Page 40 of I'm Not Yours
We started making love about a month after we met. Our passion was this uncontrollable . . .force. We used birth control.
But one time we didn’t.
I thought it was an okay time in my cycle.
It was not an okay time.
We both cried when we parted, Jace for medical school and me to finish my senior year of college. He was so masculine, so manly, even then, and there he stood, tears rolling out.
We would write, we would call, we would stay together.
He would be eight states away.
I love you, Allie. I will always love you.
I love you, Jace. I love you with all my heart. I miss you already.
We’ll be together soon, at Thanksgiving.
I stayed three nights in Yellowstone. I visited all the places Jace and I visited.
The journey had, finally, brought clarity from a morass of colliding emotions. I had been dishonest with Jace years ago. I had denied him the truth of his own life, which was unbelievably wrong of me.
I dumped none of my father’s ashes in Yellowstone, either.
I drove back toward my dad’s house early the next morning.
When I finally arrived in Schollton, I dumped some of my dad’s ashes in the curve of the road near the steel goat, where he’d flipped his truck upside down. I thanked Pearl for taking care of my animals, then asked her if I could dump some of his ashes in her flower bed, because she said my dad had worked with her in her garden.
She picked up a bag of manure, so symbolic for what she said next. “He knew he treated you like crap, but he did love you, dear, make no mistake.”
On his property, I dumped the last of his ashes amid the apple trees.
When they were all gone, I tossed the urn outside in the trash.
Had I forgiven him? I don’t know. What he did to me, to my mother, was a lot to get over. But was that important? I was moving forward. I was not going to allow him to control my emotions or my life any longer. He was not going to be allowed in my head anymore. My anger had dimmed way down.
I walked into my house and saw Pearl’s magical apple tree and my mother’s red-and-white flowered quilt and smiled.
13
I baked apple pies almost all day.
Bob and Margaret followed me around the kitchen until I took them outside for a walk so Bob could chase his lifelong enemies, the squirrels, with Margaret as his right-hand woman, tongue wagging. Marvin and Spot the Cat meowed at me and I meowed back. I took Leroy and Spunky Joy for a ride on the property.
I dropped off a pie at Pearl’s, and a few more at the homes of the other neighbors I’d met at the barn dance, all of whom invited me in for a slice and a chat. I think I had four slices of apple pie that day.
That night I walked up to Jace’s house. His lights were on; he was home.
Hewas home to me.
I figured I would not feel like home to him when I was done.
“I’m sorry for leaving, Jace.”
He turned away, running a hand through his black hair in front of his stone fireplace, the glow of the fire making shadows on the wall. He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and looked like he’d lost weight since I’d been gone. He was drawn and tense.
“I know you’re not happy . . .”
