Last One Home (31 page)

Garth didn’t know that she’d called his office. Nor was he aware that she was on to his secret.

But he’d learn soon enough. Oh yes, he’d find out the minute she was home to confront him face-to-face.

Karen wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get through the signing, not to mention the rest of the day. She called and talked briefly with her son but not to Garth. She needed the afternoon to think, and even then, she wasn’t sure what she would say to her husband. It was beyond the scope of her imagination that Garth would keep the fact that he’d lost his job a secret from her … from everyone.

As had become Garth’s habit, he was cooking dinner by the time Karen arrived at the house. It all made sense now that he’d been getting home from the office before her every night. He’d told her he was working fewer hours … yet another lie.

“Hi, honey,” he said, greeting her with a big smile.

She set her keys and purse aside. “How’s Buddy?”

“Better. He slept most of the afternoon.”

“Where is he now?”

Garth continued slicing tomatoes for the salad and didn’t look up. “In his room playing games on his iPad.”

“And Lily?”

Garth added the sliced tomatoes to the lettuce and reached for a handful of radishes, slicing those. “She’s with Elise Jefferies. They’re working together on some end-of-the-school-year project. How was your day?”

“Upsetting.”

“Oh? Didn’t the closing go well?” he asked, looking up for the first time since he’d greeted her.

“It went fine.”

“Oh good. Something else happen?”

A long time ago Karen had read parenting advice that suggested not setting her children up for a lie when she already knew the truth. She figured the same would hold true with her husband.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d gotten laid off?”

Garth’s head came up fast. He set the knife down on the cutting board and wiped his hand on a kitchen towel he had tucked into his waistband. “Who told you?”

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not.” Using both hands, he leaned against the counter as if he feared his legs might not support him.

“Michelle said your last day was weeks ago.”

Garth nodded. “It’s true. At first it felt like a bad joke, but unfortunately the joke was on me.”

In the hours since she’d learned her husband’s secret, she’d had time to think. “The day you got laid off was the day you forgot to pick up Buddy from baseball practice, wasn’t it?”

Garth swallowed hard and nodded. “I was in shock, worried and ashamed. I didn’t know how I was going to tell you … didn’t know what I was going to do.”

“Did you honestly believe I’d blame you?”

“I didn’t know what to think,” her husband snapped. “We’d gone through this once before and I wasn’t sure our marriage would survive. I couldn’t face that again and I wasn’t sure you could, either. I assumed I’d be able to find another job quickly—I have good references and plenty of experience, and I figured I’d tell you when I’d found something new and save you the worry. There was all this business with your sisters. And it hadn’t been that long since we’d buried your mother. I didn’t want to burden you with more bad news.”

“Those are not good excuses. I’m your wife! Don’t you think I have a right to know?”

“Okay, of course. I should have told you,” he said defensively. “But it isn’t easy to admit to your wife and family that you’re a loser.”

“Because you lost your job? Don’t be ridiculous, Garth.”

Straightening, he placed both his hands on top of his head. “Cut me some slack, Karen. A man has his pride.”

Did he really think she would think less of him? People got laid off all the time. Pulling out a kitchen chair, Karen slumped into it. “It hurts, Garth, that you wouldn’t trust me enough to tell me what you’ve been going through.” A number of things played back in her mind. His insistence that he take over the bill paying, the bounced check, and the “misunderstanding” when they went to the storage unit and found it locked up for nonpayment.

“I didn’t want you to know … I hoped to have another job in a few days, a couple weeks at the most.”

“You’ve been looking?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing every day?” he demanded. “I’ve sent out my résumé, pounded the pavement, looked online. It just seems like no one is hiring.” This last part was practically shouted in his frustration. “I know, because I have done everything within my power to find work.” His voice wobbled with emotion and his hands shook.

Silence vibrated through the kitchen.

“You got a severance package?” That was the only way she could explain the money that had continued to be deposited into their joint checking account for the last two months.

Garth hung his head.

“Garth?”

“No. There was no severance package.”

Karen frowned. “But what about the pay that kept showing up in our checking account?”

Turning abruptly, Garth left the kitchen, walking out the sliding glass doors to the backyard. Karen reluctantly followed only to find her husband on his knees, doubled over. His hands were folded protectively on his head.

Racing to him, she knelt at his side. “Garth, Garth, what is it?”

Her husband rocked back and forth as if in agony.

“Tell me,” she pleaded. “Just tell me.”

To her shock and horror, her husband started to cry, great sobs that shook his entire upper body. Wrapping her arms around him, Karen felt tears gather in her own eyes, feeling his pain, his loss, if not knowing the cause.

“I thought the only way out was to kill myself,” Garth whispered.

“No,” Karen nearly screamed. “No. Garth, nothing is worth losing you. You’re my husband … what would the kids and I do without you?”

“I used your parents’ money,” he said, burying his face in his hands.

Shock nearly sent her reeling. Her inheritance … For a minute she said nothing, absorbing this news. Finally, she whispered, “It doesn’t matter … it doesn’t matter.”

“I tried to make up what I’d lost …”

A chill went down Karen’s back. She didn’t know how she knew but she did. “You played the stock market?”

He nodded. “It’s gone, Karen, it’s gone.”

“All of it?”

“There’s a couple thousand left … that’s it. I’m so sorry … so, so sorry.”

Karen held on to her husband as they both wept.

Steve phoned Cassie on Monday, but their conversation was short and rather awkward. She didn’t hear from him on Tuesday, although she wished she had. They were both treading carefully, as if approaching a bed of hot coals in their bare feet.

