“I love all those things too.”
It was the perfect time for him to say something more, even if it was a kiss. Matthew only stared. And Stella began to break.
“Matthew, I love you,” she told him.
Matthew looked startled. Then, for the briefest of moments, pleased. But he still said nothing, and from his pocket, his phone gave another bleat.
Stella stepped back. Let him go. She waited for him to choose her, to choose them, but Matthew pulled his phone out to look at the message. He grimaced and tucked it away again.
“Will you be here when I get back?” he asked.
“Do you want me to be?”
“Yes. So we can talk.” He kissed her cheek. Gave her shoulders a squeeze. He grabbed his coat and keys from the rack by the door. He did turn back in the doorway to look at her. There was that. “I’ll bring home takeout from that Indian place you love. Okay?”
“Sure.” Stella nodded.
She waited until he’d closed the door behind him before she let herself begin to shake. Then her knees gave out and she went to them on the cold, hard tile of his entryway. Her hands slapped flat on the floor as her shoulders bent and she tried to hold back the sobs splintering her throat. Scalding her eyes. She couldn’t, of course. Her grief surged up and out of her, Cthulu rising from the depths to destroy the world and everything in it.
She got to her feet before she was done weeping, but she couldn’t stay there on the floor forever. In his powder room, she washed her face and drank cool water from her cupped hands, gulping it until her stomach protested. Then she leaned over the toilet, waiting for her guts to erupt...but she breathed her way through the sudden nausea. Got to her feet again. Smoothed her hair. Her clothes. The woman in the mirror was pale, with shadowed eyes. Her smile a grimace. Stella touched her fingertips to the glass for a second, but yes. That was her. No through-the-looking-glass moment here.
She didn’t write a note to go along with the key she left in the bowl on the hall table. There were no words. He’d figure it out. Then she let herself out the front door, took the elevator to the lobby. Had Herndon call her a cab.
She left him.
Because loving Matthew was like trying to fill a cracked glass—she could pour and pour and pour, and the glass would always be empty. There would never be anything for her to drink.
She would always be thirsty.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
There’s no explaining fate or serendipity. It happens, most of the time unrecognized, but when Stella ran into Craig again at the same old coffee shop where she’d stopped after work to pick up a box of muffins, all she could think was how often and how hard the universe had tried to push them together.
She asked him to dinner. “Not a date,” she told him. “But I’d like us to talk.”
“I’d like that,” Craig said.
She took him to a nice little place with dim lighting and soft music and an eclectic menu. Not a date, though it could’ve been, she thought as they both ordered glasses of wine and their knees bumped under the table. If she’d reached for his hand, he might’ve taken it. She didn’t reach.
“Why do you think we didn’t work?” she said bluntly. “Was it as simple as me being married? If we’d had a chance, if we’d met each other when I was alone...would it have been different?”
Craig sipped from his glass and studied her. “Yes. Maybe.”
“I don’t believe in soul mates or anything like that. I don’t believe in one true love. I’m not sure, to be honest, that I even believe in monogamy.” Stella broke a bread stick into small pieces she arranged on her plate without wanting to eat them.
“Yeah.” Craig laughed. “Well, it’s easier, though.”
She smiled at him, and that was when she reached for his hand. A quick squeeze, no linking of fingers, nothing to indicate romance. He looked surprised and squeezed back.
“I do still miss you sometimes,” she told him. “We always had fun together. I always felt like you’d listen to me, no matter what I ever had to say.”
“I would.”
Stella’s smile tightened. “I should’ve told you lots of things, Craig. I was so dishonest with you. Not a liar. Just never fully truthful about me, my life, my feelings. I wonder if it would’ve made a difference.”
“You can’t ever know what might’ve been, Stella. Do I wonder? Yeah. Would I have liked something different? Yes.” Craig shrugged. “But you can’t spend your time second-guessing.”
Stella took a deep breath. “I lost my oldest son in a car accident. He was almost nine. My younger son and ex-husband were fine, but I had a lot of injuries. My son Gage never regained full consciousness. He was on a respirator and feeding tube in the hospital. We decided to take him off both a month after the accident. He kept breathing on his own, so we took him home. He lived another five months.”
Craig reached for her hand and, this time, held it tight. “That must’ve been really hard for you.”
“It was hard for everyone. Not just me. I blamed my husband for the accident. I blamed myself for not being the one who’d been driving, thinking maybe if I had been, I’d have been able to stop it somehow.” Stella drew in a cleansing breath and found a shaky but sincere smile for him.
“I’m sorry you didn’t feel you could tell me back then.”
“I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me. You were one of the few people in my life who didn’t know. To you, I was not ‘that woman who lost her son.’ I liked that feeling, that anonymity. But, Craig,” she said, “I am that woman who lost her son. I will always be that woman.”
“You’ll be a lot of things,” he told her.
* * *
The call from Jeff surprised Stella, but warily, she accepted his invitation to breakfast. Just the two of them. He took her to their favorite place, the diner where they’d gone while they were dating, when they’d often stayed up so late night became morning.
