“You did what?”

My mother was standing there, hands planted on her hips, glaring down at me like I had just strolled into the house and slapped her around the head.

I sighed, clasped my hands in front of me on the breakfast bar, and repeated what I’d said, “I left Mark because he was cheating on me.”

My mother’s mouth dropped open, but she couldn’t give up on her dream. “When was this? How long ago?”

“Uh, earlier today?” I replied. The city felt so far away, the apartment a million miles away from where I was right now. I wondered if he had cleaned the cake. Maybe he was stress-eating the smashed bits right now, knowing that the party I had organized for him was going to kick off soon, and then he would have to explain why I wasn’t there. No, nope, no. I refused to think about him. He didn’t deserve anymore of my time.

“Christ.” My mother tossed her hands in the air. “Just like that? It’s over?”

“Trust me, he made it pretty unequivocal,” I assured her. I wanted to tell her what I’d walked in and seen, but I knew that she either wouldn’t believe me or would be mad at me for telling her. She was a prude, through and through, and even the notion of Mark fucking one of my friends in such a visceral way would set her off again.

She paused for a moment and then came to sit down next to me. She covered my hand with hers.

I felt surprised at the show of tenderness; if I had to come up with five words to describe my mother, I was pretty sure ‘tender’ wouldn’t have been high up there, but I guess she was trying her best.

“I can’t believe that,” she shook her head.

My father was elsewhere, reading in his study, where he had vanished to after he found out that I’d broken up with Mark. He just needed some time to process the information.

Frankly, I felt glad there wasn’t another person I had to deflect commentary from about the break-up. “I can,” I replied, and I almost sniggered at the ridiculousness of it. “He was a jerk, Mom. Always has been. It’s that simple.”

“Still…” She shook her head once more, like she was trying to rattle free the thought of Mark being a jerk. “He always seemed like such a good man. So well-suited to you.”

Well-suited to what you wanted for me, I filled in the blanks in my head, but said nothing. She was trying, and I had to at least appreciate that.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked in a bewildered voice. “Have you told everyone?”

“Not yet, but I think I’m going to leave that up to him to do,” I replied. “I don’t want to have to think about him again.”

“What about the wedding arrangements? Who will cancel those?”

“Let him sort that out since it’s his fault and he can damn well refund Dad for the deposit money too.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath and exhaled it, something she’d probably learned in one of her yoga classes. They were specially set up for the time-rich ladies of this town.

I stared at her. “You okay?”

She nodded slowly. “And what are you going to do after that?”

“I guess I’ll just move my stuff out of the apartment and find my own place?” I shrugged. “I mean, I could freelance. I don’t have to worry about sticking to my job. I can go wherever I want.”

“You could come back here,” she said quickly.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I didn’t want to be anywhere near this place on a long-term basis. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was move back here. Not that I loathed the place or anything, but it always felt limited and limiting, like the town boundaries were clamping me in. “I don’t think so,” I replied. “Not much for me here, after all.”

“But there are lots of eligible men here,” she reminded me. She probably had a list as long as my arm of the guys that I could already have been married to if I had just swallowed my pride and married someone from my high school graduating class.

For some weird reason, my mind flashed back to Jesse and I hurriedly shoved him out of my thoughts. He had nothing to do with this conversation. I didn’t even know why I was giving him space in my brain. “Yeah, okay, but it’s all a bit early,” I said softly. I didn’t want to get into the same argument with her right now. This was her way of supporting me and I should just take a step back and appreciate the fact that she hadn’t found some way to blame me for the break-up.

She squeezed my hand, got up, and started to pace.

I could see her matchmaking abilities clicking into high gear, as she ran through the names of every one of the sons of her friends who was still single right now. “Mom, you really don’t need to worry about setting me up with anyone new,” I tried to stop her. “I’m not looking for a relationship. I think I need a break from men, get my head together a little—”

“It’s such a shame things didn’t work out with you and Stan.” She sighed.

I fell silent and blinked for a moment, trying to place the name. “Stan? Julie’s Stan?” I blurted when I figured it out. I shook my head in disbelief. “Mom, he’s getting married to one of my friends. Now’s not the time—”

“I know, I know.” She waved her hand. “But he was crazy about you.”

“And I kind of hated him,” I reminded her. “There was nothing there between us to work out. He liked me, I never liked him, and that was years ago anyways. He’s moved on and so have I. I’m going to be at his wedding in a few days’ time, so I think you might have left things a little late for me to pick up where we left off.”

“He’s such a nice man, though,” she went on, as though she hadn’t heard a word that had come out of my mouth. “He would never have done something like this to you.”

“Well, I’ll make sure to pass that along to Julie when I see her tonight.”

“She’s not good enough for him.” She sniffed.

“Well, that’s not for you to decide,” I replied firmly, getting to my feet. “I’m off. I need to take a shower.”

My phone rang and my mother whirled her head around, her eyes wide and full of curiosity.

I was positive she expected it to be Mark. I fished my phone out of my purse and looked at it. “Talk of the devil,” I muttered as I clicked accept.