Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 55550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Wade touches the brim and smiles. It’s radiant and warm, exuding happiness. How can he be like this when I’m so damn angry with him? When my lips don’t reciprocate, I expect him to frown. To change his demeanor.
He doesn’t.
As the corners of his mouth turn up, I swear his eyes sparkle, which is just asinine to think since it’s dark—only it’s not—and the sun is rising behind him, casting him in a purple, pink and orange glow.
This Wade, the one in front of me, is the one I remember. He could always brighten my day without even trying. In him, I found a sense of warmth and comfort. He made me feel special, loved, and understood.
We linger in this weird void of staring and not talking. I itch to touch him. To let my memories remind me of the pure, unfiltered affection we used to have for each other. I wonder how easy it would be to have that again. With him.
Only him.
I haven’t loved another since Wade Jenkins and I’m not sure I can. They say, when you find the one, you’ll know. I knew eons ago, but life threw us such a curveball, neither of us could dodge it.
I finally find the courage to step back and put a professional distance between us. That’s all we’ll ever be, and for me that’s a stretch. I don’t want to deal with him. Not during the workday and especially not at sunrise.
“Don’t,” he says. Without elaborating, I know what he means, but I have no choice. Feelings be damned, I won’t go down this road with him. He’ll never understand the jealousy I feel when I look at his daughter. We were meant to experience parenthood together. Not him and someone else.
I force myself to look away. To look at the ground, his tools, the spotlight he uses to guide his work. Anywhere but at him. “It’s too early,” I tell him. “To make this much noise.”
“It’s now or I don’t do this, Lemon. I’m very busy.”
I inhale and shake my head. “You were supposed to come yesterday,” I repeat my earlier statements because there isn’t anything else I can say.
“Like I said, I couldn’t. Hell, I didn’t want to.”
“Excuse me? We’re paying you to do this.”
Wade scoffs. “That doesn’t mean you control what I do. I book out weeks, if not months, in advance, and I’m sorry but at five or six, I want to be home, sipping sweet tea on my front porch and hearing about my daughter’s day.”
The mention of Marigold causes me to step back again, but that doesn’t faze Wade. He moves toward me.
“Speaking of, I don’t know what you did to her yesterday, but she didn’t like it.”
“Pardon?”
“You heard me,” he says. “You know she’s already struggling with boys picking on her, so what do you do? You embarrass her by forcing her classmates to eat with her? How do you think that went over?”
My tongue’s thick in my mouth. How dare he imply that I’ve done something wrong. “She . . . she was happy.”
“Yeah, well she’s not,” he tells me. “Kids are making fun of her, and you’ve made it worse.”
“I can’t help—”
“You’re the damn principal,” he roars. “She’s seven and new to your school. It’s your job to help her.”
Wade stalks off, which only irritates me. “Don’t you walk away from me . . . again.” The last part slips out. He turns and stomps in my direction with his finger raised. When he stops in front of me, he drops it.
“I didn’t walk away from you, Lemon. You quit me. Us. You pushed me away like I was nothing more than gum on the bottom of your shoe. You wanted space. I gave it to you.”
“You cheated on me.”
Wade groans and throws his head back, shaking it. “You asked for a break in our relationship. What I did after is and will always be none of your business.”
“It’s my business when I have to look at her every day. Don’t you care how that makes me feel?”
He stands there and stares at me, glaring at me for my outburst. I’m embarrassed those words came from my mouth, but there’s no taking them back. He slowly shakes his head. Before I can say anything, before I can apologize and pull my foot from my mouth, he goes back to work and starts the rototiller, drowning out my voice even though words have failed me once again.
nine
wade
It seems I work better when I’m angry. By the time kids start arriving at school, the garden is mostly ready. Someone will have to come out and sift the dirt to separate it from what sod I couldn’t remove, but that’s for Lemon to figure out.
I don’t know how long she stood there, watching me move earth, but it was for a good chunk of time. I suspected she wanted me to turn the rototiller off so she could justify her comment about Goldie, but I didn’t. There isn’t anything she could say to change the words coming from her mouth.