I sat up but didn’t climb out of bed. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself.” I totally was.
The floor creaked as Hettie walked around the bed and sat on the edge, beside me. She took my hand and lightly sandwiched it between hers. “Vic hasn’t been around much since he joined the military, and I know it’s partially to keep us from any blowback his job could bring. But mostly, he doesn’t want the attachment, even though it’s already there. I’m okay with that. I’ve learned to be okay with that.” She smiled tenderly and pushed back strands of my hair. “You need to be okay with him leaving. If you can’t be, then you’ll spiral with constant fear. Wondering when he’ll come back. When he will leave again. And yes, if he will come back.”
A tear escaped and trailed down my cheek. “I hurt him. I said something…. I shouldn’t have said it, Hettie.”
“We all say things we don’t mean, sweetie. It makes us human.” She wiped the tear with the pad of her thumb. “Sarah Sanders told me my husband, my boyfriend at the time, had cheated on me with Hazel Winters. I took a baseball bat to his dinky sailboat and called him a selfish, lying bastard who dressed like a dorky bumblebee.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Dorky bumblebee?”
She smiled with a shrug. “The high school football team colors were yellow and black. He was the quarterback, and the complete opposite of dorky, so I knew he wouldn’t like it.”
“Did he cheat on you?” I asked.
She laughed. “I married him, didn’t I? Sarah lied so I’d break up with him.” Hettie patted my hand. “Arthur was honest, almost to a fault. I knew that deep down he’d never cheat on me. But I was hurt, betrayed, and pissed as all hell, so I lashed out.” She chuckled, thinking about it. “My Arthur was a hot commodity, just like your Vic.”
I bit my lip and shook my head. “He’s not my Vic.”
“Oh, sweetie, sure he is. He’s never brought a girl for Sunday dinner. And I’ve never seen him show affection with anyone before. Give him time. A man like him doesn’t ever let go of the woman and child he loves. He fights for them. Whatever it takes.”
I shook my head. “He never…. We never. I mean, we didn’t say—” That we loved each other.
“Love isn’t just a word, Macayla. It’s a crusade. It’s travelling a million miles for one moment together. It’s battling the hurt to find forgiveness and laughter. And for Vic, it’s conquering the war inside him to let you and Jackson past his walls. He did that. He won’t let that go.”
She stood up and walked around the bed. “Now, shower, then come downstairs. Addie is meeting us at the alley in an hour.”
Hettie flounced from the room, and I crawled out of bed.
Bowling. We were going bowling.
Macayla
My fingers floated across the strings like gentle waves, and my voice echoed through the bar. Every word was like a tremor in my belly. An awakening quiver that cocooned me in its embrace.
The crowd was gone, and there was only the music.
Napkins torn. The words falling like snowflakes.
All around me. All around my beating heart is falling apart.
Promise you’ll never say goodbye while I sleep.
Because I’m in too deep.
Promise you’ll never say goodbye while I sleep.
Because I’m in too deep.
I closed my eyes as I repeated the words, plucking the strings to play notes like soft whispers until my raspy voice faded away.
I inhaled a breath and slowly opened my eyes as the crowd clapped and cheered. I glanced over at Ethan leaning against the bar ten feet away. His arms were crossed, and his jaw was tight, but there were tears in his eyes. He’d never heard me play before, and I suspected he was thinking of Mom.
He nodded with a half grin, and I smiled back.
“Thank you so much, everyone,” I said into the microphone.
I slipped off the stool and crouched beside my guitar case, flipping the lid open and placing my guitar inside. I snapped the latch closed and then I froze. Everything in my body pulsed and thrummed with warning. I’d tried to block Vic from my mind all night, but he was always there. Inside me. And my body was so hyperaware of him that it played games on me.
I couldn’t trust it. I couldn’t let myself believe only to fall.