists you were out to ruin him, and I don’t have any real reason to doubt him. His story makes as much sense as yours does. Then there’s love and loyalty, of course, and what I want to believe—and it certainly isn’t that my father could do what you accused him of doing.
Will you take the time to talk to me now that I’m calm and will actually listen? I realize it must be a hard subject for you, especially now, with what’s happening in your own family. But I don’t know whether to hold my father accountable for that night or continue to pity him as someone accused of something he didn’t do.
If you’re willing, please come over—or suggest somewhere else we could meet—so we can have a few minutes to chat. I swear I won’t mistreat you. I won’t even raise my voice. And I won’t keep you more than a few minutes. I just really want to talk.
Thanks for your consideration.
—Cormac
“Oh, God,” Gia muttered. She didn’t want to meet with Cormac. Why would she go over to his place—stroll into the proverbial lion’s den—to discuss something she wished she could just block out of her mind? And if she didn’t do that, where else could she even suggest?
She folded the note along the same crease lines. Nope, she told herself. It didn’t matter how nicely he’d asked. She didn’t have to do it, didn’t owe him anything.
But would he interpret her refusal as guilt? Assume she was ashamed of her behavior?
She didn’t care, she decided. There was no way to convince him of the truth. If he didn’t believe her after sitting through the trial, he wasn’t going to believe her now. He’d said it himself—he didn’t want to believe her.
Except...the sympathy people in town were giving the Harts was costing her friends. She hadn’t spoken to Ruth since they’d had drinks together the other night, and Sammie had sort of tried to defend Ruth when she’d called the day after to smooth everything over. Gia could tell she was getting caught in the middle, but she felt Ruth would probably receive more of her loyalty in the end since she lived here and Sammie saw her so much more often.
Besides, Cormac had been young and emotional back when they’d had that confrontation at school. So had she. Maybe they should talk as adults and try to ease the pain Mr. Hart had caused so they could all find some type of closure. She’d never wanted his family to be hurt; she wished someone would understand that...
Gia put the note back under the rock so it wouldn’t blow away or get wet while she went back to the hot tub, where—instead of watching the movie—she spent the next twenty minutes staring at it and going back and forth in her mind as to whether she should actually meet with him.
Fortunately, by the time she got out, it was too late to go to anyone’s house, so she didn’t have to wrestle with herself any longer tonight.
She’d put the onus back on him, she decided at last. If he really wanted to talk to her, she’d give him the chance. But she wasn’t going to show up at his place, especially in the middle of the night. The only reason she was willing to meet him at all was because he’d shown so much restraint at his office. He could’ve piled on. Louisa had certainly wanted him to. And yet he’d apologized for her and treated Gia with respect.
After she got out of the water, she went inside and showered. Then she dressed in a warm pair of sweats, wrote a note of her own and used the same rock as an anchor when she left it on his back doorstep.