AllFreeNovel
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The walls are too close. The home is too silent. My mind is too loud. Everywhere I go, there are reminders of them.
The hot tub. The kitchen. The bedroom.
I try to settle onto the couch with Donut by my side and work on my column. But my mind is a tangled freeway. Everything is too tight, too close, too much. I try answering emails, letting the assisted living home know I’ll stop by with Donut this week for stretching, then sending some stress-relief class ideas to Nova, but it’s too hard to concentrate with all these memories pressing down on me.
I pop up. Pace the hall. Straighten towels in the bathroom even though they’re hanging properly, fluff pillows in the bedroom even though they’re fluffy enough, make sure the coffeepot is clean, even though we all cleaned up before the guys left this morning.
I have the place for one more night, but I don’t think I can stay here without them.
After I set the squeaky-clean coffeepot on the counter, I rush down the hall to the bedroom and toss all my things in one of my suitcases. With the speed of a cheetah, I do a final double check of all the rooms. Donut follows me from room to room, tilting her head, asking questions in her anxious trot. I stop, kneel, and scratch her chin.
“We need to go,” I tell her.
She licks my face.
A few minutes later, I’m yanking open the front door, my dog’s leash wrapped around my wrist, wrestling with my suitcase when I spot Kailani walking along the cobblestone path.
She waves to me, bracelets jingling down her tanned skin. “Just wanted to check in and make sure everything went okay with the place? And to bring you a little thank you gift.”
I blink. “A thank you gift?”
“Yes. I know it was kind of a pain to have to share. So I just wanted to say thanks for being so easy to deal with.”
When she reaches me, she hands me a candle from her oversized tote.
I’m…stunned.
I don’t deserve a gift for being a good sport. I let go of the suitcase handle and sniff the candle. It smells like the mustard flowers, vanilla, heady.
A lovely reminder, and I take it for what it is. A gift. A kindness. We need more of that in this world. More gratitude. More grace. Less taking. More giving.
“No, thank you for finding this place for me. Getting me into it early. It all worked out in the end. It was great.”
She swipes her hand across her forehead. “I’m so glad. And maybe you can come back next year. The festival organizers said everyone loved your workshops. They were very popular.”
I try to remind myself that’s what I came here for. To build my business. To make a name for myself. “I’ll be here whenever you need me.”
I say goodbye and head to my father’s house.
He’s expecting me. But when he opens the door, he still lifts a brow curiously. “What are you doing in these parts?”
My heart climbs up my throat and I almost, almost tell him. Instead, I swallow down my emotions. Something I’ve done my whole life. Something I did when my mom left. When I learned how to grin and bear it. How to move on. How to hide what I’m truly feeling.
Trouble is, those tactics don’t work so well anymore, I’m realizing.
I can’t hide my feelings, and I’m not sure I want to. I shrug my shoulders, and instead of telling him I miss three men, I say something else that’s equally true. “Sometimes I’m sad that Mom left.”
He frowns, eyes shining. He nods, tight, hard, and true. He wraps his arms around me. “Me too, kiddo. Me too.”
I stay like that for a while. Safe in his arms. Safe to give another admission. “I missed her for a long, long time,” I say.
He strokes my hair. “I did too.”
“But I’m glad you didn’t leave.”
I can feel him smile even as he chokes up. “I’d never leave you or your brother.”
I let out a long, overdue breath, and some of the ache inside me starts to fade. Soon I let go of him because he’d never break a hug. We both clear our throats, like we’re clearing away emotions that we aren’t really used to showing. But maybe we need to.
