Why did she have to hear that? Fucking Madison. Madison, who wouldn’t stop calling no matter how many times Hannah sent her to voicemail. Will had stopped calling two days ago. He’d left two voicemails she couldn’t bring herself to listen to, and then yesterday afternoon, he’d texted her a message that broke her heart in its simplicity: I love you, Hannah. She still hadn’t responded. She didn’t know how.
A knock sounded on the door. Hannah stared at the stack of resumes on the coffee table. Had she forgotten about an interview? No, definitely not—she hadn’t been that distracted. Her heart sped up. Will? It would be like him to just show up. He would see it as a grand gesture. But if he was coming to Boston to get her back, he would’ve been there by now.
Or maybe it was one of those pesky cable salesmen. She got up and looked through the peephole. A woman with graying brown hair and a striking resemblance to Hannah stood on the other side of the door. It couldn’t be.
Hannah opened the door and found herself face-to-face with her mother. She blinked a few times, but no, she wasn’t hallucinating from sleep deprivation. Her mother stood in her doorway in Boston on a Tuesday, the busiest day of her mother’s week. If Hannah had ever gotten sick on a Tuesday, she’d been her dad’s problem.
“Your sister is pregnant,” her mother said by way of greeting.
Hannah gripped the doorknob. “I know.”
“Your sister is pregnant, and you’re married.” Her mother looked up at her with a wry smile. “How did I get so old?”
“A twenty-two-year-old called me ma’am today,” Hannah said, stepping back to let her mother in.
“Authority will do that.”
They weren’t a touchy-feely family, but Hannah couldn’t ignore the fact that they hadn’t hugged. Part of her wanted to jump into her mother’s arms and cry her eyes out. Something about her mother’s stance and her first words—about Stephanie—stopped her. It was exactly how she would’ve started a normal conversation, except that she hadn’t returned a single phone call in all this time. There was nothing normal about her showing up in Boston.
“What are you doing here, Mom?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” she said, picking up a picture of Hannah and Kate from the entertainment center.
Hannah counted to three in her head before answering. “I’m working.”
“Where’s your husband?”
“Mom.”
Her mother held up her hands. “What happened, Hannah? Your father told me you two were madly in love—perfect for each other. It hasn’t even been a month since you had lunch, and now you’re in Boston looking like a tractor ran over you, without a single picture of the man in sight.” Her mom stepped toward her and put a hand on her arm.
The simple touch had lasted no more than a few seconds, but each second had felt like an eternity. Tears welled in Hannah’s eyes. She didn’t want to tell her mom about Will like that. She’d wanted a happy family event, with laughter and storytelling and everyone important around her. Their love had deserved that. But after everything that had happened, Hannah didn’t have that luxury.
“You can talk to me, honey.” Her mother took a seat on the couch and motioned for Hannah to follow suit.
“I don’t know if I can, Mom.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What did you think I was going to do when you showed up at our house with a husband?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “Not accuse me of being little more than a paid escort.”
Her mother opened and closed her mouth. Hannah could hear the correction that she didn’t say—the “paid” is implied in escort, honey.
“You’ve never done an impetuous thing in your life. It’s just not in your nature. You’re a planner. So no, I don’t believe you fell in love and decided to get married in six weeks without telling anyone but Kate. And don’t even try to tell me that Kate didn’t know. Let’s just say, for today, I accept your version of events.”
It was the best she was going to get. Hannah sat down, curling her legs underneath her. Physical therapy had paid off—not that it mattered now. Telling her mom about the Will and Madison situation might help. She had years of life experience to bring to the table. But how to start? Hannah played around with several openings. Finally, noticing her mother’s growing impatience, she just threw it out there. “Will and I—we got married so fast. We’d been friends for so long... but I just found out he lied about part of his past.”
“Meaning?”
Hannah clasped her hands. “His ex-girlfriend cheated on him—I knew that. But he didn’t tell me that the ex-girlfriend is Madison, his brother’s fiancée—my soon-to-be sister-in-law.”
Her mother nodded. “So, he omitted the details.”
“Yes. And to make matters worse, Madison and I were friends. Or I thought we were. But I caught her telling Will she was still in love with him.”
Her mother put a hand on top of hers. “What did Will have to say to that?”
“He didn’t really get a chance to respond.” Hannah laughed bitterly. “Their conversation ended kind of abruptly.”
“What did he say when you talked to him about it?” her mother asked.
Hannah sighed. “I haven’t spoken to him about it.”
“At all?”
“No. I came home, got Binx, and came up here.” Hannah stared down at her hands, for once not speckled with ink. Band-Aids covered three of her fingers—stupid cardboard boxes. “I couldn’t talk to him then, and now, I don’t know what to say to him. I feel like such an idiot.”
“Sounds familiar,” her mother said with a small laugh.
Hannah met her mother’s gaze. “Like mother like daughter.”
Her mother fidgeted on the couch beside her before straightening and wrapping Hannah’s hand in her own. “In this case, I don’t think that’s a good thing.”
Hannah wiped away the tears brimming in her eyes. This was how it should’ve been—not weeks of silence. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I think...” Her mother paused, and a battle played across her face as she decided what to say. “Did you know that Dad smoked when we first met?”
“You’re kidding,” Hannah said. She wasn’t sure where this was going, but her mother wouldn’t have handed out that information lightly.
