Free A Matter of Trust by Lorhainne Eckhart

aunt’s
famous breakfast sausage casserole.” She had such a warm smile,
nothing forced. It seemed so natural, coming from her vibrant, warm
personality. He could tell that Alice was comfortable with who she
was.
    She wiped her hands on her red and white
flowered apron, which she wore over a peach shirt and blue jeans.
Her hair was held back by one of those headbands young girls
usually wore, but Ben thought it looked good. It was cute,
actually, and gave her a look of being fun to be around. Alice
busied herself cutting up some fresh fruit—apples, strawberries,
kiwi, pineapple—and he wondered how many she was planning on
feeding as she organized the plate in a presentation that would
rival that of any executive chef.
    She didn’t look up from her chopping when
she took a breath and said, “I suppose Carrie told you what a
wickedly horrible person I am.”
    That hadn’t been what he was expecting, but
women seemed to hold on to things men didn’t. He believed there
wasn’t a woman around who didn’t overthink things. Why he was
getting dragged into the middle of this family’s issues was a big
old question mark to him, but when Alice glanced up, he could tell
from her expression and the deep lines around her eyes that
whatever was going on, she had been working through it in her mind
for a while.
    “I can see there’s some discord,” Ben
finally said.
    “Discord!” She rolled her eyes, setting her
knife down and wiping her hands on her apron again.
    Ben wondered, was she about to start in on
Carrie and all her faults? He was sure the list was long, and he
found his back stiffening as if sensing the words were on the tip
of her tongue.
    “No, that girl hates me, Ben. I wish it were
different.” She turned to the sink and rinsed some fruit under the
tap. “I was friends with Pat, her mom, after they moved here.
Carrie was young, at an age when she needed her mother most. Jack
was gone a lot on business trips. He worked for a big oil firm from
Seattle, but he had decided to start winding down his career by
that point.”
    Ben didn’t know what to say. He sensed a lot
of hurt and misunderstanding, a whole bunch of family stuff. He
wanted to gently remind everyone why he was actually here, but he
couldn’t say that. In fact, he said nothing, wondering why everyone
seemed to think he was their confidant.
    “Oh, you’re probably shocked, too,” Alice
said.
    “No, I’ve learned not to judge,” Ben
replied. “There’s always another side to the story. I don’t know
what happened, but I can only imagine the heartache everyone went
through. I never lost a parent, but my brother’s wife died of
cervical cancer. It messed him up pretty bad. He blamed himself for
a long time, saying he should have made her see a doctor earlier,
but they didn’t have insurance.” He turned away. “I know what grief
does to a person, twisting you up inside.”
    “I loved Pat like a sister,” Alice said.
“When she was diagnosed the last time, her breast cancer had spread
everywhere and was in her pancreas. It was a death sentence. She
knew she didn’t have a lot of time, and it tore Jack up—and
Carrie…that girl had a hard time, knowing she was going to lose her
mama. I moved in because it got pretty bad at the end. Pat didn’t
want Carrie to see, to watch her, so I did what I could to distract
her and keep her away. Yes, I would lie to her and tell her that
her mom was having a good day just so Carrie would go to school.
With Jack…it was inevitable, what happened between us. He’s such a
good man. Pat knew, she saw us together even though there was
nothing between us when she was alive. Neither Jack nor I would
cross that line, but she was the one who first mentioned to me that
she didn’t want Jack and Carrie alone. Their relationship had
always been strained.”
    Ben couldn’t imagine how tough it would have
been: the stress, the worry…watching someone you loved slip away.
He found himself nodding and