Feels Like Falling - Kristy Woodson Harvey Page 0,1

could not leave him.” She took my hand, making the bangles on my wrist jingle, and I was grateful for my huge, tear-concealing sunglasses. I gave her jeweled left hand an understanding squeeze, my ring finger conspicuously empty in comparison to hers. This was how it was when we came back together, as though the past few months had never happened, were suspended in time. I usually loved that. But this year it meant rehashing things that had happened almost nine months earlier, including my mother’s funeral.

“It was a beautiful service,” I said. It had been. I had enlisted my favorite florist to make the arrangements nothing short of spectacular. Mom had specifically told me not to waste money on flowers. They weren’t a waste, though. They were glorious, the backdrop of the church’s stained-glass windows making them even more so. Those flowers brightened one of the darkest days of my life. No one in the church except for Marcy realized that I was grieving the loss of three people. My mother, of course. My husband, who was next to me in the pew but no longer next to me at night. And my sister, whose brand-new husband, Elijah—who, to put it mildly, I believed was a cult leader—had brainwashed her out of our family. To add insult to injury, he had performed the service, per my mother’s request. I hadn’t had the heart to tell her in her final days that the man she thought had saved her wild child, Quinn, and brought her to Jesus was nothing like he seemed—much less that Greg had left me.

Mom had died in September barely seven months after her February diagnosis, after a swift but valiant battle with a cancer that seemed determined to take her from here, from me, from all of these earthly problems. It was a blessing; I knew that. But it still hurt like hell. She had left when I needed her the very most. I needed her today, to help me face this firing squad head-on.

“It was magnificent,” Mrs. Stoddard added, standing up to join us.

I was trapped. The plan had failed. I quickly scanned the property for Marcy, but she was nowhere to be found.

“And congratulations on your sister’s wedding,” Mrs. Stoddard added, raising her wrinkled hand to shield her face. “I only wish we had been invited,” she said lightly.

Wow. I felt like I was getting away with murder. The first dig of the day didn’t have to do with Greg. Even still, I couldn’t help but imagine everyone around me whispering about my marriage. If she hadn’t worked so much.… If she had cared a little more about the man being the man.… Did you see her travel schedule?… Poor little Wagner.… It is the worries that plague us the most that cut the deepest when other people call them to the surface. Because this year had been difficult for my son. He had adjusted remarkably well to his new circumstances, but that didn’t keep my shame and guilt from being very real.

If only Greg would agree to the very generous settlement I had offered him, this could all be over, and I would feel so much less self-conscious. Once it was over, it was over. No one would have anything left to talk about. But Greg was turning a simple divorce into a now sixteen-month soap opera by demanding half of my affiliate marketing company, ClickMarket. My company, the one I had been building since I was twenty years old. Just thinking about his greed made anger rise in me. He didn’t want me, as he had made abundantly clear on our “second honeymoon” last February, three days after I found out my mother had cancer. But he wouldn’t let me go either. So I was stuck here, in legal and emotional purgatory, waiting for a bunch of strangers to decide my fate to the tune of $500 an hour.

Deep breath. I reeled myself in and replied to Mrs. Stoddard: “It was such a small wedding. I’m sorry we weren’t able to have all our friends there, but Quinn was insistent that our mother see her walk down the aisle, so time was of the essence.”

She looked contrite now. “Of course it was, sweetheart. Of course.”

They meant well, these ladies. I knew they did. They had seen me through good times and bad, were the first to bring meals when Wagner was born, to throw parties when a celebration was in order. Maybe