Falling into a Second Chance by Alie Garnett

Chapter Nineteen

Walkinginto her lawyer’s office, Agatha realized she had only been here about three times. Most of their communications were over the phone or by letter. Though to be fair, she hadn’t needed to renegotiate her contract with the publisher and had only needed her lawyer to draw up the paperwork for the purchase of the house.

Stopping at the reception desk, she said, “Christie Lovely to see Aspen Andrews.”

“Take a seat,” the woman replied, and Agatha took her chair. In this office, she was Christie again. It wasn’t a persona she felt comfortable with anymore.

Becoming Chris’s lover hadn’t changed that; she was still a different person than she had been in high school. No matter who Chris was today, he was still the boy who showed her how cruel people can be. She could never become that naïve again.

“Nice to see you again, Christie,” Aspen said, walking into the waiting room. “The seller is already here and waiting. I really didn’t think they would want to meet you. It’s very unusual.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Agatha said. The knowledge that her dad was here and that she would see him for the first time in years was overwhelming.

“Okay, right in here.” Aspen opened the door and Agatha’s eyes went to the seller. But it wasn’t her father sitting there, it was her mother. Not her real one, but Sera.

“Hello, Agatha Christie. I didn’t really think I would see you this morning,” Sera said, a red folder in front of her. The woman always color coded her files. Was red for anger or love? Agatha couldn’t decide.

“I got the impression you two didn’t know each other,” Aspen said and took a chair with a manila folder on the table. “Mrs. Dean is the seller.”

“Sit down, Agatha. Let’s talk.” Sera tapped the chair closest to her.

“Okay.” Agatha couldn’t think of anything more to say. This was not how today was supposed to go. Her dad was supposed to be a no-show, and then she would sign the papers. Now she had to talk to Sera.

“So, you want to buy my house. Why?” Sera said once Agatha’s butt hit the chair.

“I didn’t want to lose it when Dad died. I wanted to make sure that we never lost the house,” she explained. Though she’d had the same thoughts since she was a teenager, she could now finally do it. In fact, it was the first thing she thought about buying when she started to make money. Everything else had taken a back seat.

“That’s why I had your dad sign it over to me before Harper graduated.” Sera pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed her eyes.

“Don’t cry,” Agatha said. “You can keep the house. I just didn’t want Dad to have it anymore.” She hugged her mom, who was a decade ahead of her in planning.

“Hormones.” Sera returned the hug even more tightly than Agatha. “But I want you to have it. It’s your and your sisters’ house, not mine.”

“Maybe we should talk to the girls about it,” Agatha admitted. Now that it wasn’t going to be sold to someone else, they had time for that.

Sera pushed her away. “No, they all have husbands who can buy them anything they want. I want you to have it.”

“So, are we going forward with the sale?” Aspen opened her folder. “The purchase price was agreed on as $300,000. Is that correct?”

“Yes, I know it’s lower than what it’s worth, but I was hoping Dad wouldn’t care.” Agatha shrugged.

“He didn’t. Do you have that kind of money, Agatha?” Sera looked at her.

“Yes.”

“How? None of your jobs have paid more than starvation wages. And I don’t think you’ve been working in months.”

“I sold some of my art this year,” Agatha finally admitted.

“Enough to hire a lawyer who isn’t Harrison? And to buy a house? How much did you sell? All of it?” Sera demanded.

Agatha shrugged. “A few of the books I wrote for Violet. I found a publisher, and they liked them.”

Yes, she should have told Sera when it happened, and right now, she wished she had, but it was never the right time. There had been a lot going on when she actually got the call; the family had other things happening. Or maybe she just let everyone else have happiness before herself. Because everyone would be happy for her and proud of her, but she hadn’t allowed them to. Instead, she hadn’t let them support her like she always did them.

“You’ve been hiding it from me for a year?” Sera was on the verge of tears, not that she wasn’t always lately. But when her chin quivered, Agatha still felt awful about not telling her right away.

“It wasn’t the entire year, just months, really. Besides, you were busy falling in love, getting married, then getting everyone else married or pregnant. That’s a lot happening in a few short months. You haven’t noticed much about me lately,” Agatha said.

“I have too. You aren’t the same person you used to be. You quit acting out, which I liked. You started eating and not looking dead, I liked that. You began being the kid you used to be when I met you, I liked that. I thought that if I said something, you would go back to being angsty Agatha. That’s why I don’t want you near Chris.” Sera pushed Agatha’s hair behind her ear as a tear fell down her cheek.

“I’m not going to fall for Chris again, Sera. I’m smarter than that now.” Agatha hoped that would be true.

“Love doesn’t care about how smart you are. Be careful,” Sera whispered, wiping away another tear.

“I am. I don’t let anyone into my heart, Sera. Ever,” Agatha stated firmly.

Instantly, Agatha knew she had said the wrong thing when Sera drew in a sharp breath. Sera wanted her to find love, but not with Chris. Except Agatha was beginning to fear that her heart was only meant for Chris. It didn’t matter how he treated it; it was his.

“I want you to, but not with him. Not again.” Sera leaned in and hugged her tight, too tight.

“It’s just fun. He will leave once his house is done, and then I’ll get to say I’m completely over him.” Agatha grinned and accepted the hug as she tried not to think about Chris leaving her again. But he didn’t belong to her, and he never would. The past had shown her that, and they were not even a couple now. Whatever they were wasn’t permanent.

Sera hugged her one more time and turned to Aspen. “I had my lawyer draw up paperwork for the sale. Everything is the same, except I changed the selling price to five dollars. The house was never mine; I was just holding it for the girls. Now one of them needs it, so it will be hers.”

