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Slowly, she closed the tap, folded a towel around her and sat on the edge of the bath. Her brain cells were scrambling to make sense of what had happened.
Dale loved her. At least that was what he’d said. Could she believe him? And how long would it last? Was it really possible to love someone for the rest of their life? And when he walked away eventually? What then?
“Zoe, are you okay?” her mother asked from the other side of the door.
“Come in, Mom, I’m fine,” Zoe said and her mother entered.
“Dale has left,” her mother said. “What did he want to tell you?”
Zoe swallowed and tried to blink back the tears that were threatening to spill over again. “As if you don’t know.” Zoe sniffled. “He says he loves me.”
Her mother smiled and touched Zoe’s hair. “Of course he does, my sweet girl. What’s not to love about you? So why did you send him away?”
Exasperated, Zoe tried to comb out her wet hair with her fingers. “At some point, he’ll leave, Mom. Isn’t that what men do? I know the heroes in your stories promise they’ll be around forever. But does it ever happen in real life? I mean, Dad left. And surely at some point he thought he loved you. What happened? Why do they leave?”
Her mother sighed and sat on the toilet seat. “Zoe, my dear girl, life doesn’t come with any guarantees. And you can’t let what your dad did affect the rest of your life, all your decisions. He and I got married when we were very young. We grew apart. Unfortunately, it happens. But there are also many other examples where couples stay together.” She smiled. “Sometimes, like in my stories, men stay for the long haul.”
“Not even Dad wanted to stay around me. Why would any other man want to?”
Her mother took her hand. “Your dad left me, not you girls, surely you know that? He has his flaws, we all do. But he loves you very much, you must know that?”
Zoe sniffled and tried a smile. “I know. And I know I probably have, okay make that definitely have, daddy issues. But I don’t want to sit around wondering when the guy will leave, so I do the leaving before he does. But this time…” The tears spilled over. “I didn’t even see it coming. I thought we had another few days…”
“Dale is just your typical male, my dear. He probably had a huge fright when he realized how he felt about you. But give the poor guy a break. He flew back from Mahé and drove from Cape Town to come and tell you how he feels.” She combed Zoe’s wet hair back with her fingers. “How do you feel about him?”
The tears fell down in earnest. “I love him,” she said trying to wipe them away. “I’ve only discovered that half an hour ago.”
“Then what is the problem?” her mother called out and jumped up.
“We come from such different worlds, Mom. He’ll get bored with me, or something. It can’t last,” Zoe whispered. “What if I get hurt?”
“What if you don’t?” Her mother smiled. “Come on, enough of this crying. Tell you what. You and I are going out for a pizza, my treat, and tomorrow I’m driving you back to Cape Town. I have to be back here on Friday, but we can do something fun tomorrow night, what do you say? I’ll check, but I think Hannah is still in Mauritius, but we can get Caitlin and maybe ask Dana to join us. Now that Caitlin is married and not around so often, I so seldom see Dana and I miss her. During their high school years, she stayed with us most of the time, she’s like another daughter to me.”
Dazed, Zoe nodded. Her mother in planning mode was quite scary. But at this point it was much easier to just agree with everything. She didn’t have the energy for anything else. And meeting up with Caitlin and Dana would be nice.
“And you, my dear girl, can take time to listen to your heart. The heart always knows what is right.” She smiled.
Zoe rolled her eyes and followed her mother out of the bathroom. “Another pin on your Pinterest board, Mom?”
But later that night she thought about her mother’s words again while staring at the ceiling.
The message from her heart was very clear. Her heart wanted Dale. It had taken her a while to realize that, but the man had touched something in her the first time she’d seen him. Her soul had recognized him as the one long before she was able to connect all the dots.
She loved him. She wanted him in her life. The question now was, how did she go about getting him back? How-to-get-rid-of-a-guy—now that strategy she had down pat. It was with the getting-him-to-stay part she’d always had difficulty with.
