Page 95 of Letters to Molly (Maysen Jar 2)

I came home Friday. We got in a fight that lasted two days. I was tired of arguing. I was tired of you saying you needed space, so I packed a bag to spend a night at the office. You told me to pack enough for a week.

* * *

Fuck this. Fuck all of it. How can you be okay with me leaving? For a week? Do you even care?

* * *

I don’t think you love me anymore. How the fuck did that happen? So I’ll just sit here, alone in my office, writing another one of my fucking letters that don’t do a fucking thing but let me get some of this out. If I told you any of this, we’d just get in another damn fight.

* * *

You hurt me. You fucking hurt me. Maybe I should have packed enough stuff for two weeks.

* * *

Finn

Fourteen

Molly

“Today’s the day.” Finn’s physical therapist, Ashley, smiled at him. “Ready to get out of that chair?”

“More than ready.”

She clapped her hands together. “Then let’s do this.”

“I’ll wait over there,” I told Finn, thumbing at the chairs along the far wall. “Good luck.”

He grinned. “Thanks.”

It had been ten weeks since Finn’s accident. A few days ago, he’d gotten a new, shorter cast on his arm, giving him mobility from his shoulder to his elbow. He’d also had his leg cast removed. In its place was a special boot to give his bones some stability as they finished mending. His pelvic bone had fused together. The damage to his internal organs was a distant nightmare now. He was recovering, better and faster than the doctors had expected.

For weeks, Finn had been working hard to build the strength for walking with exercise bands and light weights. Today was the test. If he did well enough in physical therapy, he’d get rid of the chair and graduate to crutches.

I smiled as he stood from his wheelchair. Over the last two weeks, he’d started to stand on his own. He’d gained some freedom from the chair that was driving him crazy.

He was healing.

We all were.

I walked over to the blue pleather chairs and took my usual seat, second from the end. It gave me the best view of where Finn and Ashley were working. Then I pulled out my laptop from my purse and got it going.

Finn’s physical therapy appointments had been a demanding obligation for all of us. He had to have a ride, which defaulted to me. Since I wouldn’t let myself get behind at the restaurant, I’d gotten really good at working from this tiny screen perched on my legs. Anything that had to be done on the computer, I saved for these two-hour sessions. That way when I got back to the restaurant, I could cover the floor for Poppy.

It had been an adjustment, but we were making it work. School was back in session and the kids were into a normal routine. We were finding normal again, something I yearned for and dreaded at the same time.

Normalcy meant life before the accident. To the time when Finn lived at his home with the kids three or four days a week. And I was all alone.

I wasn’t ready to be alone again.

Since Finn had moved in, it had been easy to fall into thinking we were a family. That my home housed four, not three. When he left, I’d get used to it. I’d adjust.

But I wasn’t the only one who’d fallen in love with this living situation.

Kali was so happy to have Finn around every day. She talked to him more

than she talked to me. She’d tell him about her friends, about what she was looking forward to in her classes. She’d come home one night last week in a horrible mood. No matter how many times I’d asked her what was wrong, she’d insisted it was nothing.