Practice Makes Perfect (When in Rome, #2)(82)
Ethan and I hang up a minute later after I’ve told him to change the sheets on his guest bed because I’m coming for a visit soon. The second the call ends, I set my phone down and put my face in my hands. I’m not sure I feel much better, but I do feel closer to accepting my feelings.
I’m interrupted by a throat clearing to my left. I lift my head and find Mabel standing on her front porch in her light pink robe with a blue-and-white-checkered flannel gown peeking out the bottom.
“How long have you been standing there, nosy woman?” I ask her with a teasing smirk.
“Long enough to know that you love my Annie and you’re scared and I would really like to pay your mama and daddy a visit,” she says in her blunt fashion, and it makes me laugh. She smiles and doesn’t say anything else, just opens her arms.
I stand and walk over to her before stepping right into her arms and letting her fold me in the most comforting hug of my life. Mabel doesn’t say anything, she just squeezes me tight. I squeeze her back and bury my head in her neck, feeling a lot like the little boy who used to climb that magnolia tree just wishing for a hug like this.
Mabel doesn’t release me, but she pats my back affectionately. “Now…should I be worried that you were lying in my flower bed at six A.M.? I swear the young people in this town are always doing something concerning.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Annie
It’s not my day to visit my grandma, but I’m going anyway. Logically I know that she’s not going to have any of the answers that I need—but I’m going anyway in some misplaced hope that she’ll be having the most amazing day she’s had in months, and she’ll be my grandma again tonight, full of wisdom and grace and can tell me exactly what to do.
I haven’t seen Will in a few days. Not since the night of my date with Brandon, to be exact. I think he might be hiding. That’s okay, though. I’ve been hiding too. We’re good at that.
He walked into the market yesterday, and I ducked behind a shelf and then abandoned my cart and crawled out. (Fine, I hunched over and tripped my way out.) The next day I saw him by The Pie Shop, and when we made eye contact, I blinked, and then he was gone. Ducked in an alley most likely. Just for good measure I texted him later that day.
ANNIE: You’re avoiding me, right?
WILL: Yes. And you’re avoiding me?
ANNIE: Yes. I’m confused and need some time.
WILL: Same. I miss you, though.
ANNIE: I miss you too.
So we got that cleared up, and now I’m just trying to figure out what in the world to do about him. Because I’m now able to fully admit to myself that I have feelings for him. Real ones. Ooey-gooey ones that could double as a butter cake. And that’s very, very bad because Will Griffin wants to remain as single as a prewrapped slice of American cheese.
So what’s one to do when she wants to be happily married more than anything just like her parents and her sibling, but has completely fallen for a man who will never be in a relationship? She moves on and gets over him. That’s the only thing to do, right? She goes on more dates with other men. She reminds herself that Will Griffin was never Fred Astaire and she’s not Audrey Hepburn, and when he gets on the airplane next week, he won’t be coming back like Fred did.
Right? I don’t know anymore. That’s why I’m here.
But when I go into my grandma’s room at her assisted-living facility, I find her sound asleep in her cushy recliner. She’s in her powder-blue, long-sleeved, button-down silk PJ set because even with Alzheimer’s, this woman remembers she will settle for nothing less than dressing to the nines at all times. She’s always been that way. Pristine clothes. Freshly ironed each day. Don’t leave the house without putting on your makeup and fixing your hair kind of southern woman.
I smile at the sight of her now, kicked back, sound asleep in her chair, Wheel of Fortune playing on the TV, casting her dim room in a subtle hue of blue. And for some reason, this sight makes me cry. I can’t wake her up. It will only disorient her and make the night a mess for her and the staff. But I need her. I need someone to point the way for me.
I need my mom and dad.
How is it possible to miss people I barely knew so acutely that I have to hold my stomach and sit down on the couch, doubling over to silently weep? There are so many times in a day when I wish I could call my mom. I can’t even fish into memories to find nuggets of her to hold on to. I don’t remember her. And the woman who doubled as both a grandma and a mother to me has one foot on earth and one foot in heaven.
I’m scared.
But I can’t tell my siblings any of this because, well, because that’s just not what I do. I’ve never saddled them with my emotional burdens. They have enough as it is without piling mine on top. And Will is leaving, so it’s useless to tell him.
So I cry silently in this blue room, soaking the tops of my jeans with tears until I feel a hand on my shoulder. I suck in a breath and look up into the eyes of Mabel. She frowns as she sees my face, and then uses the pad of her thumb to wipe tears off my cheeks. She silently urges me up from the couch and then whispers, “Come on, darlin’, let’s get out of here.”
* * *
—
Mabel reaches across the table and holds my hand. “Tell me why you’re crying, Annabell.”