As much as Fiona hated it, she knew he deserved it.
And her son deserved to live with a woman who understood the depths of his pain.
And his daughter deserved chocolate cake and she needed someone to teach her how to make them and, Lord knew, Prentice couldn’t do that.
And Bella…
Well, Bella wasn’t the only one with a soft heart and Fiona knew that Bella deserved all of them.
When Bella came back to get the last two cases, Fiona’s decision made, she dashed to her and started shouting.
What are you doing? Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave!
Bella shook her head as if clearing her thoughts and Fiona knew she could hear her.
Don’t do it, Bella. Don’t. He needs you and you need him! You need all of them!
Fiona heard Bella’s breath hitch as she held back a sob but she exited the front door and threw her cases in the boot of her car.
Think of Annie! Fiona cried.
“I’ll not let Annie down,” Bella murmured and Fiona would have gasped (but, obviously she didn’t as she couldn’t) when Bella spoke directly to her.
Good, then go back!
“I can’t go back.”
Fiona closed her ghostly eyes and shouted her frustration.
Then she panicked.
For, she knew, Prentice was a two strikes kind of man.
He’d forgive you anything.
Once.
Twice, he’d never forgive.
Wrong him twice and you were dead to him. If Bella left him twice he’d never forgive her.
Ever.
Fiona thought fast as Bella slammed the boot of the car.
Then it came to her.
Go back, write him a note. You don’t have to explain. Just say good-bye.
Bella shook her head again, moving toward the driver’s side door.
Just good-bye. That’s it. Don’t leave without saying good-bye.
Bella opened the door.
Fiona wrapped her hands around Bella’s arm and pleaded, Please, tell him good-bye. He deserves that!
Bella shivered and looked down at her arm.
Please, Bella, just tell Prentice good-bye.
Bella hesitated, shook her arm and Fiona saw with great relief, headed back to the house.
Fiona’s eyes rolled skyward and she said a hearty thank you.
Then she darted after Bella.
Floating horizontally over her head, Fiona watched Bella write the note.
I’m sorry, Prentice. This can’t work. No good will come of it. I’m so sorry.
Good-bye, Isabella
Fiona would have written different words like, I’ve loved you for twenty years, and, You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and, Don’t be a jackass and let me go this time. But she didn’t have a say (well, she did, she shouted her opinion, Bella just didn’t listen to her).
Fiona watched Bella turn to the door but she hesitated, did a stutter step, stopped and turned back.
Then she made coffee, all but switching on the pot, including sprinkling the ground coffee with cinnamon.
She went back to the note and added a PS and then propped it against the coffee machine.
Then she took in a deep breath, looked around the house, a single tear slid down her cheek and she gracefully walked out the door.
Fiona floated to the note and read the postscript.
PS: The coffee’s made, just flip the switch and there’s Danish in the breadbox.
Reading it, Fiona burst into silent, ghostly laughter.
Fiona waited (impatiently) watching while her husband slept the morning away.
Then she watched as he woke, instantly reaching out to an empty bed.
Then he came up on an elbow, his eyes narrowing on the bed. He sat up and looked to the bathroom.
The door was open.
His eyes fell on the nightstand. Bella’s things were gone. Fiona saw that he noted that immediately.
He got out of bed and stalked naked to the wardrobe.
Empty.
He strode angrily to the bathroom, pulling the chord for the light, yanking back the glass door to the tub (even though he could see through the glass, for goodness sake).
Then he went back to the bedroom, tugged on his jeans and stopped, gazing around, jaw tight, fury pounding off of him.
His gaze caught on the scented candle Bella left behind on the nightstand. Fiona watched him pick it up. He studied it for a moment. Then he pulled off the stoppered top and smelled it before he calmly put the top back on.
He stood silent and still as he continued to examine the candle.
Then, with a twist of his torso and a brutal underarm throw, he hurled the candle across the room.
The glass broke and the sheetrock dented as it hit the wall and then fell with a clunk to the floor.
Fiona floated behind him as he grabbed his clothes and stalked angrily out of the room.
He tossed his shirt and socks into the clean, tidy and dirty-clothes-less laundry room, making to move by it but he thought better of it. He stopped, walked back a step and glared into the room, his face a ferocious scowl.
He continued into the great room, Fiona drifting after him. He dumped his boots on the floor and started up the steps. He got halfway up before he pivoted and walked right back down. Still scowling, furious and looking like he was ready to commit murder, he walked right up to the coffee canister.
Wrenching it open, he moved to the pot.
He saw the note and stilled.
He set the canister aside, seized the note and read it, his jaw tightening so much, a muscle ticked there.
Then his jaw went slack and his lips parted.
Fiona watched his eyes scan the note again.
Then she watched as he threw back his head and burst out laughing.
Still chuckling, he flipped the switch to on and, still holding the note, he moved to the stairs and bounded up them, two at a time.
Chapter Nine
Tiny Dancer
Isabella
“I don’t get to keep the petals?” Sally asked from beside Isabella in the backseat of the Rolls Royce. Sally was carrying her basket of velvety red rose petals, still wrapped in film.
“No, sweetheart, you have to throw them on the ground so Annie can walk on them,” Isabella answered, fidgeting in her seat.
She’d managed to remain calm and act joyful during the entire morning of getting ready at Fergus’s house but now, with the church getting closer and closer (thus, seeing Prentice after last night getting closer and closer), she was losing it.
Mikey, Isabella worried, saw through her artificial calm, considering he spent a lot of time giving her questioning looks which she ignored.
But Isabella remained focused. Annie was beside herself with nerves, terrified some hideous event was going to happen to stop the day’s festivities.
“Tidal wave!” she’d shouted at one point even though the sun was shining and the nip in the air had disappeared and it was an unseasonably warm day.
“Annie, there’s not going to be a tidal wave,” Isabella replied sedately, watching from her place lounging fully dressed and completely done up on her friend’s bed as the stylists fashioned Annie’s hair.
“What’s a tidal wave?” Sally whispered loudly, lounging beside her.
Isabella looked at Prentice’s daughter.
From the minute Debs had deposited Sally at Fergus’s that morning (which caused Isabella more anxiety but Debs had only looked at her inquisitively then she’d shocked Isabella by giving her a tentative smile then she’d transferred Sally’s small hand directly to Isabella’s and left without uttering a single word), Sally had barely been away from Isabella’s side.