the new owner of number twenty-four would be nice. Hannah grabbed her jacket and flicked off the lights as she used the connecting door to enter the house. Her work boots sounded loud on the tiled kitchen floor as she crossed to the fridge.
“Is that you, love?” her mother, Robyn, called from the living room.
“Yeah, Mom.”
“Your dinner’s in the fridge. And there’s dessert, too, if you want it.”
Hannah sighed. No matter how many times she told her mom not to cook for her, inevitably she came home to find a meal in the fridge, neatly covered with cling wrap. When she’d moved in with her mother six months ago, she’d done so on the basis that she wouldn’t be a burden. She should have known that her mother would fight tooth and nail to defend her right to wash Hannah’s dirty laundry and cook her meals. It was what her mother had always done, and it had been foolish to even think that things would be different because Hannah was twenty-eight now and had been living independently for nearly six years.
“Did you notice the lights on next door? The new neighbors have moved in.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” Hard not to when her new neighbor had just read her the riot act.
Hannah took the plate of chicken and salad to the living room and sat next to her mom.
“This looks great, Mom. Thanks.”
Her mother dismissed her gratitude with the wave of a hand and leaned forward, her brown eyes dancing.
“So, don’t you want to know?”
“Know what?”
“What he’s like. The new neighbor. And you’ll note I say he,” her mother said.
“I don’t need to know. I just met him.”
“Really?” Her mother almost leaped off the couch. “How? Did he come over and introduce himself?”
“He was pissed about the noise, actually. Came over to give me a piece of his mind.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very promising start.”
Hannah bit into a chicken leg, shrugging a shoulder. “Who cares? He’s a dick,” she said around a mouthful of food.
“Hannah! I thought he seemed very nice when I popped in earlier. His mother was helping him unpack, you know, and there was no sign of a wife.”
Hannah scooped up a spoonful of potato salad. She could feel her mother watching her, waiting for Hannah’s reaction. She concentrated on her plate, hoping her mother would get the hint.
“You didn’t think he was good-looking?” her mother asked after a long pause.
Hannah put down her fork. “Mom. Give it up.”
“All I want to know is if you think he’s attractive.”
She wanted a lot more than that but Hannah decided the best way to defuse this conversation was to answer the question and move on.
“I thought he was sad looking, if you must know. I thought he was about the saddest-looking man I’ve ever met,” Hannah said. Those lines by his mouth, those hard blue eyes. All that anger bubbling just below the surface.
“Oh. Do you think?”
Hannah shook her head in frustration. “It doesn’t matter, Mom. He could be Brad bloody Pitt and I wouldn’t be interested. You know that.”
Her mother eyed her steadily, her face creased with concern. “Don’t be like this, sweetheart.”
Hannah stood. There was no way she could eat the rest of her meal. She certainly couldn’t endure another heart-to-heart with her mother.
“I need a shower. Thanks for cooking.”
She scraped the remainder of her dinner into the garbage, rinsed her plate and slid it into the dishwasher. She spent ten minutes in the shower, washing and conditioning her hair and shaving under her arms. All the while, she reviewed the work she had tomorrow, prioritizing things on her to-do list. Anything to avoid thinking about what her mother had been suggesting.
As if she was going to start dating again. What a joke.
A towel wrapped turban style around her hair and another around her torso, she made her way to her bedroom. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the long white box on her bed. A receipt was taped to the front of it, along with a note from her mother.
H, the dry cleaners called again today. They said if you didn’t pick your dress up soon they’d consider it unclaimed goods and sell it. I knew you wouldn’t want that.
Mom.
Hannah circled the box as though it was a wild animal. Even though she told herself she didn’t want to look, that it didn’t matter to her anymore, that it was all in the past, she reached out and slowly folded back the lid.
Intricate crystal beading sparkled in the overhead light. Her gaze ran over the shaped bodice, the pleating at the waist. The white silk skirt shimmered and she couldn’t resist running a hand over it. She could remember the first time she’d seen the dress, the way it had felt sliding over her body when she put it on—cool and slippery and perfect. As though it had been made for her.
Anger rose in a hot flash. She shoved the box so hard it slid off the other side of the bed. She’d paid a small fortune to have it packed in acid-free tissue, but she didn’t want it in her room. It was too pathetic—a wedding dress that had never been worn. Too, too sad.
She had a sudden vision of herself taking the box out into the yard, dousing it with gas and setting it on fire. All that pristine silk would burn bright and long. It would be good watching it all go up in smoke. Cleansing.
Almost, she was tempted, but she knew her mom would freak. Not to mention that it would be a huge waste of money. If she put the dress on eBay, there was a fair chance she could make back some of her money on the damned thing. After all, it had never been worn. That had to be a selling point, right?
She took a deep breath, then rounded the bed to pick up the box. The truth was, she didn’t have the luxury of burning her wedding dress. Every dollar she could scrape together got her closer to her goal of being debt-free. And once she was debt-free, she could start planning for her around-Australia trip and get out of here once and for all. Leave it all behind her—the wedding-that-never-was, Lucas, Kelly, all of it.
She laid the box on the floor in the corner and sat on the end of her bed. More than anything she wanted to be gone. If she could close her eyes and make it so right now, she would. She wanted the road unrolling before her and the wind in her hair and nothing holding her back. She certainly didn’t want to be sitting in her old bedroom, surrounded by her teenage memorabilia, living this life of quiet endurance and survival.
For a dangerous moment, tears threatened.
She stood and reached for the freshly washed jeans her mother had left folded in a pile on the end of the bed. Three minutes later she was fully dressed and tugging her work boots back on. Her hair was wet, but she didn’t care. She could hear the television in the living
