Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HER — PRESENT DAY

It’s impossible. It’s…

“Hi, I’m Janelle.” She holds her hand out, cutting off my racing thoughts. Except, she isn’t Janelle. At least, that’s not the name I knew her by. Was she lying to me? Or him? What is she doing here?

I want to ask her all of this and more, but I can’t move. I can’t speak. I can’t do anything except stare at this woman in complete disbelief.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” she adds, her smile warm. It’s as if she doesn’t recognize me at all. She glances back up at Cal, a worried look on her face. “Thank you both again for having me. I hate that I’m interrupting your vacation.”

“You’re not interrupting,” Cal is quick to tell her. “We’re happy you could join us. I know you said chili was okay, but we have other things here too that I can whip up, if you don’t like mine. I know everyone makes it a bit differently. I do bell peppers for extra crunch, and fewer beans, so it’s not too heavy on the carbs.” He pats his stomach. “And…what else…” He looks around, running his hand through his hair.

Putting him out of his misery, Janelle chuckles and puts a hand up. “It smells delicious. I’m sure it will be lovely.” She shrugs out of her coat while I’m trying my best to decide how to handle this, how to bring up the newly discovered elephant in the room. Should I try to pull Calvin aside? Should I ask her to leave? Should I make a scene? “Do you have somewhere I could hang this? I don’t want it to drip from the snow.”

“Oh, of course,” Cal says, taking the coat from her quickly. “Sorry. I should’ve taken that already. My head is…” He zips across the room and hangs it on the rack behind the door.

With his back to us, I return my focus to Janelle, trying to find the right way to ask her what is going on, to accuse her of everything I need to accuse her of without letting Cal know something is wrong. Without letting Cal know…anything.

Before I can say a word, she inhales deeply and steps toward the living room, peering out the oversized windows. “This place is really gorgeous.”

“Isn’t it?” Cal asks, and when I look back at him, he juts his chin forward, encouraging me to move toward her, to make conversation with this woman while he heads for the stove to prepare our bowls. “Like I told you, Sadie and I spent a lot of time looking through listings trying to find the right one, and this one seemed to have it all.”

She sighs again, and when I get near the window, I see that her eyes are closed with a smile on her lips. As if she knows I’m there, as if she knows the predicament she’s put me in and how my heart is now beating out of my rib cage as I stare at her, my chest like a balloon that’s been overfilled and can’t deflate. “So peaceful.”

Peace is the exact opposite of what I feel, and we both know it as she looks at me. Her lips form a hard line, and there’s something a bit forced about her tone as she asks, loudly, “So how did the two of you meet, Sadie? How long have you been married?”

“Oh.” My tongue feels like it weighs a hundred pounds hearing her say my name. It’s so strange, the way she’s looking at me completely normally when I’m not positive this isn’t all a dream. What is she doing here? What kind of game is she playing?

“Well, we’re not married yet,” Cal calls from the kitchen, and it’s only because I know him so well that I catch the faint hint of irritation in his voice. I’m not playing my part well enough, but I can’t help it. Everything is so messed up right now. “With the little one on the way”—he chuckles—“we wanted to wait until she was here, safe and sound. My mother is going to carry her down the aisle so she can be our flower girl.”

The woman—Janelle, or whatever the hell her name is—flicks her eyes down toward my stomach only briefly. “Oh, you’re expecting! How exciting!” The look on her face doesn’t match her voice, which tells me the feigned excitement is purely for Cal’s benefit. “When are you due?”

“Three weeks,” I say, my voice hoarse and powerless, though I’ve at least finally found it.

“You must be so excited. What are you going to name her?”

“I, um, well, I-I like Amelia, for my mother,” I say, “but we’ve also?—”

“We haven’t decided yet.” Cal, standing next to the table with all three bowls of chili placed in our respective spots, cuts me off before I get the chance to finish my sentence. “We have a few options we’re toying with, but I think we want it to be a surprise, right, darling? We feel as if we’ll know in the moment. When we see her for the first time.”

This man has never called me darling in his entire life. Suddenly, the show he’s putting on for his daughter that seemed charming and sweet moments ago is grating my nerves like they’re swiss cheese. I’ve never felt so alone and completely helpless. What is she going to say? What is her end goal here? Why can’t he see what a phony she is?

Most importantly, what does she want from us? From me? How did she find us? Find him?

“Right,” I mutter, crossing the room to take a seat.

Janelle and Cal join me, and we dig into the meal, eating in silence for a few moments before Cal speaks again. “So, Janelle, tell us about yourself. I know we spoke a little on the phone, but I don’t think you ever mentioned what brought you to Nashville in the first place. I’m assuming you moved on your own. Your mom didn’t end up leaving home, did she?”

She looks down, and it’s only then I remember how young she is. Her midtwenties, Cal said. She’d have to be, for the timeline to make sense, but she always seemed older to me. Then again, I never tried to guess.

“Oh, um, well, no. Mom…she stayed in Columbia with my grandparents until…” She stops herself, clearing her throat. “She never left. And I wanted to be close to her, while also feeling a bit like I had my own life, you know? Nashville was the obvious choice. I could still go home and visit her most weekends, and I wasn’t too far away when she needed me.”

He stirs his chili slowly. “I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. She was really special.”

Cal’s words scrape over my skin, made worse only by the fact that he avoids eye contact with me as he says them.

“Yeah, she was.” Janelle’s voice cracks, and she clears her throat. “Are you close to your mom?” She looks at me, and my heart ticks in my chest, because she knows the answer to that question, and I hate that I ever gave her access to that part of me.

I look down, taking another bite of my dinner, which suddenly tastes as bland as plain oatmeal. “I was. She’s…in poor health. I don’t get to see her often anymore.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.” Without warning, she reaches across the table and touches my arm gently, and it’s as if she’s brandished my skin with a fiery-hot poker.

I pull back, but not quickly. Not fast enough to make it obvious something is wrong. “Thank you.”

“I’ve always wanted a little sister,” Janelle says playfully. “Maybe it seems silly, but the fact that you’re pregnant is kind of a dream come true for me.” She stirs her chili, my stomach churning at the eerie way her words land in my chest. Looking at Cal, she adds, “I used to beg Mom for a sister, but she said it was just going to be us. We were a team.” Her tough smile turns sad. “I know she really cared about you.”

Nervously, Cal’s eyes shift toward me. “We were really young back then.”

“Totally,” she says, studying her bowl like she’s preparing for a pop quiz. Then, “But, to tell you the truth, I don’t think she ever got over you.”

Except, as she says the words, it’s not Cal she’s looking at. It’s me.