Chapter 3
It was a small movement, but I noticed it.
“You have no idea what you’re tying yourself to,” he said.
“Miles works hard. He takes care of his mother. He has never asked me or you for anything.”
“That family always asks eventually.”
The room fell silent.
My mother turned toward him so quickly that her earrings swung.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
My father placed the paper on the mantel.
“It means poverty makes people desperate.”
“You barely know his family.”
“I know enough.”
There was something in his voice that I had never heard before.
Not contempt.
Recognition.
“Did you know Miles’s father?” I asked.
My mother dropped her spoon.
It struck the saucer with a sharp click.
My father did not answer immediately.
“Westbrook is a small town,” he said at last. “People know one another.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
I looked from him to my mother.
She had gone pale.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
My father walked to the door and opened it.
“This conversation is over.”
—
That night, I told Miles what had happened.
He was kneeling beneath his mother’s kitchen sink, replacing a leaking pipe. Edith sat at the table with a heating pad pressed against her back.
At the mention of my father’s words, Miles’s hand stopped moving.
Only for a second.
Then the wrench turned again.
“Did your father ever know mine?” he asked.
“He said Westbrook was small.”
Edith lowered her eyes.
“Mrs. Carter?”
She pulled the heating pad closer.
“Arthur did maintenance work for several local businesses,” she said. “He may have crossed paths with your father.”
“Why does my dad act as if your family did something to him?”
“He has never liked people he can’t control,” Miles said.
His tone was calm, but he would not look at me.
I waited until Edith went upstairs.
Then I closed the kitchen door.
“You know something.”
Miles leaned against the counter.
“I know your father’s dislike of me has always felt too personal.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because a feeling isn’t evidence.”
“What are you looking for?”
He rubbed his thumb over a dark stain on the wrench.
“I’m not sure yet.”
It was the first time in eleven years that Miles had kept something from me.
I wanted to push him.
May you like
Instead, I trusted him.
A month later, he proposed.
