Her eyes immediately went wide and she began fiddling with her hands, wringing them around the towel. “Eden, calm down.”

“Calm down? Why the hell would you tell Baylor that I was married?”

“Now Eden, I did it for your own good, I was protecting you.” She pulled out a chair and sat down at the same kitchen table that I used to do my homework on. By that time my father had made his presence known in the kitchen as well, with a perplexed look on his face that matched my own.

He took the chair right next to her and motioned to an empty one, “Eden, have a seat, I think your mother has a lot of explaining to do.” My dad didn’t ever raise his voice and he wasn’t even a man of many words but what he said in that house was law.

Her body shook at what she was about to reveal, but she forged on with a trembling voice, “I know I shouldn’t have stretched the truth-“

I quickly cut her off, “You didn’t stretch the truth, you outright lied!” I couldn’t help the fact that my voice raised a few octaves until it was almost a shout.

“Eden,” my dad warned.

“I know he was the one who broke your heart… The day after graduation you locked yourself in your room and cried yourself to sleep and the next day you wanted to go see your nana even though you never had before.” A sob threatened to erupt from my throat; that was a day that I remembered all too well but the pain had seemed to lessen when I was in Baylor’s embrace.

My mother covered my hand with hers, “Mothers know these things, dear. That boy broke your heart and took you away from us, so when he asked rather desperately about how you were, I wanted him to feel the pain and sorrow that he made you feel. I’m sorry, honey, I thought I was doing what was best for you at the time. You wouldn’t ever talk to me about what happened, so I took it into my own hands and dealt him a blow as he did to you.”

“Mom, what’s best for me now is to stop meddling in my life. That means no more signing me up for those matchmaking sites either.” I pointed my finger at her and she shyly and shamefully lowered her head once my dad shot her a warning glare.

“Jesus, Bette, does your interfering have no limits? What’s next, selling her hand to the highest bidder that you find? Let Eden live her life without her mother critiquing and hindering her every move!” He was past the point of reason; you could almost see the wheels turning in his mind at the realization of all that had gone on behind his back.

“I just want her to be happy!” She wailed out a sob. I decided my mother’s smothering concern had gone on long enough.

“I know you do, Mom, but I don’t need a man in my life in order to be happy.” I began ticking off things on my hand, “I have a successful radio show, my own home, the best of friends, and amazing and loving parents along with my health. For the most part I am happy.” But I couldn’t lie, a man would’ve been nice–most importantly one certain man. Was I ready to hear him open up about what had happened? Could my heart take being broken again? Especially when I didn’t think it was fully healed from the first time.

Knock…knock…knock

“Eden! Eden, are you up?”

I barely opened my right eye, squinting past the sun shining in through my window at my mother whose frame appeared at my bedroom door. I couldn’t hold back the audible grumble that erupted from my chest. “I am now…What time is it?” After the talk that took place between my parents and me, I hadn’t gone to bed until well after three. I immediately called Julia, even though it was even later for her, and caught her up on everything that took place at the bar. I begged her to come and be my buffer but all she did was laugh in my ear at my expense. What a best friend.

“It’s almost nine. I have a favor to ask of you,” she said while clasping the ends of her gold watch around her left wrist. I normally didn’t agree to favors before I at least had one cup of coffee in my system, but by the looks of things she wasn’t going to let it rest until I did. “Will you listen for the door and let the plumber in? Someone should be coming to look at the drain in the bathtub. I’ve got to meet Jan and the girls for book club.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Since when did my mother join a book club? I couldn’t remember a time where she was even reading a book let along joining a club about it. I grabbed a handful of material and stuffing from my other pillow and plunged it over my head to drown out any further noise and sunlight filtering in from my window. I really needed to at least put a blanket over that sucker; it didn’t make sense to go out and buy a blackout curtain since I’d only be there a few more days. But that direct sunlight in the morning was enough to make a girl go insane, and people thought PMS was bad.

Knock…knock…knock

Why in the hell wasn’t anyone answering the door? “Mom!” I yelled out, only to hear continued silence. The noise was intensifying the unrelenting pounding that was occurring between my ears. Then I remembered her informing me about the plumber coming by. I sat up in the middle of my bed and had to grasp my head with both hands. The banging increased substantially with every little movement.

Knock…knock…knock

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” I shouted while I flung back my covers and retrieved my tattered old bathrobe from my desk chair. My posture was slumped over as I leisurely dragged my feet on the carpet all the way to the front door. I reached up on my tiptoes to try and get a look at who it was, not that I would know them anymore, and only came up with the work truck. They must’ve stepped out of the way of the door.

Yanking the door open with way more force than I intended to, I was met face to face with Baylor Jenkins. “What in the world are you doing here?” I challenged, pulling my robe together and tying the belt closed, and then looking out past his dumfounded expression and the railing on the porch to a work truck that indeed had Jenkins Plumbing embossed on the driver’s side door.

Once my double take was complete, I gave another sly gander only to see him watching me intently with a clipboard in his clutch. “Well good morning to you, too.” I rolled my eyes. “Your mom called this morning and said it was an emergency.”

“I’ll bet she did. I call this another case of her meddlesome self” I muttered exasperatedly to myself.

He flicked his eyes up from his work order and raised a brow, “Care to elaborate?”

“Not so much.” I opened the door a little further and waved a hand allowing him to enter. “Well, Mom said that the bathtub was clogged; you are no stranger to this house and nothing has moved in decades I think.”

His eyes adjusted once more to mine as he indicated, “I didn’t used to be a stranger to you either but look at us now, trying to dance around each other’s emotions and not knowing what to say.” He drifted right by me making me feel inept all over again. I deserved the cold shoulder treatment, but didn’t he equally deserve it as well? He was making me feel like I was the one to blame for my disappearance when in fact it was him.

I walked into the kitchen and prayed to the coffee God that there were at least a few droplets left in the carafe and to my surprise mom left almost an entire pot. Thank Jesus! Retrieving a mug, I doctored it up to my specific tastes and took a hefty gulp before I headed off to clean myself up a bit. Once I could feel the coffee filtering through my veins a light bulb went off, we only had one bathroom. While growing up it didn’t bother me because I was an only child and I didn’t have to fight for a turn. But suddenly having one bathroom was coming back to bite me in the ass. Baylor was working on our one said bathroom which meant I couldn’t get a shower, so he was going to have to suffer through me looking like shit, again.