The worst kinds of pain are bottomless. You can’t fix them or repair the wound; you can’t stop the bleeding or find a cure. It just sits there, festering, an open sore that screams with every move.
That’s what this is.
“Can I get you anything else?” Roxie, the waitress, stands on the other side of the table. She’s cute with her pixie cut and bright-pink bubble gum and deserves a medal for putting up with my broody ass for the last hour. “Want me to take that?”
She points at the omelet I’ve yet to touch. The menu item I forgot I ordered.
I blow out a breath. “You might as well.”
She takes the plate and gives me an odd look before disappearing into the expanse of the restaurant behind me.
I pull the chair with my briefcase closer and take out a notepad and pen. Scribbled on the front page is a hodgepodge list of things I need to do. I started it on the plane this morning, hoping that getting something on paper—some kind of game plan—would help ease my mind.
It didn’t.
Staring back at me is a list of things to do to get my life started here. I need to call Montgomery’s office and formally accept the job. Find somewhere to live. Move my belongings from Arizona. Check on Pap and Sophie.
My temples throb, and I wince as I press them with my fingers. How this went from a best-case scenario to a nightmare is beyond me.
I position the pen between my fingers and scratch another note on the list: check on Dottie.
I miss her this morning too. I wonder if she’s looking at the clock, wondering where I am and prepping her “You’re late” line to fire my way as soon as I open the door. A smile graces my lips as I realize it’s the day Joe will be coming with the floor mats, and I wonder if Dottie will finally pick up on the fact that he has a thing for her.
My pen taps against the notepad over and over.
I wonder if Fidget the ferret has been behaving and what kind of pies Birdie will bring this week. I’m curious, too, if the man with the fishhook on his hat at Tank’s is watching for me to come in for a coffee today. It just became a part of my routine. Not because I needed the coffee, but because I liked the ritual of it. It was sort of cool in a very weird kind of way to start to understand the threads of small-town conversation and to maybe be a part of them in some way.
“What do you think about the mayor over there running for reelection?” someone from the round table at Tank’s would ask me.
“You ever see a horse that won’t eat apples?” they’d ask.
Or they’d point at something in the newspaper and want my opinion.
It never mattered what the topic was, and my opinion surely didn’t matter, but it was requested. Valued. As if they were starting to accept me as a potential piece of the fabric of their lives.
And I left.
“They probably won’t even notice,” I mutter as I doodle a ferret in the top corner of my notepad.
The awning overhead moves in the breeze. The sunlight that filters in shines on my darkened phone screen. As soon as my eyes land on it, my stomach twists until it’s raw again.
Just before I booked my flight, my dad sent me a text.
Have you come to your senses?
I didn’t respond. Instead, I just turned my phone off and boarded the aircraft. That didn’t keep me from thinking about his question over and over.
It’s a reasonable question in a way he didn’t intend for it to be. It’s straightforward. It’s thought-provoking.
Have I come to my senses?
The question has slowed me down, and coupled with the flight to Orlando, it’s giving me a lot of time to think.
I’m in Florida and about to take a position to lead a company. All the while, I’ve misled the man who’s opened himself up to me as a mentor.
I wrote it off at first—brushed away the first stabs of guilt. But the closer I got to the hotel, and every time I picked up the phone to call Montgomery’s secretary to take the job, it got worse.
How did I let myself get like this? How did proving my worth to my father become so damn important that I lowered the values I pride myself on?
“Here’s your ticket,” Roxie says, placing a bill facedown on the table. “You need anything else? I know I just asked you that, but . . . you seem a little lost, if you don’t mind me saying.”
I look up at her. Her face is clean and pretty, and it kind of reminds me of Sophie. An honest vulnerability shines in her eyes, and I find my heart shattering all over again.