Page 93 of Letters to Molly (Maysen Jar 2)

“Do you want me to sleep in your bed? So you don’t have to get up and check on me?”

“No.” She laughed. “The last thing we need is the temptation to jump into a physical relationship again.”

“Darling, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not jumping anywhere.”

She laughed. “True. But, no. I’ll be fine. Did you get your design layout done today?”

“Yep. After Poppy left, I knocked it out.”

“That’s good. She told me you guys had a nice talk. What was it about?”

“You.”

She slowed her pace. “Me?”

“We were talking about Alcott and how things used to be there. She said she was always so surprised that we could work together and live together.”

A slow smile spread across her face. Her eyes were aimed down the street as we walked, like she was staring into the past. “It was fun, wasn’t it? We were so poor and there was so much work. But there were some good days.”

“Some of the best.” I nodded. “Can we talk about the last letter for a minute?”

“I don’t know if there’s anything more to say. Like I told you the night I got it, I think you were too hard on yourself. I wish I had known how you were feeling about Jamie. I didn’t realize that was why you were working so hard.”

“I didn’t want you guys to be in a bad spot without me.”

“I see that now, and it helps to know that you were thinking of us. For a long time, I thought . . . never mind.”

“Thought what?”

“That you went to work to avoid me and e

scape.”

I hung my head. “Can you stop for a minute?”

“Sure.” She slowed my chair to a stop, clamping on the brake. Then she came around the front. “Are you okay? Is something hurting?”

“The truth?” I extended my left hand, waiting until she placed hers in my palm. Then I threaded our fingers together, turning our hands over and back, loving the way her slim fingers wound between mine. “I was avoiding you.”

She flinched but didn’t speak.

“Not intentionally. I think, after talking to Poppy today, a part of me was running away from you. Jamie’s death scared me more than I let on. I ran because I was afraid I’d lose you. And it would have killed me.”

“Oh.” She stared at our hands, letting my words sink in. “I, um . . . oh.”

“I let my own fears drive me away. I isolated myself. And for that, I’ll always be sorry.” I kept a firm grip on her hand, not wanting her to pull away. “I’m sorry, Molly.”

“I get it,” she whispered. “It hurts. But I get it. It makes me wish that we had talked more.”

“Me too.”

“None of us really did. Me. You. Poppy. We lost Jamie and life went on. But we didn’t heal. We buried our pain and our fears because it was too hard to talk about.”

“I was a coward.”

“You were just doing the best you could. We all were.” She gave my fingers a squeeze, then unlaced our hands to go behind the chair again. She pushed me farther down the sidewalk, until the light was nearly gone and it was time to go home.

It felt like there was more to say. That one apology wasn’t enough.