Accidentally in Love (3 page)

“Fine.” Gail inhaled a long, slow breath, but she didn’t huff it out like she usually did. Instead, she exhaled slowly, lifted her chin a little, and crossed her arms over her chest. “I left him.”

The mug slipped out of Ellie’s grasp, and she bobbled it from one hand to the other and back again before finally managing to catch it and set it down in one piece.

“Buck?”
she gaped. “You left
Buck
? Well, holy mother of God, where’s the champagne when you need it?”

“Don’t start.” Gail reached around Ellie and pulled a second mug out of the cupboard as though Ellie were too inept to do it herself. “And please don’t call him that.”

“Why not? Everyone else does. I have a whole list of other names I could use if you like.”

“That’s enough.” After all these years, Gail’s clipped, sharp tone was still able to freeze Ellie’s tongue. “Why don’t you try calling him ‘Dad,’ like you used to?”

Oh, yeah, that wasn’t going to happen, not now. Ellie set the kettle on to boil, then pulled out the tea and the sugar.

“Where do you keep your honey?” Gail opened the cupboard and started pushing things around. “Ellie?”

“I don’t have any.”

“You don’t have
honey
?” Gail frowned, peering back over her shoulder. “What do you put in your tea?”

Ellie lifted the ceramic sugar bowl and waved it back and forth.

“Oh honestly, Ellie.” The way Gail clicked her tongue, you’d have thought Ellie had just confessed to mainlining the stuff. “Sugar is nothing but white death. Honey is a perfect food; it helps with acid reflux—”

“Which I don’t have.”

“It minimizes seasonal allergies.”

“Which, again, I don’t have.”

“It helps boost your immune system, and—” Gail stopped Ellie’s interruption with a raised hand. “Studies show it might help prevent cancer.”

It had been over four years since they’d been in the same room—was this really the first thing they needed to argue about?

“Fine.” Ellie nodded. “You’re right, yes, honey is awesome; I’ll pick some up tomorrow.”

“Don’t get that crap they sell in the grocery store. They homogenize and pasteurize all the goodness right out of it; get it fresh at the farmers’ market.” Gail stopped, looked up, and frowned. “Does this town even have a farmers’ market?”

“Yes, Mom,” Ellie sighed. “Of course we have a farmers’ market. Now can we please talk about you and Buck?”

Giving up on the honey, Gail moved to the fridge, pulled out the carton of 2 percent, and sniffed it. “How long have you had this?”

“Seriously?” Ellie jerked the milk out of her mom’s grasp, poured a bit into one of the prepared mugs, and closed the fridge. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” Gail lifted her glasses, breathed hard on the right lens, then used her shirt to wipe it.

“Nothing?”
When staring at her mother didn’t earn a response, Ellie shrugged. “Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think people generally walk away from thirty-five years of marriage because of nothing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I support you a hundred and fifty percent….”

“Ellie, please, don’t you think it’s about time you got over what happened between you and your father?”

“No, actually, I don’t.” Ellie waved Gail toward the armchair in the living room before taking the far end of the couch. “He left me sitting in jail on drug charges when he knew damn well I was innocent!”

Gail rolled her mug slowly between her palms. “You know why he couldn’t take your case. Even if he was a criminal defense attorney, being your father would have made him too emotionally attached to be able to present an objective case.”

“Bullshit.”

“Elleanor Grace!”

“I’m sorry, but that’s what it is. He’s a partner with Torbin, Stewart & Lye, for crying out loud, so even if he wouldn’t help me, surely he could have asked someone from the firm to represent me, but did he? No.”

“Honey, you
were
living with a drug dealer, and with all those charges against you, try to imagine how difficult it was for your father at work.”

“Difficult for him? It wasn’t about him! And for the ten billionth time, I didn’t know Kurt was a dealer!” Ellie dropped her head against the cushion and groaned long and loud before forcing herself to look back at her mother. “He ran that garage with his brother; they fixed cars, Mom. It wasn’t like they had a giant neon sign hanging outside flashing, ‘Heroin Sold Here.’ I mean,
God,
you knew him—did you ever suspect anything?”

“No,” Gail sighed. “No, I didn’t.”