Wednesday night he called again, looking to confirm their dinner date on Saturday. They both knew that was just an excuse. Cassie didn’t mind; she’d missed him and was eager to talk, going out of her way to keep the conversation light and friendly. She could almost hear him relax, and because he did, she did, too.

As it happened, she had a good reason to be more lighthearted—she’d gotten good news. “You’ll never believe what happened today,” she told him, eager to share. “I heard from my sister.”

“Which one?”

“Oh sorry, it was Karen. She called to set up a time to come to see me and Amiee in Kent. And it gets even better. Nichole is coming, too, from Portland.”

Steve laughed. “Slow down, will you? You’re talking so fast I can barely make out the words.”

“You have no idea what this means to me,” she burst out. It felt as if everything was coming together for her at last. This was
exactly what she’d hoped and prayed would happen! The deepest desire of her heart was to reconcile with her two sisters.

“Tell me,” he said.

Cassie sucked in a deep calming breath and tried to say each word slowly and distinctly. “Karen and Nichole are coming to Seattle a week from Sunday. It’s hard to believe, but I was a teenager the last time I was with both my sisters.”

“I’m happy for you, Cassie.”

It would be difficult for anyone to fully appreciate the significance of this meeting. When she first moved to Seattle, and Karen and Nichole had rejected her efforts to reconnect, it had devastated her. It was as if she’d made this long journey home, facing huge obstacles, only to have the door politely closed in her face. For weeks afterward she’d been deeply depressed. Amiee’s constant questions regarding family hadn’t helped. It had taken her a long while to regroup. Finally, she had, and a short while later was when she applied for a home with Habitat for Humanity.

“That’s really great about your sisters,” said Steve. “And I’m anxious to get back to Seattle so we can clear the air. I feel bad about the way we left things. We didn’t really have time to sort it out before I needed to get on the road. I’m making progress here, slowly. I’ll be back by Saturday no matter what. Seeing you, talking this out so we’re both comfortable with where this relationship is going, is a priority.”

The frustration in his voice was palpable. Before she could respond, Amiee walked into the room. Her daughter waved her arms above her head in order to get Cassie’s attention. “Mom, can I talk to Steve?”

“Amiee,” Cassie whispered under her breath. “Not now …”

“Mom,” her daughter insisted, “this is important.”

“I … I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Amiee’s eyes rounded. “Mom, please.”

Cassie handed her daughter the phone and Amiee immediately
disappeared inside her bedroom. Although she closed the door, the walls were thin and Cassie was able to hear every word.

“Rosie and I have everything planned for Saturday night,” Amiee was telling him. “Goldie Locks is fixing Mom’s hair and she’s even getting a pedicure. That means we’re looking for a pair of open-toed shoes. Mom has small feet and no one at the salon wears a size six and a half.”

Cassie rolled her eyes. She could only imagine what Steve must be thinking.

“Oh, and one of the girls at Goldie Locks, I think her name is Bridget, is taking a special makeup class and she volunteered to do Mom’s makeup. Mom is going to wow you, so I want you to be prepared to have your mind blown.”

Cassie had to put an end to this. She opened Amiee’s bedroom door and stuck her head inside. “My turn,” she insisted.

Amiee sat on her bed cross-legged. She lifted the phone away from her ear and covered it with her hand. “Give me a minute, Mom. I’m just to the best part.”

“Amiee!” Cassie protested.

“Rosie found her a dress,” Amiee continued, speaking quickly, as if she knew Cassie was about to rip the phone from her hands. “It was one her cousin had—”

“Amiee, give me the phone right this minute.”

Her daughter sighed and said, “Mom insists I return the phone.”

A short silence followed and then Amiee added excitedly, “That would be perfect. Okay!”

Amiee climbed off her bed and thrust out her arm, handing Cassie the cell.

Cassie took in a deep breath and told Steve, “I wish she hadn’t done that.”

“You mean telling all your secrets?”

“That’s just it, I have no secrets. You, Amiee, the gals at Goldie Locks are building this date up to be some huge thing I never intended it to be … Amiee convinced Rosie you and I are headed to the altar …”

“Aren’t we?” he asked, and seemed to be getting a lot of pleasure from teasing her. But then maybe he wasn’t teasing, which sent her mind spinning.

Cassie was befuddled. “All I know is that between my daughter and my friends they’ve concocted this crazy agenda to turn me into some kind of bombshell.” Cassie wanted no part of it, but nothing she said would dissuade her daughter and the girls from Goldie Locks.

“A lot of women would welcome all that,” Steve said.

“I don’t want any of this,” she insisted.

“Then put a stop to it.”

If only it was that easy. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

He made it sound easy and it wasn’t. In all the months she’d been working at the salon, she’d never seen her friends get more animated or excited about anything. It was as if she was providing them with the golden opportunity to prove their worth as her friends, and Cassie didn’t want to take that away from them. Nevertheless, it was important that she make it clear that all this preparation was not her idea.

Cassie tried to explain why. “I like you, Steve … I can’t deny that I’m strongly attracted to you, but all this talk about us officially dating and you asking Amiee’s permission has made me really uncomfortable.”

“I believe I got the message already,” he said.

She hadn’t meant to get into this on the phone, but she couldn’t stop now. “You should never have talked to Amiee the way you did without consulting me first. We were enjoying our time together
and then all of a sudden you and my daughter are talking about the two of us as if it’s understood that you and I were involved in a serious relationship.”

“That wasn’t the way I intended the conversation would go,” he admitted, “and you’re right it was premature to be discussing my intentions with your daughter. But remember, after the Hoedown I’d thought we were on the same page.”

“I know and I’m terribly sorry. We can resolve this, Steve. I do care about you.”

“I know.”

Something else was troubling her. “The thing is, I can’t have you using Amiee …”