Page 92 of Heartache & Playdates
Angelina Faith Chaplin.
I knew my daughter’s name. I knew where she lived. I had her phone number.
I was lying in my bed trying not to throw up and as I became more and more awake and aware I realized it had to be much later in the morning than I normally slept. It was never this bright in this room before noon. I reached out to grab my phone and that’s when I saw the ring on my finger.
Holy shit!
How had I forgotten Trent showing up to the bar and proposing?
Maybe because it wasn’t that memorable, I heard Leo’s voice in my head.
I replayed what I remembered from the proposal.
“We can build a life that people will envy.”
“The proverbial woman behind the great man.”
I took note of the use of adjectives in that sentence. Why was he great and I was proverbial?
“Do me the honor of being Mrs. Trent Windsor.”
Not marry me. Not be my wife.
And don’t even get me started on the fact that every time we’d talked about getting married, I’d told him that Nonna had promised me her ring. And that I didn’t want anything in public because I hated being the center of attention.
He’d shown up, in public, brought flowers, and bought me this massive rock. To most people it would probably seem like I was being irrational, those things out of context were all great. But I wasn’t most people.
I needed to break up with him ASAP. I tried to pull the ring off my finger but my alcohol and nacho consumption from the night before had caused my fingers to swell to the size of bratwurst sausages.
Maybe I could use butter or soap to remove it. I sat up in bed and picked up my phone to check and see if I’d gotten any messages. I lied to myself and pretended it was just a general check, but truthfully, I was hoping to see a message from either Maddox or Lina.
When I tapped on the home button the screen remained black and I realized it was dead. I grabbed the charger to plug it in and noticed the time on my old alarm clock. It was eleven thirty. I never slept this late.
Oh no! Nonna. I vaguely remembered checking in on her last night when I got home, and she was in her bed. But she got up at what Leo referred to as “old people early.” She never slept past five in the morning.
“Crap!” I pushed out of bed and the tiny men jackhammering in my brain doubled down as my stomach revolted against the grease and tequila that was still in my system.
I winced as I grabbed a pair of sweats off the floor. I desperately needed to do laundry but since Nonna didn’t have a washer and dryer, that meant a trip to the laundry mat and with everything else going on, I just hadn’t made it happen.
As I headed down the hallway I called out, “Sorry I slept in, Nonna. I just need to pee, and I’ll be right there.”
After stopping in the bathroom and taking care of business and trying, unsuccessfully, to remove the ring, I walked back into the hall and realized that the house was quiet. Eerily quiet. There was no TV on. No music playing. No smells of food.
A sick feeling churned in my stomach that had nothing to do with my hangover.
“Nonna!” I called out again as I walked to the front room where I expected to find her on the couch or the chair that Maddox and I had defiled.
She wasn’t there.
The knot of dread in my belly tightened as I walked through the kitchen out to the screened in back porch, both were empty.
Was she still in bed?Nonna was never in bed when the sun rose.
I ran down the hall calling out to her as panic raced through me. “Nonna!”
When I got to her room, I found her lying in bed, perfectly still. Her eyes were shut but her mouth was open.
“Oh my god!” My knees almost gave out beneath me. She was dead. “Nonna!” I shouted as I ran to her bedside and put my face next to her mouth to see if I felt any breath.
