mad at him for not communicating these things. She wasn’t trying to keep track of him. She was trying to figure out what to order for dinner.
As annoying as those interactions were, there were other things that really mattered. Will didn’t lie so much as find clever ways to not tell her the truth—whether it had to do with a dangerous work situation or some awful detail about his childhood or, worse, a recent atrocity committed by his nasty, narcissistic bitch of an ex-wife.
Logically, Sara understood the genesis of Will’s behavior. He had spent his childhood in the foster care system, where, if he wasn’t being neglected, he was being abused. His ex-wife had weaponized his emotions against him. He had never really been in a healthy relationship. There were some truly heinous skeletons lurking in his past. Maybe Will felt like he was protecting Sara. Maybe he felt like he was protecting himself. The point was that she had no fucking idea which one it was because he wouldn’t acknowledge the problem existed.
“Sara, honey,” Bella said. “I meant to tell you—the other day, I was thinking about when you lived here back when you were in school. Do you remember that, sugar?”
Sara smiled at the memory of her college years, but then the edges of her lips started to give when she caught the look that was exchanged between her aunt and mother.
A hammer was about to drop.
They had lured her here with the promise of fried chicken.
Bella said, “Baby, I’m gonna be honest. This old place is too much house for your sweet Aunt Bella to handle. What do you think of moving back in?”
Sara laughed, but then she saw that her aunt was serious.
Bella said, “Y’all could fix up the place, make it your own.”
Sara felt her mouth moving, but she had no words.
“Honey.” Bella held on to Sara’s hand. “I always meant to leave it to you in my will, but my accountant says the tax situation would be better if I transferred it to you now through a trust. I’ve already put down a deposit on a condo downtown. You and Will can move in by Christmas. That foyer takes a twenty-foot tree, and there’s plenty of room for—”
Sara experienced a momentary loss of hearing.
She had always loved the grand old Georgian, which was built just before the Great Depression. Six bedrooms, five bathrooms, a two-bedroom carriage house, a tricked-out garden shed, three acres of grounds in one of the state’s most affluent zip codes. A ten-minute drive would take you downtown. A ten-minute stroll would have you at the center of the Emory University campus. The neighborhood was one of the last commissions Frederick Law Olmstead took before his death, and parks and trees blended beautifully into the Fernbank Forest.
It was an enticing offer until the numbers started scrolling through her head.
Bella hadn’t replaced anything since the 1980s. Central heating and air. Plumbing. Electrical. Plaster repairs. New windows. New roof. New gutters. Wrangling with the Historical Society over minute architectural details. Not to mention the time they would lose because Will would want to do all the work himself and Sara’s scant free evenings and long, lazy weekends would turn into arguments about paint colors and money.
Money.
That was the real obstacle. Sara had a lot more money than Will. The same had been true of her marriage. She would never forget the look on Jeffrey’s face the first time he’d seen the balance in her trading account. Sara had actually heard the squeaking groan of his testicles retracting into his body. It had taken a hell of a lot of suction to get them back out again.
Bella was saying, “And of course I can help with any taxes, but—”
“Thank you.” Sara tried to dive in. “That’s very generous, but—”
“It could be a wedding present.” Cathy smiled sweetly as she sat down at the table. “Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
Sara shook her head, but not at her mother. What was wrong with her? Why was she worrying about Will’s reaction? She had no idea how much money he had. He paid cash for everything. Whether this was because he didn’t believe in credit cards or because his credit was screwed up was another conversation that they were not having.
“What was that?” Bella had her head tilted to the side. “Did y’all hear something? Like firecrackers? Or something?”
Cathy ignored her. “You and Will can make this your home. And your sister can take the apartment over the