“I know, and I’m sorry it took me so long to understand.” Or to care.
“Better late than never,” Woodie threw that out as a joke, but I saw the satisfied smile he was trying to hide.
We walked back to my truck and he opened the door to the driver’s seat for me. “So Cassandra O’Malley is gonna live in Washington D.C?” he asked, playing up the last words. “No Nashville, no touring, no music anymore?”
“No music for now.”
“No regrets?”
I was about to answer “None whatsoever,” but I caught myself. “I’m not giving up, I’m only postponing.” The last days had turned me into a parrot, repeating the same shit over and over again. Was I trying to convince myself or what? “I can still write songs though.” And I told him about Sweet Second.
“That’s awesome, Cass. I’m impressed.”
I was proud of that song, but I had serious doubts I’d get to sing it on stage ever again, let alone in a recording studio. “So I guess the next time I see you will be on your Big Day?”
“Something like that… I’ve something to ask you.” Woodie started shuffling the dust on the yard. “I know Clarissa wasn’t the girl you’d like me to end up married to. She went a bit wild in high school … She screwed up—”
My hand flew to Woodie’s buffed-up forearm “I screwed up far worse than Clarissa. All the ugly things I said about her over the years, I should swallow them back like a nest of vipers. I had no right to treat her like I did.”
Woodie patted my hand. “That’s real nice to hear. That’s why maybe you could, I mean, if you can come to Steep Hill with all the things happening with Lucas, maybe you know—”
“Spit it out, Woodie!”
“Would you be my best man?”
I gasped.
“I mean, my best girl, or whatever you call it.”
I forced my chin to move back up again. “I didn’t expect—I mean, I’ve been so horrible and selfish to you and Clarissa. Are you sure you want me—you know, at my wedding you were—”
“Spit it out, Cassie!”
“Well, you were Josh’s best man so I’d understand if you asked him to be yours.”
“Josh and I, we were best friends in high school, but high school was a long time ago. We’ve done a lot of growing up, since then, you and me, so I want you to be the one standing next to me when I say ‘I do.’”
I felt my eyebrows arch and Woodie started to backpedal. “Obviously, you won’t be the one standing next to me, right next to me, Clarissa will be, but you’ll be on the other side.”
“I get it, Wood.” I squeezed his arm. “I’d be honored.”
I kissed his chubby cheek. I hoped he’d keep looking like the cutest teddy bear I’d ever seen.
“I’ll let you get back to your fiancée.” I hopped inside my truck and landed on a spring that was sticking up from the bench seat. Ouch! My Chevy was a danger even to my butt.
Woodie laid his hand on the frame of the opened window of the truck and leaned against it. “Clarissa thought Lucas could be a ring bearer. Maybe you’ll have him back before Christmas?”
I clasped my hands tighter over the steering wheel. “Maybe.”
Woodie stepped back and I switched on the engine. I shouted a silent ‘Thank you’ when it started. I waved at my friend and shifted the truck into reverse. I was half way down the driveway when I popped my head out of the window and shouted, “Wood, cut the sleigh!”
The sound of his laughter warmed my heart on the drive back to the farm. I forced myself to focus on the road ahead of me because my mind kept running away with images of Josh, Lucas and me at Woodie’s wedding. It was getting all kind of syrupy.
I drove past Josh’s family house. It hadn’t changed over the years: freshly-painted with a deck made for lazy, star-gazing nights. It wasn’t the same in all the meaningful ways it used to be though. There wasn’t a family living there anymore, just a divorced woman alone. Jack MacBride had never been the devoted father and husband he made himself out to be in front of the whole town.
Without planning it, I turned the Chevy into the alleyway. I could see the light filtering though the curtains of the living room. I stopped the truck and the creaking of the brakes echoed throughout the silence outside. If anyone was already asleep, well, they were awake now. Guilt shifted away when Josh mom’s light figure stepped out from the shadows on the porch.
I gathered all my courage and got out of the truck. The coming conversation was long overdue.
“It’s so good to see you, sweetheart.”
In a couple of strides I was locked in Miranda’s arms, breathing in her familiar scent of sweet tea.
With my head snuggled in the hollow of her neck, I mumbled. “I should have come and talked to you as soon as I came back two days ago. I should have come and talked to you so long ago. I was ashamed. I was a coward—”
Miranda hushed me with gentle taps on my back. “It’s the past. Let’s start afresh.”
I felt my muscles loosen and the tension that had stored up in them disappear. Alfredo’s death had hit me hard and thrown my emotions all over the place. I was so very tired.
Miranda pulled me up the steps leading to the porch. Slowly she sat me down on the bench there. She didn’t ask me anything. I didn’t say anything. I just sat there and it felt like my batteries had finally ran out of juice.
I’d spent so much of myself trying to be a mom and at that instant, I needed one. I needed my Wonder Woman, my superhero, someone to hold me, soothe me, and tell me it’d be okay in the end.
The next hour was a blur. Miranda gave me a cup of cocoa with a dollop of fluffy cream coating the top. She listened to me while keeping her arm around my shoulders. I rambled on and on about the last six years with no concern for chronological order. She didn’t seem upset with me for hiding her grandson from her, for breaking her son’s heart.
When the confession and the cocoa were finished, she kissed the top of my head.
“I’m going to say to you the same thing I told Josh. It’s time for both of you to let go of the past and stop holding it against yourselves… against each other.”
“But what if we haven’t changed enough, what if we keep making the same mistakes?”
She shifted on the bench so that she now stared straight at me. My spine stiffened under her gaze. “Would you give up Lucas again?”
“No! I’m not sure I’ll be the best mother in the history of motherhood but, I’m sure gonna try hard.”
“There’s no such thing as the best mom, darling. All of us, we just try and do our best.”
“You don’t. I mean, I know Josh thinks you are the best.” I cleared my throat. “When I was a child, I liked to pretend you were my mom. All those Sundays I came here after church to have a slice of homemade apple pie … I pretended you baked it just for me.”
“But I did sweetie. That apple pie was for you. God knows Josh wolfed down enough food the rest of the week.”
Tears tingled my eyelids. “Thank you. That pie used to make me very happy.”
“I want you to promise me something Cassie.” I nodded. I’d have promised her anything. “You and Josh must stop second-guessing each other. Be more open about your feelings. When Lucas comes and lives with you, life is going to get busy. There’ll be school. There’ll be football practice, homework, play dates. It’s so easy to forget about the person living next to you because you don’t have time anymore for each other, for yourselves.” For a second, Miranda’s gaze got lost somewhere over my shoulder. “Never forget that before being Lucas’s mom and dad, you’re a man and a woman who love and respect each other. That’s what’s at the heart of a happy fam—”