Chapter 20
She thought about it all right. Practically every second of the next couple days. When she walked into the boardroom to help negotiate the terms of the O'Connor deal, Deacon's words were extremely potent.
“You can pick your own cases now.”
Especially when she saw Mr. O'Connor sitting there in a thousand-dollar suit wearing a grin of unaccountability. He tipped his head at her when he walked in and she felt her skin crawl. She'd done as instructed and supplied the case with enough information to get a favorable outcome in mediation. An NDA and a payoff and Mr. O'Connor would sleep like a baby. It was bullshit.
Did she really want to spend the rest of her career like this? Face to face with people that didn't deserve her time and talents. One thing that she did love about her job was the security. She had money. She had a place to live. She had everything she ever wanted.
Except him.
The future Deacon was asking her to be a part of wasn't even something she was sure she wanted. The adventure, the husband, the kids, the whole lot of it. She'd had a plan and this was not part of it.
This is all Hope's fault.
“Wait just a second,” Willa stopped Kate as she filled her and Vanessa in on her conversation with Deacon. The three of them had met for their weekly lunch and the girls were getting an earful. Her quota for sharing with friends was definitely being met for the day. “He told you he loved you?”
“Yeah,” Kate said with a sigh.
“And what did you say?”
“Nothing,” Kate answered. “There was a lot going on,” she explained. “He wants me to give up everything I've worked for,” she said. “I was flustered.”
“I don't think that's what he's doing,” Vanessa defended. “You said it yourself that he wants you to keep working.”
“Yeah, from a camper that's driving around the country. How can I possibly be successful if I'm living like I'm on the lamb?”
“Success is a relative term,” Willa told her.
“Thanks, hippie,” Kate said with an eye roll. Of course success was relative, but she'd defined what it meant to her, she wasn't quite sure she could adopt a new frame of mind.
“There are plenty of things that you can do with a law degree aside from being in a courtroom,” Willa told her.
“Like what?” Kate asked.
“Well for starters you could start a blog about being a lawyer,” she suggested.
“A blog?” Kate's eyes went wide. “Are you fucking serious right now?” All Kate could picture was the nerdy guy living in his mother's basement posting reviews of video games.
“Dead,” Willa deadpanned. “Do you know how much a successful blogger can make these days? Six figures.”
Kate was surprised.
“Or you could be a legal consultant,” Willa added to the list. “Companies are always looking for ways to cut the bottom line. I've heard of a lot of places offering contract positions to freelancers instead of hiring full time.”
“Why do you know all this?” Vanessa asked.
“I read a lot,” she told her. “I'm trying to find that perfect job for me, but so far I've ended up just finding a bunch of things that Kate would be good at, I guess.” She laughed.
“I already have a job that I'm good at,” Kate reminded. “One that I've worked really hard to get.”
“I'm not saying that you haven't,” Willa countered. “We just don't want you to regret letting him go,” she added. “Don't miss out on your life because you're afraid.”
“It's really easy for you to sit there and tell me how to live my life,” Kate snapped. She hadn't realized exactly how annoyed the entire situation was making her until Willa added that last jab. She wasn't afraid.
Was she?
“You do it to me all the time,” Willa replied with a shake of head.
“That's because your life literally has no direction,” Kate told her. “Mine does.”
“You're being a little harsh,” Vanessa slipped in her words quickly, her lips pursing shut quickly when Kate glared at her from across the table.
“It's fine, Ness,” Willa said. “I can handle her temper tantrum,” she said, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest. “Maybe I don't have any direction, but at least I know a good thing when I see it.”
“Is that right?” Kate scoffed. “I've seen you let a lot of good things slip through your fingers. Countless jobs, decent guys, all of it.”
“No,” Willa said calmly. “You've seen me quit jobs that weren't a good fit and let guys go who weren't the right ones. Now, you have the right one and you're just going to let him go.”
Kate was seeing red with each lie Willa told herself. She was done with this conversation. “Whatever Willa.” She stood from the table and tossed her napkin on her untouched food. Then she walked away. She had to before she said any more words that she knew she'd regret.
* * *
When Kate started walking she wasn't sure where she'd end up. The last thing she'd expected herself to do was get a car and have it drive her to the cemetery. And, she surely hadn't planned on trekking through the grass, her heels aerating the soft ground with each step, back to the small plot under an oak tree where Hope was buried.
