Page 96 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“Greg said that?” I demanded.

“I’m more than just a pretty face, Gramps.”

I grunted to show what I thought of his new term of endearment, but I didn’t argue the point. Instead, I did something that had needed to be done for a while now. If I was going to fight for Sloane, then I needed to fight for the rest of this group, too.

After all, they’d been fighting for me from the start.

I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry for what I said the other day, Maisey.”

She grew perfectly still, her hand upraised like a statue about to pour water out of a pitcher. “For which part?”

“Yeah, Grandpa,” Greg drawled. “There are an awful lot of potential apologies to choose from.”

“There has been the need for at least a dozen in my hearing alone,” Nigel agreed.

I might have reached a breakthrough in my personal life lately, but not so much that I was willing to takethismuch cheek. “You know very well which one I mean, so don’t give me that. Any of you.”

I’d have preferred to do this without an audience, but I’d been cruel to Maisey in front of one, so it was no more than I deserved. Justice always demanded payment in full, and as had been pointed out to me so many times as of late, I was falling behind on my bills.

“You’re a good mom to that child,” I said. “Better than she deserves, that’s for sure.”

Greg coughed in warning, so I swallowed and took a different tack. Even though I was right.

“I know you think I’ve been shut up in this house like a hermit all these years, but it’s not true. You can’t live on a street like this one and not see what’s going on around you. I watched you bring that baby home. I saw the way you built lopsided snowmen together and heard you clang pots and panswellpast midnight every New Year’s. I drove by the day you took the training wheels off her bike, and I was even ready to call the ambulance when she crashed into that mailbox, which any fool could have seen she was about to do.”

Maisey blanched white before going pink all over. “Arthur.”

“Let me finish,” I barked.

She made the motion of a zipper over her lips, but I could see it was costing her.

“Raising kids is tough. Raising kids when you’re doing it on your own is even tougher.” I could feel the weight of Greg’s gaze and knew exactly what was going through his mind. I hadn’t raised one scrap of the woman who’d become his mother. Anything good she turned out to be was due to Genie’s influence and Genie’s influence alone. “Believe me, if anyone knows what it looks like to fail, it’s me. I drove my daughter out because I didn’t love her enough. You drove yours out because you love her too much.”

“Arthur,” she said again, softer this time.

“There’s not a doubt in my mind that she’ll be the better for it in the end,” I said, ignoring her. If I didn’t, there was a good chance I’d never get this out. “She’s testing her boundaries right now, and I know it hurts, but she’ll be fine. More than anything, kids need to know they have a soft spot to land. Your Bella? She knows. She’ll know it until the day she dies.”

I should have known what was coming next.Of courseMaisey was a woman who hugged, and who hugged with all the bodily strength God had given an elephant. I felt the air being crushed from my body, but it wasn’t as if I could collapse. Not when I was literally being propped up.

“Thank you, Arthur,” she said. “That means a lot coming from you.”

And then, of all blessed events, she let me go. Oh, I could see her eyes getting all misty, and I knew she wanted to say more, but she seemed to sense that I’d reached my limit. I guess there was something to thatwise old soulstuff of Sloane’s, after all.

Maisey swept her wise, expert eyes around the room and immediately changed the subject. “Wait. Are you guys having a secret book club meeting? Without me?”

Since I could hardly kick the woman to the curb after we’d shared what could only be calleda moment, I gestured for her to join us.

“Not exactly,” Greg said. “It’s a…project for Grandpa.”

“A project?” Maisey’s eyes fairly goggled from her head. “Like arts and crafts time? I don’t believe you.”

Nigel chuckled and showed her the copy ofAnne of Green Gables. “It’s true. We’re finding quotes in the book that capture everything inside Arthur’s heart.”

She blinked. “Well, that’s easy. I already know that one.” She took the book and flipped through the pages, her shiny silver fingernail running over the lines until she found what she was looking for. “‘I can’t cheer up—I don’twantto cheer up. It’s nicer to be miserable!’”

I did my valiant best not to smile, but my valiant best was no match for the laughter that resounded throughout that room. From the way they all carried on, you’d think I’d never been the butt of a joke before.

“Fine,” I grumbled, feeling my ears grow hot. They’d always done that, though I thought I’d outgrown the need for blushing decades ago. “You can have that one, but this is serious. We’re doing this for Sloane. I imagine you know that fiancé of hers is planning to take her across the country after their wedding?”