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“You’re not doing that with her anymore?”
“We signed her up for some classes,” Mom said. “It’s been really good for her. And us. We told you this last week, Rose.”
Rosalie frowned, because she truly couldn’t remember that.
“Anyway, we’ll see you soon,” Mom said. “Daddy and I are excited to come see you and Autumn for Halloween.”
“Sure,” Rosalie said, already tired and she hadn’t left the house yet. Not only that, but Halloween sat weeks from now, and Rosalie seriously considered taking a trip home to see her parents. She could use a good, tight hug and some reassurance that she’d find someone to love her and Autumn the way they deserved to be loved.
“Are you okay, dear?” her mother asked.
Tears pricked Rosalie’s eyes, and her neck tightened to the point where she couldn’t speak. Her first instinct was to tell her mother that she was fine. Maybe a little tired. Maybe work wasn’t going super well. Oh, and had she mentioned she’d broken up with Lee?
No, she hadn’t mentioned it. She didn’t want to say anything out loud for fear that it would actually be true, and she’d have to face the fact that she was completely and utterly miserable without him in her life
She felt like the future she’d started to imagine for herself had vanished in a single evening, and she needed more time to mourn the loss of it.
“I’m okay,” she finally said, but the tone of her voice suggested otherwise.
“Rose,” her mom said. Nothing else. The open invitation to keep talking sat there, but Rosalie didn’t know how to fill in the blanks.
“They need me at the door,” her mom said. “I’ll call you back real soon, okay?”
Rosalie nodded, but she couldn’t voice any words. The call ended, and Rosalie tossed her phone onto the bed beside her. Then Autumn came through the door, and she wore a bright pink shirt with a cheetah print on it and a pair of shorts that had once been part of a pajama set.
The little girl brightened her whole world, and Rosalie smiled at her and wiped her eyes at the same time. “Ready, baby?” she asked.
“Let’s go!” Autumn thrust her rabbicorn into the air, and just the sight of that stuffed animal made Rosalie weepy all over again.
She quickly got to her feet and twisted to get her phone, hoping she could get control of her emotions before her daughter saw her crying. The Lordhadreached down and helped her in that single moment, because she steadied herself emotionally in an instant and turned back to her daughter.
“Let’s go.” She wasn’t going to correct her clothes. She wasn’t going to criticize them. She just wanted to spend some time out in the sunshine, and she prayed that she’d find a way to think about something—anything—except Lee Cooper for just a few hours.
* * *
Four hours later,Rosalie toed open the front door and found Thumper waiting on the other side of the gate. He stomped, and Rosalie wanted to do the same gesture back to him. She felt petty and small taunting a bunny rabbit, so she didn’t.
“Go on, Autumn,” she said with the last of her patience. She carried a very heavy pumpkin in her arms, while Autumn had a plastic sack with paints in it. Her face had been colored with pinks and purples and sparkles and glitters at the face-painting booth, and she steadied herself against the doorjamb as she lifted her leg over the gate and entered the house.
Rosalie wanted to toss the gourd on the front porch and let it rot there, but she towed it into the house amidst a few more stomps from Thumper, who clearly wasn’t happy about being ignored that morning. “Just a minute,” she said darkly. “You’re certainly not wasting away, buddy.”
Autumn sang to herself as she skipped into the kitchen and put the bag of paint on the dining room table. Rosalie made it to the island and slid the pumpkin onto it, instant relief flowing into her tired arm muscles. There were so many things that would be easier if she had a partner to help her carry the load, but she didn’t.
“Momma, can I go outside?”
They’d just spent hours outside, but Rosalie nodded. “I’ll order something for dinner.” They’d eaten trashy festival food for lunch, and her stomach hadn’t liked all the grease and carbs. She had no energy to cook, and by the time she’d cut up a few carrots and shredded a bit of cabbage for Thumper, ordering food, her pajamas, and a romantic comedy on the TV was all she wanted for the rest of her afternoon and evening.
Her phone had become a dangerous thing, because after she’d collapsed onto the couch, her fingers tapped to get to her text string with Lee when they should’ve been looking through the food delivery app for something to eat that night.
She read back through several inches of messages, finding them precious in a way she didn’t know how to describe. She had been the last one to message him, and she could feel, see, and hear her frustration in the texts.
She’d called him too, but she hadn’t left any messages. She hadn’t saved any of his previous voicemails, and she found herself wishing she had.
She tapped on the phone icon at the top of the screen, and his number went into the calling app. All she had to do was tap the green icon, and through the miracle of technology, she could hear Lee.
Perhaps she could simply apologize and tell him she’d been thinking about him, about them, and about what to have for dinner. She could ask him what he felt like eating that night, and if he might possibly have time to drive to her house to eat with her and Autumn.
They wouldn’t even have to talk. She just wanted to be in the same room as him, to breathe in the warm, musky scent of his skin and feel the shape of his jaw in her palms as she cradled his face and kissed him.