When she reached the plot, she took a seat on the small bench that sat across from her friend. The once loose, dirt was now compacted and grass had already started to grow. Kate swallowed back her tears as she thought about Hope being six feet below her. Her life cut short and her family and friends left trying to piece their lives back together. Kate thought back to Willa's comments about her not crying over Hope's death. It wasn't that Kate wasn't sad—she was devastated. In fact, she cried a lot when she was alone. Over Hope. Over stress. Over ASPCA commercials. Kate had conditioned herself to not let her emotions get the best of her in public, which had served her quite well as a lawyer. Unfortunately, now it was seeming like it might be more of a hindrance in the rest of her life.
Why hadn't she been able to tell Deacon that she loved him the moment he said it to her?
The sunlight bounced off of the shiny granite headstone. Wife, mother, friend. Hope was so much more than those three words. At the moment the only word Kate could think of was pot-stirrer.
“Thanks for the letters,” Kate said. “Thanks for adding doubt into my life. Really appreciate it.” She kicked her shoes off before standing. Her bare feet gave her a better ability to pace as she collected her thoughts.
“I'm not sure exactly what you were going for with this whole thing, but if making your best friend feel like she has to make Sophie's choice then brava.” Kate's memories sparked Hope's laughter. Was she being too dramatic about all of this? Was Hope's laughter justified? “Is that what you wanted? For me to just quit my job and run away with Deacon? Were you just trying to get me to find balance in my life? Your letters could have been a bit more specific.” She took a breath and looked up at that cool blue sky. The cottony wisps of clouds and the slight breeze shifting them across the sky calmed Kate's nerves. “I don't know what to do,” she finally confessed.
“None of us do.”
Kate whipped around the second the voice startled her almost expecting to see Hope standing in all her ethereal glory. But it was no ghost. Willa and Vanessa stood side by side both of them wearing the same sad looks on their faces that Kate knew she had as well.
“You found me,” Kate said, turning her back on them. She wasn’t quite ready to make up after their argument.
“We followed you,” Willa countered. Each of them walked up to Kate and took a side. Vanessa slipped her hand in to Kate's as Willa did the same.
The three of them stood in silence looking down at Hope's grave. The emotions seeming to ripple from one to the other. Sadness, of course, she was gone. Relief that she wasn't in pain in more. Confusion over why the cancer had to choose her. Anger at the fact there was nothing they could do to save her. It was the first time since her funeral that the three of them had been back here and it was threatening to open the wound right back up.
“She wouldn't want us to stand here and cry,” Willa reminded them. “She'd want us to make up and keep moving forward.”
“I'm sorry,” Kate said, turning to Willa.
“Me too.” She squeezed Kate's hand in hers. “I shouldn't have been so pushy.”
“I need a push,” Kate admitted. “Maybe a shove.”
“We just think Deacon is a really great guy,” Willa told her.
Kate nodded. That was never in question.
“And you're crazy about him, right?” Vanessa asked.
“I see where you're going with this, but it's so much more than me loving him,” Kate told them. This was about uprooting her whole life. Changing her whole plan.
“So you do love him?” Willa surmised.
Kate took a moment to really think about how she felt. She'd done it on more than one occasion since she'd last seen him and so far, the conclusions had all been the same. “Yeah, I do.”
“Oh my god, Kate,” Willa said “This is huge.”
“It is,” Vanessa agreed. “You know in the ten years I've known you I've never heard you say that you loved a guy.”
“Has it been that long?” Kate asked. She knew how long it had been. The last guy that she loved was her college boyfriend and that fizzled out as fast as it had started. Which lead her to believe one of two things. One, maybe she didn't know exactly what love was, or, two, love never lasted. Both of which were adding to the anxiety of this whole thing. “Guess I haven't really been keeping track,” she lied.
“If you love him you should really think about this,” Willa told her.
“I am.”
“Are you weighing the positives with the negatives,” Vanessa asked. “Are you thinking about all of the good things that could come of this?”
She hadn't really. She hated to admit that she'd only been thinking about what she'd be giving up, but her job had been so important to her for so long that it was hard not to just think about that.
“She hasn't,” Willa said when Kate didn't answer.
“You should,” Vanessa suggested. “We're talking marriage, babies, a happily ever after here, Kate. Don't forget that when you're making your list. That's all some people want.” Kate could see the sadness in Vanessa eyes. That's all she'd wanted with Chris. It was all she wanted now. Even with divorce looming, Kate knew that Vanessa was still holding out hope for her own happily ever after. Maybe not with Chris, but with someone.
“Of course the one time that I actually need a good list, it's too late,” Kate said referring to Hope. “I miss her,” Kate said. As frustrated as she'd been with Hope setting everything with Deacon in to motion, she was grateful that she had. Even if it meant that she was going to have to make one of the hardest decision of her life. Or at least one of the scariest.
“Me too,” Willa and Vanessa said in unison.