Lost Along the Way by Erin Duffy Page B

reflection on me. We don’t need people like her hanging around. It’s inappropriate.”
    â€œAre you kidding? Reed, I really don’t think—”
    â€œEnough, Cara!” Reed said forcefully. His eyes darted around the room to make sure no one was listening to their conversation. He never stopped smiling or rubbing the small of her back, as if the two of them were having an intimate moment instead of an argument. “I refuse to spend one more second of this party talking about this. This is not how we are going to act in public. Now, get over it, pull yourself together, and go mingle with our guests. Don’t bother me with this stupid stuff again.”
    Cara was stunned by what he said, not to mention the way in which he said it, but she didn’t want to ruin her own engagement party by fighting with Reed over anything, especially not Jane. This was supposed to be a night of celebration, and she’d already had an argument with one person; adding Reed to the list didn’t seem like a good idea. “You’re right,” she said, forcing a smile. “It’s our night. I don’t know why I care what anyone else is doing.”
    â€œExactly,” Reed said. He planted a quick kiss on her cheek and ambled over to a group of his friends on the other side of the room as if the entire conversation had never happened. At the time, Cara chalked his mood swing up to nerves and convinced herself that he wasn’t entirely wrong. She wasn’t going to let Jane’s behavior ruin her and Reed’s party, so she shrugged it off. It simply wasn’t worth making an issue over. If this was how Jane felt about Cara’s marriage, then she didn’t need to be a big part of Cara’s life anymore.
    She pushed the memory from her mind and forced herself to focus on the task at hand. She took one last look around her childhood home before she locked up and drove back to her own house, wanting nothing more than to climb into a hot shower and then go to bed. She was hoping that Reed would be working late, so she wouldn’t have to talk to him when she arrived home around 5:00, but she found him sitting at the kitchen table with a book and a glass of wine. She wiped her hand across her face to dry her cheeks, but there was no hiding the fact that she’d been crying. Her eyes were burning and swollen and she hadn’t slept well in weeks, which wasn’t strange considering everything she was going through. What was incredibly strange was that her husband didn’t seem to understand her grief. Not only did he not understand it, it actually seemed to bother him immensely.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you?” Reed asked, as if crying were somesort of mortal sin that she should repent for instead of a normal human emotion that comes from grieving the loss of her mother, the loss of her marriage, the loss of herself. She wasn’t sure which loss was responsible for these particular tears.
    â€œI just need a minute. Today was hard. I put my mother’s entire life into boxes and threw them in storage, and the house I grew up in is no longer mine. I shouldn’t have to explain to you why I’m upset. Why won’t you let me process this my way?” She had been married twelve years, but in retrospect, twenty-five had been too young for her to get married.
    â€œYour sulking isn’t helping this marriage any. Your mother died. That’s life. Dwelling on it isn’t helping you, and it isn’t helping me. Don’t forget, we have dinner with Cody and Tabitha tonight,” he added, tossing his copy of the New York Post on the counter and looking at her as if daring her to say she wasn’t going to go. She didn’t answer, somehow still stunned by his complete lack of compassion. He grabbed his jacket off the back of the kitchen chair. “I’m going down to the club to work out and take a steam before we go, but I’ll