wish was so deep, so big, it was all she could think about as Mom bore down on her.
“You are not wanted,” Mom hissed.
“You made me miss the service, but you cannot bar me from the cemetery.”
“Yes, I can, because I care about how this family looks. Do you really think your grandmother would want you here reminding everyone how you’ve continually thrown your life away?”
Meg wanted to speak, wanted to yell, Yes, she would want me here. I know she would want me here. But she couldn’t form the words, not in the face of her mother’s righteous fury. Meg’s decisions as a teenager had been a betrayal to the Carmichael name that Mom would never forgive.
“You are not welcome, Margaret,” Mom said, before smiling at an elderly couple who walked by them.
Margaret. Meg’s hated given name. “All I want is to say goodbye. I will stay out of your way,” Meg said, trying to be strong.
Dad stepped between them, easily clamping a hand over her mother’s elbow. “That’s enough.”
For a brief, blinding moment Meg actually thought her father was standing up for her. All the grief and confusion, for just one second, felt bearable. Like she could handle it if one of them stood up for her.
But then his icy blue gaze landed on her face, and his mouth went into a firm, disapproving line. “You’ve done enough to upset your mother. You ought to be ashamed of yourself making a scene like this.”
“I...” But she couldn’t finish the denial. She didn’t want a scene. She didn’t want to feel like she was fifteen and emotionally bleeding all over the place in front of them while they sneered and pushed her away again, but here they were, making it happen anyway.
Blaming her. Looking down their noses at her. When she was theirs.
“She’d want me here. You know she would,” Meg managed, trying to firm her chin enough to lift it, trying to find strength somewhere deep, deep, deep down. Grandma’s strength.
“Well, we do not,” Dad returned, pulling Mom with him as they walked toward the sleek black car that would follow the procession to the cemetery where nearly a century of Carmichaels were buried.
In the end, Meg couldn’t force herself to go. She didn’t know how to fight them. She never had. She might be an adult, but they could still make her feel as though she was nothing—or worse.
There’d only ever been one way to get rid of that feeling, and she wasn’t certain she could fight it anymore.
“YOU’LL LAND ON your feet.” Mom pulled Charlie into a firm hug at the front door of the aging farmhouse he’d grown up in.
How the hell had this happened? This whole day was a warped nightmare. First having to hear the words he’d been let go, having to go through the day with the knowledge he’d poured so many years into that company. Outselling every junior salesman, climbing the ranks by sheer force of will and determination to succeed.
“It’s a good severance package, son. And I’m sure you’ll have a new job lined up in no time.”
Charlie tried to force a smile. He appreciated his parents’ support. More than he could fully feel in the numb aftermath of today. But he’d been lucky to grow up here, to have this family, even for all their problems.
Unfortunately he wasn’t in the mood for support and hugs. He wanted to yell. He wanted to punch something.
“Thank you for dinner,” Charlie managed to say with some semblance of a normal voice. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”
He knew he didn’t fool his mother at all, but she let him walk out into the night, knowing as she always did exactly what he needed. Which wasn’t support or coddling.
With stiff, heavy limbs he climbed into his car. At least it was paid off. Money really wasn’t an immediate concern. While he splurged on occasion, growing up the son of a struggling farmer, he’d been too practical to waste money. A nice car, a nice watch, a nice place, but he wasn’t like his friends, getting an expensive car every few years, eating at expensive restaurants every night, filling every inch of their lives with stuff.
Money and even finding a new job weren’t the issues. He’d have headhunters calling him next week. It was his pride that lay bruised and bloody on the ground, not to mention the sneaking suspicion he’d somehow failed before he’d even lost his job.
What good was success if it could be unfairly ripped out from under your feet?
Christ, he needed a drink.
Normally that would mean heading back to the city, meeting friends. But heading back to the bustle and lights and his still-employed friends sounded a lot more painful than heading to an old New Benton townie bar.
Maybe he’d be able to remember how good he had it surrounded by people way worse off than him. He drove away from his parents’ house, past Dell’s warmly lit cabin, dissatisfaction uncomfortably digging deeper and deeper.
By the time he got to the Shack, an aptly named dilapidated building with neon lights that only half still worked, he was ready to get so drunk he wouldn’t even know his own name. Something he’d never done, not even in his college days.
Because he was Charlie Wainwright. He followed the rules. Did what he was supposed to. All so he could succeed.
And for what?
Those words kept haunting him. All day. Over and over. For what?
He walked through the smoky bar, low strains of old-time country music twanging in the air. The room was mainly filled with old men in overalls, older women in ill-advised leather and a few people who probably looked a lot older than they’d ever actually be.
He strode up to the bar, ordered two doubles of their best bourbon, which was not very good at all, then situated himself on a barstool.
It might not be the practical, sensible, Charlie way of dealing with a problem, but what did it matter? The practical, sensible, Charlie way of dealing had gotten him here—with nothing to show.
You’re pathetic, Wainwright.
Not something he was particularly proud of, but he’d give himself this weekend to wallow. Indulge in a few un-Charlie-like things. Monday he’d nip all this self-loathing, self-pitying in the bud.
But for tonight...tonight he was going to wallow. He knocked back the first drink, and then the second, before gesturing to the bartender that he wanted another. Once that third drink was comfortably downed, he looked around the dimly lit barroom.
The blonde in the corner caught his attention, first because her hair was a kind of honeyed blond, not the near white of the cougars in leather. Second because her arm, just barely visible, was streaked with color.
Hey, he knew that tattoo. Yes. He got off the barstool and made his way over to her, plopping himself down at her table.
“I know you,” he said, pointing at her. “Goat Girl.” Oops. Probably shouldn’t call her that. That wasn’t very charming.
Fuck charming. He didn’t feel like being much of anything.
“I prefer Capra Crusader for my superhero goat name,” she replied, unsmiling, though he was pretty sure it was a joke.
She was wearing a black dress, which made the colorful arm all that more bright and noticeable. Her forearm was the oddest antithesis to this bar. A sunny blue with white puffy clouds. He couldn’t make out what was above her elbow because the sleeve of her dress cut it off.
In the past he would have made a joke about the tattoos. Maybe not to her face, but at least in his head. I-don’t-want-a-job tattoos.
But her job didn’t require