“I’ll be back right after shiva. I promise. I’ll do all the rounds with you, be the perfect fiancée,” Miriam said, grabbing her scarf and coat, then the forgotten carry-on. “I need one week, then we can go back to pretending my old life never existed. Believe me, I’ll be ready for that after seven days with my mother.”
“Let me meet you in a couple of days,” Tara said, her voice softer. “I need to rearrange a few things, because I’m supposed to be at trial, but I can make it work. Then we can come home together.”
Miriam couldn’t stomach the idea of managing Tara’s almost certain dislike of the eccentric, cluttered chaos of Carrigan’s, introducing her parents, being present for Tara while also trying to get through the week herself. It was kind of Tara to offer, but Miriam didn’t want Tara to be a part of this. She wanted her Before and After lives to stay very, very separate.
“We both know you can’t, Tara.” Miriam shook her head. “There’s no way they can spare you from your trial, and you can’t have your phone at shiva! Your client is relying on you, and my family is going to be as much as I can handle.”
Tara never let down a client, which Miriam admired immensely. It also allowed Miriam an easy out.
Tara bit her lip. “I’m sorry I would be something else to handle.”
Maybe not such an easy out, then. “Thank you for offering. I have to go to the airport, like, right now. I will be back in a week. I just. I have to deal with this.”
Tara followed Miriam out the door, as etiquette demanded. No emotion ever got between Tara Sloane Chadwick and proper etiquette.
Miriam was already regretting leaving things this way, but she couldn’t figure out how to fix this chasm right now. She had far wider chasms to worry about.
“I’ll call you a car,” Tara offered, a little stiffly. She always got formal when she was upset.
“My Lyft’s already here. I’m sorry I’m missing the takeout you ordered. I owe you a dinner next week.”
One week at Carrigan’s to say goodbye. It would be over before she knew it.
Chapter 2
Miriam
The car had barely turned off her block when her phone rang, again, this time with a Britney Spears song.
If she didn’t answer, Cole would just keep calling. Cole had been her best friend since college, and while she loved him more than life, he was a lot. She wasn’t particularly ready to deal with him, but then again, she wasn’t ready to deal with anything. She might as well start somewhere. “Cole.”
“MIMI, WHERE ARE YOU?!” he demanded. “You never answered my texts I need you immediately.”
“Cole, breathe real deep.” Miriam rubbed her hand over her face. “I’m on my way to the airport. I need to book the next flight to New York.” She stretched out her booted legs, belatedly wishing she’d stopped to change her socks. Her entire world had just crashed, but she would rather focus on her eighteen-hour grungy socks.
“You just got home,” he whined. “What, is there an antiquing emergency? Do the Old Ladies need you?”
“I’m not going for work,” she said, dragging in a breath. “I’m going to Carrigan’s.”
“Carrigan’s?” His voice lit all the way up, nearly screeching. Cole had a long fascination with the idea of Carrigan’s, which was most of the reason she’d never taken him there. When they’d met in college, she had still spent every winter break on the farm with Cass, Hannah, Levi, and the rest of the Matthewses, but she’d always found an excuse to leave him behind. By the time she stopped going for good, they’d been living in different states.
“Wait, you don’t go to Carrigan’s. Ever. What happened?”
She braced a hand against the side of the car, grasping for purchase against the wave of grief as she said, “Cass died.” She heard him suck in his breath. “I have to sit shiva.”
“I’ll meet you at the ticket counter.”
“What? You can’t just hie off to upstate New York.” She couldn’t ask him to come keep her company in a place he’d never been, to mourn a woman he’d never met. Although she ought to have expected him to offer. It was like him to drop everything for her.
Her sweet, loyal boy, her platonic puzzle piece.
“I’ll meet you at the airport, Mimi. I’m buying your ticket! I’ve been trying to get you to take me to Carrigan’s for years.” Cole hung up before Miriam could tell him no.
By the time she saw Cole in the ticket line, she had stopped shaking. Mostly.
Cole was huge—very nearly six and a half feet—and built like a rower, with shaggy sand-colored waves of hair and guileless ocean-blue eyes. He’d played lacrosse in college and sailed a yacht. He was a quintessential Southern Bro, hiding a progressive heart behind clothes embroidered with lobsters. When he showed up at the airport in a too-small ugly Halloween sweater over a pink button-down with a popped collar, she felt herself start to breathe a little bit. Cole coming was good. He would distract her from falling apart, and he would pick her up if she did.
“I know you’re going to have an opinion about the sweater.” He held her hands tightly, curling his large body protectively around her very small one like a big brother—or a daddy penguin. “But I’m here with my credit card to whisk you away to your ancestral homeland, so don’t give me shit.”