It had been a long, long time since she and Jeff had spent any time alone together without Tristan between them. Stella watched him salt and pepper his eggs the way he always had done. She passed him the ketchup before he asked for it. You couldn’t live with someone for fifteen years without memorizing at least a few of his habits.
“You should eat something more than that,” Jeff said brusquely, pointing with his fork toward her pair of eggs-over-medium and toast. “You’re getting too thin again.”
He paused to look closely at her before she could even take a bite. “What’s he done to you?”
At first, she thought he meant Tristan, but then she understood. “We broke things off. That’s all.”
“Does he need a kick in the balls?”
Stella burst into startled laughter. “You’re going to kick my ex-lover in the balls for me?”
“If he needs it.” Jeff laughed too.
They hadn’t laughed together in far longer than they’d eaten breakfast together, and though the humor was bittersweet, it was better than being solely bitter. To appease him about her breakfast, Stella had ordered French toast in addition to the eggs. Jeff passed her the syrup before she asked for it.
It was nice.
“I have something to tell you,” he said when they’d finished eating and were sitting, sipping coffee.
“I figured you did.”
Jeff looked embarrassed but proud. And something else. True to form, he didn’t try to soften his words. “Cynthia’s pregnant.”
In the space of one heartbeat to the next, Stella waited for pain or grief, but all she found was...well, not joy. Not exactly. But happiness, for sure. And it was also bittersweet.
“Congratulations,” she said.
Jeff started to cry. His shoulders hunched, his eyes grew red. He covered his face with a hand, turning toward the
window, while Stella sat, uncertain of what to do. She couldn’t reach for him and wasn’t sure she would have, even if she were sitting closer.
He got himself under control in under a minute, typically Jeff. He swiped angrily at his eyes and then blew his nose with a napkin. He cleared his throat.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she told him. “A baby is always good news, Jeff. Was it a surprise, or...?”
“No. She wanted a kid. I just... It feels... Shit, Stella. Shit.”
Then she did reach across the table to take his hand. Once they’d stood in front of a priest and made their vows with their fingers linked. She didn’t have to love him anymore to want to offer him compassion.
Jeff squeezed her hand as if she’d offered him a lifeline. “It feels wrong. What if I can’t love it? What if it’s a boy?”
In all the darkness, Stella had never allowed Jeff to be her light. Now all she could do was try to make up for it. “Then you’ll have another son. And you’ll love him. You won’t be able to stop yourself, Jeff. And it will be all right.”
“There are days I can’t remember his face,” Jeff said. “There are days I don’t think about him at all.”
Stella fought her own tears. “It’s okay.”
“Is it?” He gave her a stare so naked in its grief that Stella had no reply.
In the parking lot, she thought about hugging him, but instead they stood at an awkward distance. The sun had burned through early spring clouds that had hinted at snow. The light caught the threads of silver in Jeff’s hair and showed the lines around his eyes. It probably did the same for her.
“I wanted to tell you first. I thought you should hear it from me. We’ll tell Tristan later this afternoon. I think he’s going to want to move back in with you,” Jeff said. “If that’s all right.”
“Of course it is. And, Jeff...really sincerely, you and Cynthia have my congratulations.” This time, she forced herself to move and hug him.
He hugged her back. For half a minute too long, his arms went around her. His face buried in her neck. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine they were young again, and in love, and their life together was just beginning instead of long over.
He let her go, his eyes suspiciously red again. “That guy? The one Tristan told me about? He’s an asshole.”
“Well. Yeah.” She laughed. Shrugged. “But maybe so am I.”
“So we all are,” Jeff said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
To: Matthew Shepherd
From: Stella Andrews Cooper
You’re Invited!
What: It’s Stella’s Birthday
When: Saturday, August 11
Where: Stella’s house, 609 Aspen Drive
Your presence is your gift
Please RSVP by July 24
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Fifty people at a birthday party, all there to support and celebrate with her, and Stella was about to do a Leslie Gore and “It’s My Party” all over them.
She didn’t want to.
She didn’t want to let Matthew make her cry any more than he already had, but there was this pesky thing eating away at her insides that wouldn’t let her stop thinking about him. Stella locked herself in her bathroom and force-breathed until she felt dizzy, but at least she’d chased away the tears. She stared herself down in the mirror, looking fierce but, thank God, not too haggard though last night she’d been unable to sleep more than a couple hours at a time. She turned her face from side to side—misery had been good to her cheekbones, even if it had royally fucked up everything else.
Smoothing her dress over her hips and belly, Stella straightened her shoulders. “It’s over,” she told her reflection. “He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t want you. Not enough.”
It was the shittiest of pep talks, as far as they went. But it worked, because it was the truth, and the sooner she got used to facing it, the sooner it would stop hurting. Or some such bullshit, anyway. She didn’t actually believe that part about the pain fading faster, but the truth was better than trying to tell herself lies that would never come true.
He didn’t love her.
Not enough.
