“I’m taking your keys to lock the door, so you won’t have to get up when I get back.” I tug the crocheted blanket on the back of the couch over her and around the cats.

“There’s cash in my purse,” she says, “for the prescriptions.”

I stand, ignoring her money offer, and grab the keys on the coffee table. “Get some rest.”

I leave, locking the door behind me.

After a Food Lion haul, I meet Mom at Seagrove Pharmacy, where she lets me in the darkened store with the bells chiming overhead.

“Just printing out the labels.” She waves me through the quiet aisles to the pharmacy in the back. She wears her white lab coat, though the store is closed.

“How’s Marnie?”

“Home and hurting.”

She flashes a concerned look. “Grady, it’s not your fault.”

“Stop saying that. It is my fault.”

“It was an accident. The more times you hear it, the quicker you’ll believe it,” she says, her reading glasses perched on her nose. She taps her computer keys and moves around the small space. “I’m glad you’re helping her, but I’m surprised, too.”

“There’s no one else to do it. Cora’s too much to deal with and Ashe’s gone on their honeymoon without her.”

Mom’s the textbook definition of appalled. “No! Did they break up? Over a car accident?”

“No, not that it’s any of our business. Almost done? I want to get back.”

She folds the paperwork, checks the pill vials, and puts everything into a small paper bag. “I don’t know Marnie well, but she deserves better.”

“Anyone deserves better.”

“She used to come in here, haggling for her mom’s pills,” Mom muses.

“Haggling?”

“She’d try and get her mom extras to hold her over until her prescription was renewed. Her mom struggled to make her doctor’s appointments. She’d go off her meds. Then, get back on them. It was hard on Marnie.”

“Again, not our business.”

She hands the bag over. “Grady, take a heating pad from aisle three. I’ll put it on my account. Marnie might need it. Oh, and a box of chocolates. They’ll all go on clearance tomorrow anyway, and the antioxidants will give her a healing boost.”

I grab the electric heating pad and pass the long table up front with Valentine’s Day leftovers. It seems like a dumb idea, bringing her Valentine’s Day chocolates—another reminder of the day I ruined for her.

But she’d probably appreciate the gesture.

I tuck the biggest box under my arm.

“Atta boy!” Mom says.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Anything to help, Grady. I mean that. All you have to do is ask.”

I nod, knowing that’s true and feeling grateful for once.

11. Marnie

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Marnie