132 - The chapter with Maeve's story

Rose

"Just the girls at Brigitte's, I'll drive, Rose," Addison smiled, giving me a satisfied look at her well-executed revenge, "Do you want to join us, Maeve?”

"Sure," she sounded excited.

In the end, Alex decided to follow Jack in his car to make room for Camille to come with us, and before we knew it, we were pushing a large cart through the aisles of the cleaning section of the store.

I watched Maeve holding a bottle of disinfectant, choosing the best scent. I was intrigued by this woman, and somehow I wanted to know a little more about my friend's mother.

" Addison, I'm telling you, I have a friend who would love to meet you. I can introduce the two of them, she's my age, if you don't mind the difference " Maeve commented, going back to the stroller.

" I don't consider four years an age difference, Mae," my mother laughed, catching my eye. So she's forty two. She was quite young when Liam was born.

Liam's father doesn't look a day over sixty. I didn't mind the age difference so much, Joshua was almost ten years older than me. But...

" Mrs. Van Derr Wall, how did you and your husband meet? I mean, you are very different and he seems to be much older than you " I asked without any ceremony to the total horror of Skyller, who accompanied us in silence next to Camille, looking intimidated by the presence of her Mother-in-law.

" Oh my God, Rose! Is that a question to ask?  " She slapped me on the arm.

" I take half the responsibility for her rudeness, the other half was Jack's fault,” my mother quipped, making the woman laugh.

" It's okay, she's just curious. I understand," she reassured my friend, "I'm a young woman with a grown son and married to a guy twenty two years older. I bet people are curious about your whole situation all the time, because you definitely don't look like the mother of a young adult daughter.”

" He's twenty two years older than you? How old were you when you met? " Camille widened her eyes.

" Oh my God, she's so cute. I bet you're enjoying breaking up that innocence " Maeve seemed about to squeeze the girl's cheeks.

Camille's cheeks flushed, making me laugh, as our group moved through the halls, picking up everything we would need to get our house ready to be inhabited.

" So?”

" I met him nineteen years ago, I was twenty-two and I was on vacation from college and I had come back to visit my parents for a few weeks” she began to narrate, making me frown.

Liam is twenty-one, how can they have only met nineteen years ago? Isn't Liam Mr. Van Derr Wall's son?

" I felt completely lost, I didn't know what to do in college, my brother had graduated in the last year and everyone was putting an absurd pressure on me, after all, I had to be someone successful like my brother, but deep down all he got were ridiculous cases and didn't win " she continued her story, ignoring the confused looks we threw in her direction, picking up a box of washing powder on a shelf " You'll love this brand, I only use it.”

" That hasn't changed then,” Alex quipped, receiving an amused look from my mother.

" If you were twenty-two, Mr. Van Derr Waal must have been forty-four, right?' " Cam asked and she smiled in response.

" Yes, one evening, after an argument with my parents who were threatening to stop paying for my college if I didn't figure out what I was going to do post-graduation soon, I left the house to visit a friend. My initial plan was to buy some beers and go to her house to watch movies and eat pizza, but then, when I was at the market, I saw Thomas. Liam was a little over two years old and was crying non-stop inside the supermarket trolley.”

That information surprised me even more. She is not his biological mother, now everything makes sense!

" Oh my God " Sky couldn't contain her surprise, making me throw a meaningful look at her.

" I know, he was with the boy screaming at the top of his lungs while showing him two brands of canned macaroni and cheese and saying something like "come on kid, you need to eat something, macaroni and cheese used to be your favorite food, what do you say?".

" He was offering canned macaroni to a two-year-old boy? " Alex raised both eyebrows.

" I know, at the time I thought how can someone so hot be so dumb?" That sentence made me laugh " Without even thinking about what I was doing I walked up to him and told him that if he was offering me that crap and saying it's mac and cheese, I would be having that exact reaction.”

" Oh my God, you didn't even know him! " Camille stared at her dumbfounded.

" No, but when I stopped to think about it, I had already done it. He looked at me and I thought he was going to tell me to mind my own business, and he asked me if I wanted to come over to his house and cook macaroni and cheese then. At first I thought that was a way of dismissing me, but then he reinforced the invitation, saying he was desperate, that the boy hadn't eaten properly for weeks and he didn't know what else to do.”

" Poor guy, and what did you do? " Addison watched her.

" I called my friend, helped him buy everything he needed to make the macaroni and cheese and walked him to his house. I couldn't believe the size of the place when I arrived. He told me that his wife had left him a few weeks ago and since then the boy had been eating less and less, he had tried everything, and nothing worked.”

" Did his mother abandon him? " Sky did not hide her disgust.

" 'No dear, I'm Lee's mother. That woman just gave birth to him " Maeve returned calmly " I cooked and to our surprise, Lee ate everything. In the end, I offered to help him, told him that while I was in town he could call me whenever he needed something, and that happened almost every day during my vacation. I realized that Lee was my life and Thomas and I ended up falling in love, and three months later we were engaged.”

" 'Wow, that's an amazing story,” Cam stammered.

" When Liam turned ten, he asked me to adopt him. He wanted to have me as his mother on his official documents, so my brother took care of everything." She sighed. "I know that in the end most people think I'm just a brainless trophy wife. But I have the perfect life with them. I got a handsome husband who treats me like a princess and I also had the best boy I could ever have. Deep down it wasn't about money, I would have stayed with them even if they didn't have a single penny.”

" That was a great story Mae," my mother commented.

" One of the best I've ever heard," I agreed.

We continued our shopping for a few minutes in silence until Alex spoke up again.

" When are you planning to move, girls?”

" 'Probably at the weekend,” Sky mused, “we'll need to clean up first.”

" So let's take advantage and buy groceries already, I don't trust these kids shopping alone, if it's up to Lee, he'll live on pizza, instant noodles and vodka " Maeve ironized.

And so we did, and every second I felt more anxious about having our own house.