Raking her fingers through her hair, she fluffed it over her shoulders. She swiped her face with powder and refreshed her lipstick. She looked a little less like Death, even if she still felt like it.
She needed to get out to the party, to mingle and smile and greet her guests and be gracious to all of those who’d come to see her. She had to oversee the food, though she was sure Cynthia with her bulging belly was bustling about Stella’s kitchen in a tizzy, trying to be helpful while all the time silently clucking her tongue at the disorganization of someone who couldn’t be bothered to separate her baking utensils from the serving spoons.
Slipping into a pair of sandals, Stella let herself out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her. From downstairs came the hum and buzz of conversation, the throb of music. Through the high windows in the family room she could see into the yard, where people were mingling and standing around the grill, where Jeff had taken up the apron and tongs. Oh, God, Stella thought with a shake of her head. Worlds colliding.
Still, it was nice of Jeff and Cynthia to have helped her with this party, no matter what their reasons. It was good for Tristan to have three parents who could work together to do something important for him. Something beyond the selfishness of themselves. Lifting her chin, taking a long, deep breath, Stella went downstairs.
Tristan and his friends had already set up the volleyball net, spending more time trying to spike the ball into each other’s heads than any real scorekeeping. The girls clustered around the edges, watching, shaking their heads at the boys’ antics, not even the sporty girls stupid enough to try to join what was becoming more of a war than a game. Stella set up the mental countdown to the first bloody nose at thirty minutes or so, and that was being generous. She watched them for a few minutes from the sliding glass doors to the deck, then turned to the kitchen.
Cynthia had indeed been bustling, as evidenced by the artfully arranged platters of veggies and dip, cut fruit, also with dip, and the cheese and crackers. With more dip. Cynthia loved dips. But Stella forced away the snarky thoughts about her ex-husband’s current wife.
“This looks great,” Stella said sincerely. “Thanks so much for this, Cynthia.”
Cynthia, her face gone round and pink-cheeked from the heat and her pregnancy, looked uncertain. “I just set out the things I found in the fridge and whipped up a few dips.”
Stella held back a snort of laughter.
“You didn’t have any special platters or anything, did you? I didn’t want to go digging around.”
“No, no. It’s fine.” Stella pulled open one of the drawers to find a set of dip spreaders topped with old-fashioned shoes. They’d been a wedding gift from one of Jeff’s relatives. She’d never even taken them out of the clear plastic box, but they’d be perfect now. She watched Cynthia’s eyes light up at the sight. “You know...you should take these with you.”
Cynthia looked confused. “Where?”
“When you go home. They came from Jeff’s aunt and uncle. Really, I never use them, and you...you would.”
“I would,” Cynthia said with a wide, incredulous smile. “Look how perfect they are for the dips!”
Stella pressed the entire box into Cynthia’s hand. “Take them.”
Cynthia smiled hesitantly. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“I have never in my life used a special utensil for a dip,” Stella said, “but I’m sure you will use them all the time.”
Both women started laughing at the same time, softly at first, then a little louder. Cynthia took the box of dip knives and tucked it into her oversized designer purse taking up
a lot of room on Stella’s counter. Her smile softened.
“Thanks, Stella.”
“Thank you. For everything.” For a moment, Stella was convinced she might burst into tears again, but she forced them back by biting hard on the raw spot on the inside of her cheek. It hurt like hell, which was the point.
Cynthia moved a little closer. “It’s been a tough few months, huh?”
“Yeah.” Stella turned to the food laid out on the center island, pretending to rearrange some of it, though Cynthia had done such a wonderful job there was really nothing to change.
“Hey.” Cynthia put a hand on her shoulder, gentle fingers squeezing for a second or two before letting go. “I just want you to know that I’m sorry about your...friend. Jeff told me you broke up.”
Stella stiffened, not turning. “He said that?”
“Yes. Jeff is too nosy. He should mind his own business.” Cynthia sounded annoyed. Stella turned, completely understanding how it felt to be annoyed by an ex’s too-close interest in a former spouse, but Cynthia went on. “Whatever goes on in your life isn’t a reflection on him, and I keep telling him that you’re a grown woman and you should be able to do whatever you like in your private life, that he needs to just accept that he’s no rose garden and not everything was your fault.”
Stella didn’t know what to say.
Cynthia smiled a little, both hands resting on the swell of her belly, but didn’t say any more than that. The women shared a look, bonding over the ass-hattery of the same man. It wasn’t quite friendship, but it was the closest it had ever come to being something like that.
“I need to pee,” Cynthia said abruptly, and waddled off toward the powder room.
The moment of camaraderie had occurred in a rare few minutes of quiet with no witnesses, but as was common with all kinds of parties, people tended to congregate in the kitchen. Stella was bombarded in the next few minutes with friends and relatives, some bearing gifts of food, some with more traditional birthday presents, which she directed them to put on the dining room table. Once the party was in full swing, there was no time for Stella to lose herself in her misery. It hadn’t disappeared. But it was not the worst grief she’d ever suffered, and eventually it would go away.