Butterfly Memories by Lauryn Alexander

Author:Lauryn Alexander [ALEXANDER, LAURYN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Clover Ridge Press

Fourteen

It was late afternoon when Doug’s car stopped in front of the inn. It was too hot to work out in the sun by then, and Jenna and Sara were sitting on the porch drinking sweet tea. Carly had gone home to sleep since she’d worked the night before.

Doug stepped out of the car and made his way to the porch. He should have been suffocating in the light gray suit, dark gray shirt and red paisley tie he was wearing, but he didn’t seem to be warm at all.

He dropped into one of the white rattan chairs and stretched his legs out.

“Get me one of those, will you, Jenna?” he asked, gesturing to her glass of sweet tea. “It’s been a day.”

Jenna tensed. Not even a quick kiss or a hello first? She was tempted to ask him if he’d forgotten the magic word the way her mother always had when she was a little girl and forgot to say please.

He’d barely even acknowledged Sara’s presence.

Jenna got up and went inside. As she poured the sweet tea into an ice-filled glass, she heard Doug speak to Sara. About time, she thought.

“I hear you’re doing well in New York,” she heard him say.

“I am,” Sara said.

Short and sweet, Jenna thought. Then, a few second later, she heard Sara speak again. “How are you?”

Jenna recognized the tone of Sara’s voice, her I’m-only-asking-to-be-polite voice.

“Good. I suppose you approve of her buying this place.”

Not even small talk before he dug in to see what Sara’s opinion was, Jenna thought.

She moved to the door but didn’t go back outside. Instead, she stood in the shadows, listening.

“I do.”

“I’m not surprised,” he muttered. Then in a louder voice, he added, “She really needs to face reality. This is a money pit.”

“Jenna loves this place—”

“I’ve told her to get rid of it before she gets in any deeper, but she’s stubborn. If she’d just do what I tell her—”

“You mean instead of doing what she wants to do?” Sara formed the words as a question, but Jenna recognized the tone of her friend’s voice. She was getting angry.

Jenna could see Sara from where she was standing, and she knew her friend well enough to know how she felt about men like Doug, men who still had the women-should-be-pregnant-barefoot-and-in-the-kitchen mentality.

Jenna saw Sara’s jaw tense and her lips thin, a sign she was really trying to control her temper. Sara had done a stint working in a pro bono family law clinic during her fourth year of law school. She’d dealt with many women who were treated as property, where the husband laid down the rules and if the wife didn’t follow them…

Was Doug really one of those men? The way he was talking…

Jenna had never really thought about it before, but now, she was starting to see that maybe theirs wasn’t the kind of relationship she wanted. How had she missed the signs over the years? Or had she ignored them because she wanted to be married one day?

Doug turned his head toward the door.

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