Up until the day five years ago when the cops showed up at her door, Ellie hadn’t suspected a thing, either. Was it odd that Kurt left the room every time his cellphone rang? Sure, but he’d said it was because ambient noises made it difficult for him to hear on his phone. Was it odd that so many customers at the garage seemed to pay their bills in cash? Maybe, but Ellie worked retail, where most transactions were done on credit, so it seemed unusual to her when anyone paid cash.

It was easy to see through these things now, but then…she’d had no reason to suspect anything was wrong. Just like she’d had no reason to suspect Kurt’s quirks were anything more than that. He’d always had a bit of a jealous streak, something they’d both laughed about, and by the time they’d moved in together, he’d already told her a couple of times that they’d be together forever. It seemed sweet back then, but once he was released on bail and started stalking her, she realized he hadn’t meant it in the loving way she’d thought.

“Let’s not do this,” Ellie said, huffing out a breath. Sitting cross-legged, she met Gail’s unwavering stare with one of her own. “Tell me what happened with you and Buck.”

Gail and Buck had always presented a united front on everything from family decisions to discipline to curfews and rules for dating. They had each other’s backs in all things, regardless of how big or small, and no matter how much anger Ellie held for her father, she had to give them both credit for that. So for Gail to leave him, it had to be something big.

“Your dad and I love you and Gabbie more than anything in the whole world. I know it’s hard for you to believe that after what’s happened between you and him, but it’s true. You should hear the way he talks about you to his friends. He’s so proud—”

“Mom.”

Gail nodded a little guiltily before focusing back on the actual topic at hand. “Maybe this should wait until you get home from practice. I don’t want—”

“Mom.”

It took a few seconds, but eventually Gail sighed, her words starting slowly, barely more than a whisper, as though she was trying to make them easier to say. Or hear.

“You know I didn’t have the best life growing up.” Gail’s expression clouded and chilled. “I swore if I ever had kids, I’d make damn good and sure they never had to live like that. I’d do whatever it took to make sure my children grew up with both parents, that they were fed, clothed, and had a safe place to live.”

“And you did. We had all that, Mom, but what does that have to do with this?”

Gail’s lips pursed tight for a second before she spoke again.

“I was a high school graduate working two minimum-wage jobs when I met Buck. He was cute and funny and was always so nice to me. He had a way about him, you know, and I knew from the first time I talked to him that he was the kind of man who’d take care of his family. He was on his way up in the firm and needed someone to stand with him, to help him present himself as a good, solid family man. Sounds silly now, but back in the day, having a family meant a man was dependable and trustworthy, and it was those men who moved up faster.”

Ellie didn’t respond, mainly because anything she had to say about Buck was only going to be rude and self-serving and this wasn’t about her. It was about her mom.

“We got along so well,” Gail went on, sinking back in her chair and tucking her feet up beside her. “We both wanted the same thing, and we both knew we could help each other get it, and, well, I loved him so much I believed that would be enough, that it didn’t matter if he didn’t feel the same way, so…” She shrugged. “It made sense.”

“What made sense?”
Ellie croaked. “What are you telling me here, Mom? You married Buck knowing he wasn’t in love with you?”

“Yes, but just listen before you say anything else. There are a few things I’d change about the last thirty-five years, but marrying your father wouldn’t be one of them. Think about all the kids you grew up with, Ellie. How many of those families stayed together?”

She didn’t wait for Ellie to answer.

“Not many, and I’d be willing to bet that probably had a lot to do with the fact that the parents didn’t
really
want the same things, and if they did, they weren’t willing to do whatever it took to get them. I loved Buck, and together we were determined to make it work. You didn’t hear us fighting over whose turn it was to drive you to ball practice, who did more around the house, or where the money went every month; we were a team. What benefited one, benefited all.”

Oddly enough, Gail was right. Ellie couldn’t remember a time when her parents fought; they discussed, they debated, but they never fought.

Conversely, how often did Buck ever get mushy with Gail? It wasn’t unusual to see Gail touch him or kiss him, and Buck kissed her goodbye every morning, but it was always a peck on the cheek. On those rare occasions when he did kiss her on the mouth, it was little more than a brush. They laughed, they talked about everything, and they obviously enjoyed each other’s company, so it had never occurred to Ellie that there was anything wrong.

