His father let out a mirthless laugh. “That’s what your mother used to say, before she left. That she needed something different. But I told her she didn’t want that. I knew she’d be begging some other poor sap to take her in soon enough, but she’d never have it as good as she did with me.”
He began putting tools away, slotting them carefully into neatly labeled drawers and shelves and pegs. “And don’t you know,” he continued, not looking at Shawn, “I was right. Sure enough, she gets married again, and he knocks her up with another kid, and now she’s stuck, just like I told her she would be. He can’t buy her the nice house, the pretty clothes that she was used to. He can’t take her out to fancy dinners, make her feel special. She had her chance for all that, for someone to take care of her and treat her right, and she blew it. She knows now that she was wrong, and I was right.” He wagged a wrench at Shawn, his mouth set in a hard line. “She didn’t know what was best for her, and neither do you. Yet here you are, acting just like her.”
Shawn swallowed, his heart twisting in his chest. Was his father right? Was he being naive? He desperately wanted to leave Stone Lake, make a life of his own outside his father’s heavy shadow, but was he just deluding himself?
It had been years since Shawn had seen his mother. He’d gone to visit her a few times in the years immediately following the divorce, but the visits had gotten fewer and further between after her first child with her new husband was born . . . until eventually they’d stopped altogether.
Lisa said it was probably just too painful for her to be reminded of her life with his dad. That it wasn’t anything he’d done wrong. That she probably would have taken him with her, if she could.
Shawn wished he could believe that.
But even if it meant following in his mother’s painful footsteps, he couldn’t see another way out. Staying here would kill him. Maybe not right away, maybe not in a way anyone else would notice, but eventually, Gabe would drain the life from him, leaving nothing but a shell.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the opportunity,” Shawn said, still—foolishly—hoping he might convince his father to see his side. “But with this award, I could—”
“We all could do a lot of things, son,” his father said. “But most people won’t do a fraction of what they could do. I’m giving you the opportunity to do something, never mind the could. And you’re throwing it all away for a shot at a maybe.” He shook his head, looking disgusted. “Maybe this is for the best. Maybe I don’t want someone so selfish and short-sighted working for me anyway.”
“But, Dad—”
“Get out,” his father said, waving him out of the garage. “Go do whatever you want to do today. I’ll go do Mr. Reese’s job by myself.”
“But—”
“Go. I don’t want to look at you anymore,” his father said, turning his back on him.
Shawn moved slowly toward the house, his face burning. As he hung his jacket in his closet and listened to the sound of his father’s van backing out of the driveway, he realized he was actually sad that he wasn’t accompanying his father to the bowling-alley job. It was infuriating, but part of him wanted to be there, learning from his dad, making him proud.
Instead, he’d go to the bonfire. Which he’d been looking forward to all week but now felt like nothing more than a pitiful consolation prize.
Chapter Thirteen
VERONICA
“You sure you don’t want to walk with us, Veronica?” Jim asked, holding the door of Emerson’s Tearoom open for Diane. Rose and Lisa had taken the car home with Emmie, but Diane and Jim had decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and walk.
Veronica smiled. Diane and Jim weren’t an obvious couple—Diane was slightly taller, especially in heels with her hair up, and her energy could fill a ballroom, while Jim was slight and unassuming—but they made sense in an unexpected way. Veronica had never met Jim’s first wife or Diane’s first husband, both of whom had passed away years before, but she loved that they had found each other after.
“Thanks, but I’m good. I’ve got my car here,” Veronica said, waving them off.
Outside, Diane and Jim moved down the sidewalk arm in arm, while Veronica headed in the opposite direction, to the parking lot in the back of the building. As she walked to her car, she admired the posters she’d tacked up on the brick wall facing the lot, with their glossy blue text urging the residents of Stone Lake to VOTE FOR DIANE LEWIS-YIN FOR MAYOR!
It still seemed a little unreal that Veronica was managing Diane’s campaign. When she and Bill had moved back here after grad school at the University of Pennsylvania, into the house her parents had left her after being killed in a car crash the year before, Diane had been the only one willing to hire her. The pay for an assistant at the public library was abysmal, and the job had little to do with Veronica’s degree in marketing, but Veronica didn’t mind. She loved going to work every day, not because of the job itself, but because of Diane. They talked about everything, from their families to their career ambitions to their frustrations and fears. Diane admitted that she’d always secretly dreamed of running for office, and Veronica had urged her to do it.
One day, both of their arms loaded with books needing to be reshelved, Diane had asked Veronica if she’d consider running her campaign for mayor. At first, Veronica had thought she was joking. She’d only recently returned to work part-time after delivering Millie, and had little experience in politics.
Experience is all well and good, Diane had said, but I need someone I trust, and who believes in what I’m trying to do here. Someone who won’t quit when things get hard, because they will. Someone smart and hungry, who knows what it’s like to get smacked down and then get back on her feet. Someone like you.
A month later, when Diane had publicly announced her candidacy, Veronica had stood proudly by her side.
Veronica jiggled her key in the lock of her ancient Volvo, eager to get home to Bill and Millie, when she heard a voice calling her name. “Hey, Ronnie! Ronnie, wait up!”
Veronica closed her eyes, lamenting the curse of a small town as Kenny Gibson jogged toward her car, sunlight gleaming off his sheriff’s department badge. Charming, handsome, and now a newly minted deputy, Kenny moved through life like an ice cream truck on the hottest day of summer. Stone Lake adored him.
Which was why they weren’t the biggest fans of Veronica, the girl who had broken his heart. At least, that was the way he told it.
When she’d moved back to Stone Lake, newly married to Bill and five months into her pregnancy with Millie, people would take one look at the ring on her finger and her swelling belly and their expressions would turn to ice. Come to find out, when she’d broken up with Kenny two years earlier, he’d conveniently forgotten to inform anyone else. Apparently, he’d been walking around the whole time with a ring in his pocket and the delusion that she’d change her mind.
If not for Diane, she wouldn’t have even been able to find a job.
“Hey, Ronnie,” Kenny said, barely winded as he leaned against the door Veronica had just been trying to open. He blasted her with a dazzling smile that, at one point in her life, would have turned her knees to jelly. Now it just hurt her eyes.