I wanted her to know how much she meant to me, and this was the only one way I knew how to communicate that to her. Maybe it was a little overboard but I didn’t care. I wanted to see her face light up. I wanted to see her smile again. Seeing that smile had suddenly become the most important thing in my life.
I picked the phone back up and searched for another number. There was one more thing I wanted to send over to her.
She might kill me for it, but she’d have to come see me if she was going to do that, and I’d charm the smile back on her face if I had to.
28
MAISEY
“Mom, Mom! Get up! You’re not going to believe this!” Maddy pulled on my arm as she begged me to get out of bed. I groaned, blinking, trying to figure out what was going on.
“Maddy, what’s wrong?”
“It’s amazing, you have to see!” she jumped up and down happily in my bedroom. Bright morning sunshine poured into my bedroom, and I grumbled down the hall behind my daughter. Her hair was in knots, she was still wearing her pajamas, and she was barefoot. She’d never been more beautiful. And that smile on her face was rare, too. Whatever was making her so happy made me smile too.
“What is it? Are you going to tell me or do I have to — what the…?” My voice trailed off in disbelief. My entire living room and adjoining kitchen was filled with every kind of flower under the sun. Elaborate arrangements of sunflowers, roses, birds of paradise, daisies, dahlias, hydrangeas, even a few corpse lilies, which must have cost an amazing amount of money, were scattered everywhere.
Eddie stood in the middle of the sea of flowers, his eyes lit up in disbelief, a card in his hand.
“Maisey, can you believe this?” he exclaimed. “Do you know who sent these?”
“I have a feeling…” I said, my eyes trailing around the room in bewilderment. The front door was open and the Volvo still sat in the driveway, that red bow that was the size of a tiny home sitting on top of it.
“Did we get a new car?!” Maddy said, who had apparently just spotted the car for the first time.
“Shit,” I muttered, watching her go outside.
“Either you won a sweepstakes or somebody’s got it bad for you honey,” Eddie said, whistling under his breath. “Here,” he pushed the card towards me. “I’m dying to see what this says.”
I grabbed the card from his hand and opened it.
* * *
“Maise,
Here’s to making up for lost time. I can’t wait to see you again.
Love,
Jesse”
* * *
A slow smile spread across my face and my heart swelled with happiness. He was crazy. Absolutely, certifiably crazy.
So much for everything fixing itself, I thought. I put the card down and turned away from Eddie. I didn’t want him to see the pain in my eyes. This was supposed to be a happy thing. This was supposed to be easy. If this was any other man, I’d have been elated and mesmerized, enchanted and charmed, and maybe a little overwhelmed with how forward and insane he was… But it was all wrong. This wasn’t a good thing. This wasn’t something that was in the cards for me.
I was still paying for a mistake I’d made years ago, and there was no way to fix it.
Eddie snatched the card from the counter and read it aloud.
“Who’s Jesse?” he asked.
“Just someone I used to know,” I replied.
“Used to know? Looks like he wants to know you again. This is amazing,” he said, shaking his head and pulling a bright pink rose out of one of the vases and smelling it. “These are going home with me, by the way.”
“Take them all, I don’t care,” I sighed, watching Maddy play around in the car outside. “I’m sending it all back.”
“Like hell you are, girlfriend! These are too pretty to just be wasted. And that car? Girl, you need that car and you know it. I’m tired of carting your ass to the grocery store every time you need a cup of sugar!”
“I’ve never asked you to take me to the grocery store!” I protested.
“Well, you would eventually! Look, I don’t know who this Jesse character is, but I like him already!”
“You haven’t even met him, Eddie,” I replied.
“No, but I’ve smelled him. And he smells like money and flowers. And any man that smells like cash and roses is a keeper!”
I laughed, shaking my head at him.
“You’re as crazy as he is,” I said.
“And so are you if you don’t keep all this,” he said, snapping his fingers.
“Maddy, come back in,” I yelled. She jumped out of the car and jogged back in the house. I cringed when I realized that just that little bit of exertion had left her breathless.