Three Wishes (A Mulberry Lane Novel, #2)

Chapter 1-2

THINGS DID NOT GET any better during the drive back to Carlton Bay. Helen insisted on bringing up Kate’s marriage to Evan. “Can we please talk about this later?” Kate asked, concerned about how Mark would have been feeling.

“You have made a sacred vow, Kate. A vow to your husband and a vow to the Lord. You don’t get to just wake up and decide you’re over it,” Helen persisted.

“I did not just wake up and decide I was over it.” Kate stared out the window, longing to be back in her house.

“Kate, ang pag-aasawa ay hindi biro. Di tulad ng kanin na iluluwa lang pag napaso,” Helen quoted a Filipino proverb.

Marriage is not a joke; it’s not like rice that you can just spit out when it’s too hot. Kate had heard it enough times growing up. She was educated in a Catholic school and was taught all about the vows of chastity and marriage, with many hours spent in school sat cross-legged on the floor watching horrifying videos of childbirth designed to encourage celibacy. “I know, Ma.”

“Do you really?” Helen pushed, forcing the subject. “Do you think there weren’t times when I’d wanted to leave your father? Aba!” she exclaimed in Filipino in a bid to drive a point. “But I made a vow, and I upheld that vow until his dying day.

Kate let out a deep sigh as her frustration rose. Feeling Mark take her hand, she glanced at him. “I’m sorry”, she whispered. Mark responded with the squeeze of a hand, but kept his eyes on the road.

“And what about Adam?” Helen continued. “Is he going to grow up without his father? Do you have any idea what happens to kids who grow up in broken families? This is not a joke, Katherine Ann!”

Kate only ever heard her full name when she was being scolded. Now twenty-seven-years-old, nothing had changed. “Ma, can we just stop? Please? Evan and I are co-parenting and it’s working fine. You’re being rude to Mark.”

“Co-parenting? What even is that?” Helen spat. “And me? Rude? Well, excuse me! You didn’t think it was rude to bring your lover to pick me up? That is no way to greet your mother. And so soon after your father had died! Lord have mercy on us, Katherine Ann—we raised you better than this.”

Kate massaged her temples. Her head was throbbing. How did she ever think this was going to be a good idea? She’d romanticized it, thinking they could go back to the days when they were best friends. She was wrong.