“I doubt my very pregnant sister would want to come hang out with me in a bar,” I snorted.
But then Mom and I shared a look, and both of us started laughing. I pulled out my phone and fired off a quick text to Meg. “You’re right. Of course, she’ll want to come.”
“If you didn’t ask her, she’d get very offended,” Mom stated sagely, knowing—just as I did—how mercurial Meg’s moods were, particularly now you paired it with late-stage pregnancy.
My sister’s response was almost instant.
Of course! I’ll meet you there in ten!
“Well, there you have it. It looks like I need to go get changed.” I paused, turning to my new neighbor. “It was nice seeing you again, Leonard.”
“All my friends call me Leo.” His smile was warm. He was clearly a likable guy, but the jury would stay out for a long time if he were hoping to be in my mom’s life.
“Okay then, Leo.” I leaned down and kissed my mother’s cheek. “I won’t be late,” I promised.
“Be as late as you want. Who knows, maybe you’ll meet someone.” She raised her eyebrows, and I swallowed the exasperated sigh. I knew she desperately wanted me to do normal things like date, get married, have children. She had no idea how impossible that felt for me. She wasn’t privy to the dark places of my life. Some things I had to keep close—under lock and key.
I didn’t bother to respond, so with a final goodbye, I hurried to my room to change out of my work clothes so I could meet my sister.
**
“I mostly came to see if body snatchers had swapped my older sister for someone fun,” Meg teased, sipping her lemonade as we sat in a booth at the back of the packed bar. She had ordered me my old favorite—a Midori Sour. I had gotten shit faced on them at the field party after my high school graduation. Meg had no way of knowing that I hadn’t touched one since that night.
I took a sip, trying not to grimace. “Ha, ha. Well, it was that or stay home and watch our mother make goo-goo eyes at the new neighbor.” I pushed the cocktail away, hoping Meg wouldn’t be insulted if I didn’t drink it.
Her eyes widened twice their normal size, and she coughed. “Excuse me … Mom was doing what now?”
“Do you remember Leonard Ship?” Meg shook her head. I shrugged. “Apparently he used to be on Dad’s parks and rec basketball team. He bought the house across the street—”
“The Vaughn’s place?” Meg asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one. Anyway, he came over to say hi to Mom, apparently. They ended up sharing a bottle of wine and are probably enjoying Chinese takeout right about now,” I told her blandly.
Meg rested her hands on her pronounced belly. She tended to rub it when she was amped up about something. “This is huge, Whit. I wasn’t sure Mom would ever be ready to date again. But I know she’s been so lonely. It’s better now that you’re back, but I can tell.”
“Yeah, me too. But it’s weird, right?” I looked to my sister for confirmation that I wasn’t the only one off-kilter at the idea of our mother dating someone that wasn’t our father.
Meg nodded, taking another long sip of her lemonade. “Oh, definitely. It’s totally weird.”
We let that sit between us for a while, the quiet building up. Once upon a time, Meg and I had been really close. Best friends close. We had shared everything. But the years hadn’t been kind to our relationship, and I bore most of the responsibility for the deterioration of our once tight bond.
The world of movies had changed me. In really horrible ways. When I thought back to the woman I became, I cringed inwardly. I couldn’t explain exactly what caused it, though I could place a lot of it at the feet of one individual. But he couldn’t take all the blame. I had been sucked into a world that was both overwhelming and completely consuming. It left little room for anything else. I had stomped all over a lot of people.
However, karma put me squarely in my place.
And I was back home now. Trying like hell to rebuild after I had systematically dismantled everything I used to have here, including my relationship with Meghan. We had had a heart to heart not long after I came back into town. It helped clear the air and allowed us to begin the process of making our way back to each other.
But honestly, things were still strained. It only made sense. You couldn’t undo years of damage in the span of a few months. It would take a lot of work on my part for us to become something like the two young girls we used to be.