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To her surprise, Vicki smiled at her. “Well, all of that sounds pretty doable, you know. I think you’re pretty much there.”
“Except the relationship.”
Vicki sighed and slumped back in her chair. “Yeah. Except the relationship. But I’m thinking maybe there’s still hope for that.”
Allison felt another wave of emotion that burned in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, a little choked up. “But I don’t think there is.”
For just a moment Vicki looked a little emotional herself. Then she smiled rather poignantly. “And you’re sure that Rob doesn’t love and trust you for who you really are? I mean the real you who wants to stand on her own and not always be dependent.”
The words hurt so much that Allison had to look away and take a ragged breath. “I’m sure. He won’t even… try to…”
“Try to what?”
“Be real with me, lean on me. Be something more than . . .” She shook her head, determined not to blame Rob because she knew for certain that it wasn’t his fault. “He doesn’t. I’m sure.”
“Okay. Then that’s the way it is. He’s not the only good thing in the world, so you’re going to get through this. For now, we’ll get dessert, and then I’m going to buy you a pair of shoes.”
25
Rob triedto do his normal routine on Monday, but it was absolute torture. Everywhere he went he thought about Allison. Everyone he saw asked him about her.
On Tuesday morning he couldn’t do it to himself again, so he just stayed home. He tried to work on an old desk he was restoring in his workshop, but he couldn’t focus on it at all. Then he tried to watch TV, but it got on his nerves. He couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t hungry. He couldn’t sit in a chair all day and stare across the street at Allison’s house, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.
So what he ended up doing was cleaning his house.
He really cleaned it, in way he hadn’t done in years—maybe ever. He ended up with dozens of bags of garbage and endless boxes of stuff to give away to Goodwill. He cleaned every surface, and he scrubbed every floor, and he kept it up for two days.
On Wednesday afternoon he was almost through. He was working on the kitchen, which he’d saved for last. He’d emptied the refrigerator and was cleaning out all the shelves and inside walls when there was a knock on his door.
His heart leaped in excitement, immediately hoping it was Allison. Maybe she’d changed her mind. Maybe she’d decided he wasn’t as bad as she’d been thinking.
It wasn’t Allison. It was his mother.
“Mom,” he said in surprise, opening the storm door to let her in. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to see you. What did you think?”
He looked over her shoulder at the driveway. “Where’s Dad?”
“He couldn’t get away. Isn’t this a miserable day? It’s so hot and humid it feels like the air should be dripping, but it just won’t rain.”
It was a miserable day—one that promised rain but never actually followed through. But he ignored her comment because the idea of her coming alone made his eyes go wide. “You drove all this way by yourself?”
For most people driving a half hour would hardly mean anything, but his mother hadn’t driven that far in years. The farthest she went anymore was the grocery store two miles from her house.
“Well, I had four different people call me, asking what was wrong with you because you weren’t going to work and weren’t answering your phone. Your friend Keith called me and kept saying it was all his fault, so he couldn’t come by to see you, but that I needed to do something as soon as I could. So I figured it was a crisis and I could brave the long drive.”
Rob felt a wave of deep affection and embarrassment both. “Nothing is wrong.”
“I have eyes in my head, young man, and I know you’re telling me a lie.”
He sighed, almost a groan. He hadn’t shaved or slept or showered, so he knew he must be looking pretty rough. Even someone less astute than his mother would have been able to tell he wasn’t in good shape. He’d never thought he was one of thosemen who would fall apart like this because of a broken heart. “Allison dumped me.”
His mother’s eyes softened, and she reached out to pat his shoulder. “I assumed that was what happened. Why don’t you make me a cup of tea while I sit down and recover from that drive?”
A couple of days ago he would have sworn that he didn’t have any tea in the house. But he’d found a half-smashed box in the back of a cabinet as he’d been sorting through them. He dug it out again and put water in his coffeepot to get hot, since he didn’t own a kettle.
His mom settled at the kitchen table and watched him as he brought the mug and sugar over to her. He sat down next to her, itching to get back to cleaning the refrigerator, since that was the only thing distracting him from how it felt without Allison in his life.