“I’m sorry.” As she ran her finger along the edge of her mug, Gail’s face blanched under the strain of what she was saying. “I know this sounds crazy, and I’m sure you have questions, but just listen first, okay?”

What else could she do? It wasn’t like she could form a coherent thought at the moment.

“Buck’s a good man, Ellie, and we make a hell of a good team.” Gail shifted in her chair and licked her lips. “And I know you’re going to want to blame him, but none of this is his fault. I knew what I was doing, and he never pretended to feel anything more than he did. He was honest and faithful, and that was more than I’d ever seen my mother have.”

Ellie set her mug on the table and pressed her hands over her face. This couldn’t be real. Her parents had always been Buck ’n’ Gail, a single unit, not Buck and Gail, two separate people.

As that ridiculous thought slid through her mind, she suddenly realized just how stupid it was, how much she’d taken her parents for granted her whole life, assuming they were both happy and fulfilled in their lives. In her own defense, though, how was she supposed to think anything else when neither of them had ever let on that anything was wrong? They’d let her and Gabbie live their lives believing that their parents were happy.

They’d lied.

Tucking her knees up under her chin, Ellie wrapped her arms around them and held on as tight as she could. “So why leave now?”

Defeat. It was a look she’d never seen cross her mother’s face until that moment, and it took Gail a couple of seconds to blink past it.

“Because all these years, I kept hoping things would change, kept believing he would come to love me the way I loved him.” She dug a tissue out of her pocket (never went anywhere without one) and blew her nose hard. “Part of me thinks he does, but he’s never had to show it, never had to express it, so he doesn’t, and we just keep on going the way we always have.”

“Mom.” Ellie’s eyes burned, her throat thickened, and her jaw quivered. “I’m just…I can’t…I don’t even know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say, sweetie.” Gail balled up the tissue and pulled out another one. “I just can’t do it anymore.”

“All these years…” Dashing the back of her hand across her eyes, Ellie swallowed hard. “What does Buck think about all this?”

A sound ripped from her mom’s throat, somewhere between a painful choke and a laugh.

“That poor man doesn’t know whether to shit or go blind, so I’m still holding out a shred of hope that a little time apart will make him see me differently—”

“Hold on.” Ellie closed her eyes and shook her head before tipping a look at her mother. “You’re playing hard to get? Is that what this is about?”

“No. Maybe.” For the first time since she’d arrived, Gail’s eyes flooded with tears and a wave of guilt washed over her face as though she didn’t have the right to want more, as though she didn’t deserve it. Seeing that on her mother’s face sliced a long, thick gash through Ellie’s heart. “Is that so wrong? Is it wrong to want my husband to look at me like I’m the most beautiful thing in the world? Is it wrong to want to be kissed like…like…I’m a woman, not just a wife?”

“No,” Ellie finally whispered. “Of course it’s not wrong.”

“You think I’m ridiculous, don’t you? I’m almost sixty years old, for goodness sake, I should be happy with what I have.”

“You’re only fifty-seven,” Ellie corrected. “And the only thing I find ridiculous about all of this is that we’ve all been living this lie for so long. I had no idea you were unhappy.”

“Now, wait just a second. I was
never
unhappy,” Gail said, laughing lightly at the irony of her words as she mopped the last tear from her cheek. “Buck and I were blessed with the two most beautiful children in the world, we had a roof over our heads, and we never wanted for much, so don’t you think for one second I was ever unhappy. I wasn’t. My only regret is that I was never able to make him love me the way I love him.”

Ellie was off her seat in an instant, trying to squeeze onto the chair beside her mom. There wasn’t room, so she did what she’d always done as a little girl: she curled up on Gail’s lap and tucked her face against her mom’s neck. Gail’s arms circled her like they always had, and they just sat like that for a long time, Ellie breathing in the familiar and comforting scent of Chanel and Gail smoothing her hand up and down Ellie’s back.

“What can I do?” Ellie finally managed. “I mean besides finding you some farmers’ market honey, what else can I do? What do you need?”

“Well,” Gail drawled, resting her chin on Ellie’s head. “You can let me stay here for a while, until I know for sure what’s going to happen with Buck.”