Page 83 of Saving Graces
Before
“Argh!” Rosalie shrieked. Down the grocery aisle, three people jumped, turning to stare. She glared at the disapproving shopper closest to her until the older woman dropped her gaze and avoided eye contact with the unstable redhead in aisle four. Rosalie snatched up the latest copy of People magazine that had just caught her eye, the headline proclaiming Cole Corbin Causes Country Catfight!”
The jaunty title font stood in bold above a blurry picture of Cole mid hook-up with some young singer Rosalie vaguely recognized Rosalie was too uncool to have ever heard of. The magazine pages crumpled in her tense hands.
She dropped her basket where she stood and drove directly to Savannah’s house. She wasn’t the only one. A dozen photographers blocked the gate, long-lens cameras wedged between the bars, desperate for a teary shot of Savannah Grace they’d never get. When Rosalie finally managed to fight her way inside with the help of Savannah’s security, there were no tears. Savannah sat perfectly calm and aloof in her overstuffed living room couch, not a hair out of place. Cole was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh come on,” Savannah waved a dismissive hand, something that aimed for amusement wavering in her eyes. “You can’t believe a word those people print, you know that.”
“Honey,” Rosalie said, “there’s pictures.”
Savannah scoffed.
“It’s a weird angle,” she said. “She approached him, she flirted with him.” Savannah’s throat bobbed as she inhaled sharply. “Cole was just being polite. That’s all.”
“His hands are on her-”
“I trust my husband, Rosalie,” she snapped. “We talked about it. I don’t need to explain it or justify it to you.”
Rosalie’s breath caught.
“Well, okay then,” she said, feeling winded. She nodded for a moment. She met Savannah’s eyes, unable to hide the hurt and worry in her own. Savannah didn’t flinch. So Rosalie got to her feet. She’d made it halfway across the living room by the time she heard a small voice behind her say two words that felt like a sucker punch to the gut. She turned around. “I’m sorry, what?”she asked, her eyes locked on Savannah’s face.
“I’m pregnant,” she repeated, her eyes full of tears. “We’re having a baby, Cole and I.”
Finally, Rosalie got it. She walked back and sat down next to Savannah and took her hand.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I guess we’re doing this then.”
Four months later Rosalie didn’t shriek in the grocery store as the baby bump pictures made the headlines. Savannah looked glowing and curvaceous in a Givenchy gown at a film premiere featuring her voice on the soundtrack, her handsome husband cupping her belly proudly. A month after that, Cheatin’ Corbin’s Cocaine Courtship hit the stands, Cole packed off to rehab and Savannah swearing blue that he was changing this time, that the blurry photos were misinterpreted, that it was the drugs, he was high, the kiss was not a kiss, the affair certainly not an affair.
Rosalie despaired.
“This baby,” Savannah’s eyes blazed with fury when Rosalie pushed her too far, “is going to have a father.”
“Sweetheart,” Rosalie said, her heart cracking, “they will. Whether you stay together or-”
“Of course we’re staying together! Oh my god, Rosalie, will you ever just stop? Stay out of my fucking business!”
When she got home, things were even worse.
“She’s right,” Erica said, her dark eyes flashing. “It’s up to her if she wants to forgive and forget. You care way too much about Savannah Grace’s choices and nowhere near enough about what’s happening in your own life.”
Almost two years together came crashing down overnight as Rosalie defended her friendship, her boundaries, her work life, her general availability as a partner and her lack of what Erica described as ‘deep down commitment.’
“Do you know what your problem is?” Erica cried as she pulled clothes off hangers and threw them in a suitcase. “You use Savannah as a shield. She’s allowed to need you, but no one else is. She’s your perfect girlfriend because you’re not actually together! You get to have emotional intimacy with zero commitment.”
“That’s called friendship!” Rosalie threw up her hands.
“That’s called an excuse.” Erica crashed the suitcase closed, hauling it out the door.
The next time she heard from Savannah it was two months later.
“Please,” she sobbed, “please can you come-”
Rosalie burst into the hospital room to find Savannah silently weeping through her contractions, Cole banned from the birthing suite because he was too damn high and throwing punches. Savannah refused all pain relief as if she believed that if she took every bit of punishment she could, sacrificed all she could, made herself bear the unbearable then maybe somehow, someone up there would notice and decide she should be spared what was coming for her. Twenty-seven hours later - Rosalie nauseated with exhaustion, rage, and fear - Tucker Grace Corbin arrived tiny, crumpled, purple, wondrous.
Savannah held him, her own blood on her hands, her tears on his skin, her eyes locked on his face.
