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“You mean a little of everything?” Since she was a little girl, her dad had always cooked breakfast for them on Sundays. And he’d always left a menu on her door the night before. Instead of choosing one item, she’d check off all the boxes.
“Yep.” He slung the towel over his shoulder, his smile fading. “Everything all right?”
“Oh, you know. I’ve got the worst jet lag.” She let out a shaky breath. “That’s a lie. I’ve made a mess of everything.”
“Aw, sweetie.” He came into the room and sat beside her. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her close. “What’s going on?”
Glancing at the poster of Maya Angelou on her wall, she swiped the tears from under her eyes. “I mean, look at me. I’m twenty-six years old and just as wishy-washy as ever. I can’t choose what I want for breakfast, and I can’t choose what I want to do with my life.”
“And this is a life dilemma?”
“Uh, yeah. I don’t have a career.”
He released her. “Let’s break this down. You can’t choose one thing for breakfast because I’ve always given you a smorgasbord of your favorite foods. Is this a problem?”
“When you put it that way, no.”
“Moving onto number two. You can’t choose what you want to do with your life. Now, is that the truth? Because I thought you were a poet.”
“I’m not a poet.” She huffed out a bitter laugh. “I just like poetry.”
“What do you spend your time doing? Because as long as I’ve known you, you’ve written in your notebook. Pretty sure those words are an actual art form.” Her dad shrugged. “You are what you do.”
“Okay, even if I am a poet, that’s not a career. Nobody makes a living selling poetry.”
Her dad got up and wandered to the far wall. “You once told me that this guy—” W.H. Auden “—made his living as a professor. I’d imagine some have been editors or publishers.” He gave her a thoughtful expression. “You know, in the years since you’ve been planning parties and cleaning houses, you could’ve earned a PhD. You could be not only writing poetry but teaching it. Seems like that life might suit you better than being someone’s assistant. Maybe you should start supporting your own talent and not someone else’s.”
Clarity pierced her heart with a sharp-tipped blade.
Her dad saw her anguish and came back to her. He stroked her hair. “Oh, dear. What did I say?”
“No, it’s not you.” I’m such a hypocrite. “I fell in love, Dad. Please don’t tell anyone because I signed an NDA, and I’m not supposed to talk about it.” She lurched off the bed and tapped one of her Van Claybourne posters. “He’s the artist I was working for. I’ve never felt anything like the way I feel for him, but I walked away because he wasn’t being true to himself. And I didn’t feel like giving my heart to a man who was hiding in the shadows.” No one had seen her poems other than Bex. She’d kept them hidden under her bed.
I’m hiding, too. I’ve been hiding all my life.
Compassion seeped out of him. “Because?”
“If he doesn’t know himself, how does he know he wants me?”
“Right, so the plan is to only give your heart to a sure-thing?”
The world slowed to a standstill, and in the quiet, she heard her heart pounding. All the connections snapped into place. “Bex said when you lose a parent, you lose your trust in love. But I think you also lose your trust in life. In things working out for you. If your own mother can be taken, what can you count on? Why bother putting your heart and soul into something that can be snatched away?”
“I, uh…wow.” He scraped his fingers through his hair. “I know exactly what you mean. When Mom died…it rocked our worlds. We were so damn happy. We lived in this little bubble of love, and when she left us, we just stopped living. I go through the motions of my life, and you skim across the top, never really sinking into anything.”
“And I lived my love life through a poster on my wall.” But she’d had a taste of something true, and she didn’t think she could settle for anything less again.
Nothing less than Bex.
“Can we make a pact right now that we’ll throw caution to the wind and live the lives we truly want?” her dad asked. “Because time’s going to keep on passing, and I’d hate to see both of us still living on the periphery of our lives.” He reached for her hands. “What do you say, Della? Should we both take the leap?”
“You’re here.” Micky wrapped her arms around her, her big belly in the way of the bear hug Della needed.
It felt so good to be back with her best friend. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” And she did truly love Calamity.
“Liar. You’d rather be in New York City right now. Come on. Let’s go home.”
Della tipped the shuttle driver who’d loaded Micky’s SUV with her luggage. She’d brought just about everything she owned for her new life in Wyoming.
