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"Mom," Jace said. "This is Juliet. She owns the house, and I work for her."
Jace's mother smiled broadly then, reaching out a hand to shake. "It's wonderful to meet you, Juliet. I feel a little silly inviting you into your own house, but come inside."
The house looked so different without my overstuffed furniture and meaningless decor. It looked lived in and loved, even if there were still a few boxes here and there, when before it had only been an impersonal escape. "The place looks wonderful Mrs. Morgan," I told them both.
"Call me Renee," she said, taking off the big hat and setting it on the back of the couch. "Can I get you coffee? Tea?"
We accepted coffee and the three of us sat down, but just as we were beginning to talk a bit, Renee erupted into a coughing fit that went on much longer than it seemed like it should. Jace had said nothing about his mother being ill, but this didn’t sound like a cold.
"Are you sick?" I asked when she'd recovered a bit.
"No, no," she waved my concern away.
"Yes," Jace said, his voice flat and ominous. "She won't do anything about it."
I glanced between them, sensing this was an old fight. But I didn't like the sound of the cough at all. Still, it wasn't my place to say anything else. Not right now.
We stayed for an hour, talking about Jace's brother Jarred and how they were when they were little boys—Jace the protector, even then. We also talked about their hopes that Jarred might escape the grip of drugs this time, even if it did have to happen in prison. Jace said Jarred had tried to quit several times before, going cold turkey and visiting a free counselor, but each time he’d relapsed.
"It's so nice to meet you," Renee said later, as the mugs sat empty on the coffee table and Jace leaned back in the couch, finally relaxing a bit. "I can't thank you enough for allowing me to live here. The neighborhood, the quiet ... the garden ..." tears were welling in Renee's eyes, and I was embarrassed suddenly that a house I didn't even live in could mean so much to her.
I leaned forward and took her hand. "I wish I could have helped earlier. I'm so glad you're happy here."
She ducked her head and wiped at her eyes. "You must think I'm such a failure," she said quietly.
Jace sat up straighter. "Mom, what? No."
She shook her head, still not looking up. "Can't even take care of myself," she whispered. "My boy... the drugs..."
"Mom," Jace's voice cracked along with my heart. I thought how easily any family could find itself in this situation, how it could be my own Gran sitting here, feeling like a failure.
"No," I said, forcing my own voice to be strong, cheerful, reassuring. "No, Renee. If there's one thing I learned from my Gran, it's that we don't always control what happens in our lives. We can only control the way we weather the things that happen, we can only try to hold onto ourselves through the hard stuff."
She looked up at me, then her eyes darted back down to her hands.
"And you've done well, I'd say." I paused, and Jace dropped a big hand on my knee, a silent thanks. "Jace is an incredible man. And I haven't met Jarred, but I'm willing to bet the drugs don't define him. We all make mistakes, but I'd bet that Jarred has just as true and strong a heart as either of you. And that's something a mother can take credit for."
Renee wiped at her face and then smiled up at me, and Jace squeezed my leg lightly. His tender touch made me feel like we were a real couple, like I could be part of this family. I had a sudden longing to introduce him to Gran, to Tess.
Soon, we were heading back home, but I felt like something had grown inside me, made more space. In a life where so much of what I saw and did was a construction, merely make-believe, it was incredible to spend a day feeling like part of the real world, like a part of something that mattered. I liked Jace's mom a lot. And I wanted to help her.
"I have a doctor who makes house calls," I told Jace in the car on the way home. "I can send him over to see her."
Jace looked at me for a long second without speaking. Then, as if it was hard for him to do it, he said, "okay."
* * *
It was justthe two of us in the house those evenings as darkness settled outside, swathing the property in dark drapery and silence, and what felt like privacy. Jace set the walkie talkie nearby, but kept it turned down low so if anyone outside needed to reach him he was still there, but Chad's incessant chatter was less irritating at low volume.
We ate together, talked in my room or his, and spent a lot of time in bed.
It was just a few perfect days and nights, hiding from reality with a man who really saw me, who wanted to really know me. A man who didn't care how well my last movie did, but who wanted to know about me as a person.
Only, it couldn't last.
When I hadn't made weekend plans to go to Maryland by Wednesday, my agent called me to ask.
"Juliet, this is what we got Ryan on board for. And the magazine piece is all set up. You need to go. Make a long weekend of it. See your family."
