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“No, she left around eleven-thirty. I was just about to call you to ask you to check on her. She did not look right at all and said she was feeling sick.”
He pulled his cell from his pocket as he turned away.
“Thanks, Kerry. I’ll check in on her.”
He called her cell. There was no answer. He sent a text. Three little dots danced in the text line.
I’m okay.
Somehow, he knew she wasn’t.
Chapter 11
Viking
Minty
Neither Minty nor Junie had ever seen Willa beaten up by May like she was this year. Every year they stood witness, heartbroken, as she struggled through, but this year was by far the worst they’d seen.
It made sense.
Mara, Willa’s foundation, was shaken. With Mara in crisis, it made sense that Willa was as well, but the timing could not have been worse.
On top of that, the ‘Happily Ever After’ that she swore she didn’t want, was staring her right in the face and she continued to deny herself that joy. Because she didn’t feel she deserved it. Because of what happened in May, eons ago, when she was practically a baby herself.
Minty and Junie had been careful over the past two weeks to be sure one of them was always with her when she was at home. That day Junie had client meetings so Minty took the day shift. She went early and settled in on Willa’s couch with her sketchbook to make sure she was there when Willa got home from the shelter. Junie would take the night shift on that day as usual, the worst of all the days.
Minty heard the handle of the front door twist and set her sketchbook aside.
Willa shuffled into the apartment, several hours before she was due. She looked up at Minty and smiled for half a second before the effort became too much and she crumpled, gasping, to the floor.
Minty reached her and rested her cool hand on Willa’s back, and lowered herself to the floor beside her, tears that mirrored Willa’s streaming down her own face.
“It’s a terrible thing, beautiful girl, you have the right to cry.”
Willa’s mouth worked to form inaudible words, finally expelling words stuttered by a broken heart, “It’s b-b-been … so … l-ong.”
Minty nodded, spoke softly but frankly, “It has, but it doesn’t make the loss mean any less. It’s okay to hurt.”
Willa shook her head.
“I c-can’t stand it,” she whispered, “I can’t stand the p-pain.”
“It’s not withstandable, darling, it’s just not.” Minty sniffed and gathered Willa in her arms. “You’re not standing it just fine.”
The sounds coming from Willa’s throat as she cried would break even the hardest of hearts. Minty held her through it, rocking her, smoothing her cool hands down Willa’s back as it heaved with her grief. Finally, the tears all but wrung out of her, she calmed enough to be moved.
“Come,” Minty tugged her hand, “let’s move to the couch. Your thirty-two
year old bones can handle this hard floor, my forty-four-year-old bones are bitching at me something fierce.”
Willa barked out a short laugh at the absurdity of Minty cursing and allowed her to lead them to the couch.
Willa pulled up the tail of her tee and wiped her face.
“I’m acting like a baby.”
“You are a baby.” Minty settled her on the couch.
