Cam comes up next to me, reaching for his bag as well, and I nod toward the house. “No welcoming committee?”
He snorts, throwing a quick glance at the firmly closed doors. “I’d be less surprised to walk into a firing squad.”
“It just seems like they should be nicer to you,” I say, slamming the trunk shut, “given that you own the place.”
But Cam is already shaking his head. “First of all, you need to know that the word ‘should’ does not exist to these people. There are lots of things they ‘should’ do, but if they don’t want to do something, they don’t do it.”
“Like be nice to the guy who pays the bills.”
“Or tip,” he adds, and I bump my hip against his.
“Or pay taxes?” I guess, and he makes one of those amused sounds that isn’t quite a laugh.
“They do that now, but only because I hired a new accountant. And they also clearly don’t take care of sunflower gardens.”
He points, and now I see the brown, crunchy stalks that must have once been bright yellow flowers, tall enough to hide in.
Moving closer to him, I thread my arm through his. “We’ll plant new ones,” I promise, and he looks down at me, one blue eye, one brown, neither giving away what he’s thinking.
“We won’t be here that long,” he finally says, and starts to move toward the front door, my arm slipping through his and falling back to my side.
We’ve just reached the steps when there’s a rattling noise from behind us. A white Audi is tearing up the gravel drive, tiny pebbles spitting out from underneath the tires, and as it moves onto the pavement, I’m afraid it’s going to crash right into the back of our SUV.
But there’s a screech of brakes, the smell of rubber, and the Audi comes to a stop, a kiss away from dinging the heck out of our rear bumper.
Camden exhales noisily. “Well, here’s a welcoming committee for you,” he mutters.
The driver’s side door opens, and a woman gets out, chestnut hair shiny even under the cloudy sky. She’s wearing white jeans, and a floaty off-the-shoulder blouse, black with big multicolored polka dots on it, the kind of thing I wouldn’t look at twice in a shop because I’d think, Who can pull off Bozo Chic?
Apparently, the answer is Camden’s cousin, Libby.
This is the part where I really want to tell you that I simply guessed who she was. And you’d believe that, right? Who else could this twentysomething in designer jeans be? Context clues, a safe assumption, et cetera.
But actually, I recognize her from her Instagram.
@LaLaLibby.
I’ve followed her for … ten years now? Right after Cam and I started dating. From her senior year of high school （the duck-face era） to college number one （Duke, lots of navy blue in the photos） to college number two （UNC, also blue, but cornflower） to, finally, number three, Western Carolina （purple, sadly the one color Libby did not look great in）。
I saw a photo of her wedding to Clayton Jefferson Davis, taken right here on the back veranda of this house, and then, two years later, I saw another of her “Divorcemoon” in Cabo. Then one of the second marriage to some guy who called himself “Bodhi,” but whose Facebook friends kept calling “Kyle.”
That one hadn’t warranted many pictures, and had apparently been over within about six months. I also saw the rise and fall of her cupcake empire （RIP, Lil Lib Cakes）， and the tentative push into interior design that mostly seemed geared toward selling three-hundred-dollar lamps with feathers on them.
And I know that right now, she’s probably coming back from the little boutique she just opened in downtown Tavistock, Lil Bit Libby! （She put the exclamation point there, not me, and maybe if I’m here long enough, I can talk to her about her overuse of “lil” as a marketing gimmick.）
Cam, of course, has no idea about any of this. Well, he probably knows about the failed businesses since he’s the one who had to sign off on her withdrawing money for them, but me following her? The throwaway account I made just for that purpose?
No, I haven’t told him about that.
I’ve thought about it. I mean, is it such a big deal? Lightly internet stalking your husband’s estranged family? I don’t think it is.
But I also don’t know if Cam would see it that way, and if I told him, he might ask other questions. Questions that have answers I know he wouldn’t understand, and I’ve promised never to lie to him.
And I haven’t. Not ever.