Aspen grabbed the paper and looked it over. She let Agatha sign, and by the time it was over, Agatha owned the big house she loved. Though her sisters would always be welcome and could move back in whenever they wanted to, Agatha would know they had a place to land when needed.

When everything was said and done, Sera took Agatha to the closest bookstore and bought her books, all six that were currently out. And nine copies of each one, one for each sister and one for herself. In true Sera fashion, they waited for nearly an hour as a worker scoured the back room to find enough copies. But Sera was determined to get a copy for everyone, including Louisa and Frankie in Chicago.

Since it was Sera, she told everyone in the bookstore who would listen that her daughter wrote and drew the pictures, nearly forcing everyone who got close enough to buy a book. Then she made sure that Agatha signed every copy available. The store workers just let it happen.

By the time Agatha made it home for the day, it was already almost time for Violet to come home. Sera had taken the day off after discovering that her daughter was an author. She invited everyone over to celebrate the books, even if Agatha didn’t want to. There would be so many questions she didn’t want to answer, so many jokes she didn’t want to hear. Or was it because she had no idea how to be the sister with good things happening in her life? It had never been her before, and she didn’t know what to expect.

Now she had to decide what she was going to do about Chris. If she invited him to go with her, he would know who she was and would not be happy. She was starting to think she should have told him a long time ago and was maybe digging a hole that might fall in on her.

Sitting on the step, she looked over at his house. There were two dozen men going in and out, trucks lining the block in both directions. It wasn’t going to take long to fix his house with all these people.

She noticed his Turkish blue shirt first. She knew what it said, and she knew the hard muscles it hid. He saw her sitting there and flashed her a smile and a wave. Chris stopped what he was doing and walked toward her. All she could see was him; all she wanted to see was him.

As he walked across the street, she knew that she had not lied to her mom today. She didn’t let anyone new into her heart. But Chris had never left; he had always had a small corner of it.

Her breath stopped at the knowledge that she was still in love with him, that she had never stopped. His smile made her just as weak-kneed as she had been at sixteen. His hands knew her body as well as they had when she was twenty-four. But for the first time in all those years, it seemed he liked her for her. Maybe it wouldn’t last once he knew who she really was, but right now, he liked her.

“How was your day, Agatha?” he said from the sidewalk.

“Good, and yours?”

“Productive. Gary said he wanted to work late tonight to get the sheetrock up, so I am going to be late getting home.” He grinned. Did he even notice that he had called her place home?

At least she didn’t have to worry about inviting him to dinner. “That’s okay. I’m heading over to Sera’s for supper.” No need to tell him the truth today.

“Shoot, I wanted to meet your sisters, but I need to be here for questions, and the flooring is being delivered. Tile for the kitchen.”

“That will look nice.”

“Are you heading over there after Violet comes?”

“No, Sera will meet her. I just had to drop some stuff off here, and then I’ll go.”

“Well, I won’t keep you then. Have fun with your mom and sisters.” He kissed her lips, right in the middle of the neighborhood where anyone could see.

“I will.” She leaned her forehead into his and savored the moment. Not too many of these would be left after she told him.

“I am going to miss you.” He ran his thumb over her lips.

“You won’t even notice I’m gone.” She bit her lip to not let it quiver at her words. She wondered if he felt it.

“I miss you every moment you’re out of my sight, Agatha. I miss you now, and I still have you in my arms.” His lips replaced this thumb for another kiss.

She stood up and pulled away from him. “I have to go.”

Hurrying away from him, she didn’t look back. His words were as empty has they had been when he was eighteen; she knew that. They were just something to make her feel special when she wasn’t. He had perfected the game he had been playing for a decade, but she wasn’t going to fall for it again.

Pushing into Sera’s house, she was immediately engulfed by her sisters. Since only Maby had a day job anymore and even she had managed to cut back on her hours this semester, they were all there, hugging and laughing with her about her success and teasing her for hiding it from them.

It was what she needed: their high spirits to raise hers from the gutter. She didn’t know why she couldn’t just be happy to be in Chris’s bed for a few weeks instead of dwelling on the future and the past and everything in between.

After she had signed all the books Sera had bought for the family, they all sat down and looked through them, oohing and aahing over the different drawings. It had been years since she had shown anyone in the family her drawings besides Violet. Maybe because they were in published books, they didn’t have a bad word to say about them. Or maybe it was because they were all adults now and were more encouraging than when they were younger.

“So how long have you been published?” Maby, who was also a children’s literature professor, was still flipping through the book on her lap.

“Since Thanksgiving week,” Agatha admitted.

“And you still gave me socks for Christmas?” Buzz asked, grinning.

“Yes. They looked like your kind of socks.” Agatha looked at her sister’s fuzzy footed socks and tried not to remember Chris’s erotic use of a very similar sock. She knew she was blushing but realized her sister probably thought it was because she was embarrassed about the books.

“You’re right. But no socks next year. Maybe a car.” Buzz fanned herself with a book, probably because she was wearing winter socks in September.

“Have Jonas buy you a car. I had to buy our house first.” She said and knew Sera had already told them since nobody said anything about it, just nodded in agreement. With that off her chest, she decided to deflect the conversation. “And I have to save my money for my nieces and nephews. Anyone else planning to have one of those?” She looked at Maby and Harper.

Both shook their heads, but neither gave a verbal denial.

By the time the men showed up, Maby and Lucy were fighting about something, and Buzz was angry with Jonas for not buying her a car yet—same old sister squabbles. Agatha wished it were happening at her house; it always felt better when they were at her house.

Somehow, she had always assumed that when she told them, everything would change. That she would tell them she didn’t need another job because she finally had a career, and suddenly, they would treat her differently. But telling them hadn’t changed anything. She was still Agatha and still the same person she was before. Or maybe she had always been the same person in their eyes: jobless or published author, they loved her the same.