We Both Reborn And I Let Go This Time Chapter 09

We Both Reborn And I Let Go This Time Chapter 09

After that, Raymond never showed up at my door again.

But his shadow kept showing up in other places.

At the PX, the clerk mentioned, “Raymond was just in here.” At the farmer’s market, the woman at the

produce stand told me, “Some soldier already covered yours.”

I knew it was him.

I paid him back every penny. I didn’t let a single cent slide.

As for how things were going between Raymond and Clara, I didn’t ask, and I didn’t want to know.

But not wanting to know didn’t mean people wouldn’t tell me.

Mrs. Gable’s daughter Sharon Gable worked at the housing office and heard everything. She stopped by one afternoon, sipping iced tea on my porch, and said, “Clara’s lost a lot of weight lately. Last time I ran into her, she had bruising around her eyes.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I hear they fight all the time,” Sharon said, dropping her voice. “Raymond’s got a temper, and Clara can give it right back. Last month they were throwing things. The neighbors heard the whole thing.”

I kept my head down, pulling the needle through the hem I was mending, each stitch harder than the last.

“I mean, remember how good Clara had it back then? Married an officer, got the sewing machine, the watch, everything.” She sighed. “How long has it been? And already…”

“Sharon,” I said, “stop dropping condensation all over the table. I just wiped it.”

She shut her mouth.

It wasn’t that I didn’t care about Clara.

It was that I knew Raymond too well.

He froze me out for years in my last life, so how was he going to treat Clara any better in this one? It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to be good to someone.

It was that he had no idea what being good actually meant.

He only ever knew what he wanted.

What anyone else needed never crossed his mind. That sounded harsh, but it was the truth.

Sometime later, Mom showed up.

She came through the door with a bag of groceries and a tin of cookies, and the second she was inside, her eyes were everywhere, like she was inspecting the place.

“Mom, what are you looking for?” I stood in the kitchen doorway.

“Nothing, just seeing if you need anything.” She set the bag on the table, sat down, and rubbed her hands together. “Eleanor, about Clara lately…”

“Mom.” I cut her off. “If it’s about Clara, you should be talking to Clara.”

Mom stiffened. “What kind of way is that to talk to your mother?”

“The honest kind.”

“Clara is your own sister…”

“I know.” I met her eyes. “But her problems are not my problems. Coming to me about them won’t help.”

Mom’s face went hard. “Eleanor, just because you married well doesn’t mean you can forget where you came

from.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” I said. “But I’m done paying the price.”

“What price?”

“The price for all those years of you playing favorites.”

Mom had nothing to say to that.

I kept going. “My whole life, the good stuff went to Clara, and I got the scraps. The jewelry had to go to her, I had to be the one to take that work placement out in the country, and when it came to my wedding it was

‘who’s going to marry you?”

“I swallowed every bit of that. But don’t come to me now asking me to fix things for her. She picked the man she married, and how that’s going is her business.”

Mom opened her mouth, and after a long silence the only thing she managed was, “You ungrateful girl…”

“Mom.” Arthur’s voice came from the doorway.

We both turned.

Arthur had come home without either of us hearing. He stood in the doorway, still in his coat.

“Eleanor mentioned that it’s been hard on you and her father, living out in the country,” he said. “I asked around, and there’s a small place in town. Two bedrooms, a little yard. It’ll be ready soon.”

Mom froze.

“You and Mr. Vance can move in whenever you’re ready,” Arthur said. “It’s close to us. Makes it easier to look

in on you.”

Mom’s face shifted, her anger melting into confusion, the confusion into something like disbelief, and then

into something too tangled to read.

“We couldn’t possibly…”

“You’re Eleanor’s mother,” Arthur said. “That makes you family.”

His voice was level when he said it, like he was reading a fact off a page. But Mom’s eyes filled up.

When she left, she held Arthur’s hand and kept saying, “God bless you, you’re a good man.”

She didn’t hold mine.

Arthur saw her out, came back, and sat beside me.

“You’re upset,” he said.

“No.”

“I know you are.” He paused. “But she’s still your mother. Making sure she’s comfortable will give you peace

of mind too.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’m not forgiving them,” he added. “I just don’t want it weighing on you.”

I turned and looked at Arthur.

He never said much. But every word he did say landed exactly where I needed it.