“What happens with Amber now?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. The practical matters are clear—she and Blake need to find new housing, deal with the wedding cancellation, address the lies she’s told.”
“But the personal relationship…”
“Needs time,” my mother supplied. “Distance can bring clarity for both of you.”
“Are you angry with me?” I asked suddenly. “For canceling the wedding. For selling the house. For leaving?”
Helen considered this.
“Disappointed, perhaps—not in your actions, but in the situation that made them necessary. No grandmother wants to see her family fractured.”
“But angry?” She shook her head. “No. You’ve carried Amber single-handedly since she was five. Even birds push their young from the nest eventually.”
“This feels less like pushing from the nest,” I admitted, “and more like severing a limb.”
“Painful either way,” Helen said. “But sometimes necessary for growth. Hers. And yours.”
Headlights swept across the yard as another vehicle pulled into my driveway.
This time, I recognized Blake’s sensible sedan.
“Reinforcements have arrived, I see,” my mother observed dryly. “Want me to send him away?”
I smiled at her protective instinct.
“No. I’ll talk to him. Would you mind making some fresh tea?”
Helen nodded, leveraging herself up with practiced determination.
“Don’t let him change your mind, Sophia. You’ve made the right decision.”
I watched her disappear inside before turning my attention to Blake, who approached the porch with visible hesitation.
In the fading light, he looked younger than his thirty years—more like the earnest law student Amber had first brought home than the polished attorney he’d become under the Prescotts’ grooming.
“Mrs. Carter,” he greeted me cautiously. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
“That depends on why you’re here, Blake,” I said, gesturing to the chair my mother had vacated.
He sat, dragging his hands through his hair in that familiar gesture of distress.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” he said. “Today has been surreal.”
“I imagine it has,” I replied.
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