When August Ends

“Such great news!” Katy beamed.

“Wanna join us for a celebratory dinner?” Heather asked.

Katy looked over at me. “I don’t want to intrude. You two should be alone.”

Heather insisted, “It’s no intrusion.”

“I’m not too hungry,” Katy said. “You two go ahead, and if there are leftovers later, I’ll partake if I get my appetite back.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll go tell Alice the good news,” she said before disappearing upstairs.

That news shifted the mood to a better place. Heather and I spent the next hour making the enchiladas. Things lightened even more once we opened a bottle of wine. We enjoyed each other’s company, and the drama over the text I received faded considerably.

After dinner, we retreated to the living room to watch a Melissa McCarthy movie. Teddy curled up on one side of me, and Heather was on the other. This was so much better than going back to the boathouse alone.

She lay down and put her feet on my lap. I took them into my hands and massaged them.

“Look how little my feet are in your big hands. This feels so good after standing up all day.”

“You do have tiny feet.”

I wanted to kiss them but refrained.

“Have I ever told you that you have huge feet?” She winked.

“You might have mentioned that once or twice, yeah.”

She chuckled.

Her attention turned to the movie, but I remained preoccupied, thinking about what had happened earlier tonight. I wondered if she was really as understanding about the text from Lindsey as she claimed to be. Heather was strong and had the ability to catch herself when she got upset before things got out of hand. It was like she’d trained herself to brush things off. She never held grudges or let an argument go on for too long. I considered it a positive trait most of the time, but I wondered if that was good for her in the long run. Maybe she needed to let it all out sometimes, get angry before she had a breakdown.

I stared down at her feet and pressed on each of her toes. “You know, it’s okay to be mad at me.”

She sat up a little. “You want me to be mad?”

“No, of course not. But if you ever feel like you need to let it all out, it’s okay. For example, that text earlier—it clearly upset you. You were angry, but just when you were about to lose it on me, you stopped. It was like you told yourself you shouldn’t be mad, so you suppressed it. I just wonder if you deny your feelings sometimes as a protective mechanism.”

She pondered my theory. “Maybe I do that without realizing it because I don’t want conflict.”

“It’s okay to let out your frustration. I can handle it. If you’re mad about something, I want you to know you can take it out on me.”

Only after I spoke did I realize what that sounded like.

She lifted her brow. “You want me to take it out on you…in what way exactly?”

I should have known she wasn’t going to let that one slide. And that was most definitely what I wanted. I squeezed her feet even harder.***When Katy joined us in the living room a little while later, I went back to the boathouse to give her and Heather some alone time. I knew they had a lot to discuss about the new living arrangements and the logistics of Katy’s move from Boston to New Hampshire.

Just before midnight, I was just about to turn in when there was a knock on my door.

When I opened it, Heather stood there in a thin, white nightgown. I could pretty much see right through it. She scooted past me into the house, leaving a wave of her delicious scent.

“I wasn’t expecting a visit from you this late.”

She started to pace. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said. I wanted to let you know that I am really mad.”

The floodgates were about to burst open, and that was fine. This needed to happen.

“Talk to me, Heather.”

She unleashed everything. “I’m mad at my father for making me sweat over that damn money. I still don’t know if he’s serious or not. But more than that, I’m so angry that I spent half my life trying to convince myself he loved me as much as his other kids. Deep down I never believed it was true. And that hurts.”

When she started to cry, I took her in my arms. “Tell me more. Let it all out, baby.”

She stayed like that for a while. After I let her go, she continued to pace.

“I’m mad that no matter what I try, I can’t make my mother happy. It has to come from within herself and the right dose of medication.” She wiped her tears. “I’m angry that my sister is dead, and I never had the opportunity to have a normal relationship with her. But I’m not angry that she brought you into my life. And while I’m not mad at you for the reason you came here, I have been keeping some of my feelings inside about it. It hurts to think about what Opal did and the fact that you knew her at all. The truth is, I do block out thoughts about my sister as a habit. They’re just too painful.”