Page 186 of Always Meant for You
Mr. Muldowney shrugs. “All right then.”
“All right then . . . what?” I repeat, unsure I’m getting enough oxygen to my brain.
“You should come with me, Cal. I think you have words that need saying there too. Words for my daughter. The city is a place. You decide what you do there. Who you are there. Who you want to be. That’s all you can control.”
“And listen to your horoscope,” Betty adds.
The whirlwind inside me calms. That old anxiety that used to coil at the edge of my ribs when I thought of city life—the noise, the weight, the pace that once felt too much—doesn’t hit the same way it used to.
Fear doesn’t get the final say in my life anymore. I’ve let it run my life for too long. I’m done letting my past shape the limits of my future.
The city didn’t take my mother. Addiction did. Loneliness did. Silence did. If the city asks something of me, I’ll answer. Not by shrinking, not by hiding, but by showing up. For Mabel. For myself. For my mom. I can carry my story without letting it break me.
“I want to be the partner Mabel deserves, Mr. Muldowney,” I say, coming to stand in front of him. “I want to support her. I want to be by her side. The world needs more Mabel Muldowney in it. We both know that. Jamie would’ve agreed.”
“Mm-hmm,” Betty hums, that familiar sound soaking into my skin.
“Jamie would wholeheartedly agree,” Elias says, his gaze growing misty. “I owe my boy a debt of gratitude for what he did for Mabel. He was her greatest supporter when I was lacking. He built her up. It’s not weakness to admit that. We’re only weak when we hold fast to the things we know aren’t serving us. Do you agree, Cal?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“We can grow,” he says, then stills. “I think of it like this now. What if a seed never grew? What if it never sprouted through the soil? What if it stayed safe and cozy under all that dirt? It would never know what it could be. Never know the joy of feeling the sun. Growing isn’t always easy, but it’s the way forward. What’s done doesn’t have to be done. We can change. We can grow. And we can choose to trust the people we love to help us do it.”
What’s done is done.
That used to be his final word. An ending. A shutdown. Now he’s offering me a door to a new way of looking at where I belong in this world.
“What does Mabel want?” Elias continues. “What could you give her that would mean the world to her?”
I know the answer as clear as day. A part of me wants to run from it. But love holds me steady. I can’t go backward, and I don’t want to. I must choose to grow.
I also need to show her in the grandest way possible that I’m committed to growing, trusting, and doing something, even when it’s out of my comfort zone.
What would be pushing my limits?
I smile as a plan forms.
“Look at that,” Betty says, eyeing me with a wry grin. “Somebody’s seeing the light.”
“I do,” I say, holding Elias’s gaze, grounded by certainty and by love. “I want to go with you to New York City. I want to do something for Mabel. Something big. Something worthy ofher. But I’ll need help cutting through some red tape to make it happen.”
Elias nods. “There’s something back at the house you’ll want to see before we go. And as far as the red tape situation, this might come in handy.”
He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his worn leather wallet, and slides a card onto the counter between us. The gold seal of the State of Illinois gleams under the diner’s lights.
A whisper of a grin tugs at his mouth. “Betty, you got time to whip up a casserole for a new friend of the town?”
“I think I can manage that,” she says, already half out of her seat.
Elias slides the card closer to me with two fingers, then nods once, firm but easy. “It’s a damn good thing we’ve got friends in high places who love our food.”
“Because we’re about to call in a favor,” I say, feeling brand-new.
Elias rests his hand on my shoulder. He’s looking at me not as the boy from the farm next door, but as the man who loves his daughter—and is worthy of her. “Now you’re thinking like a man in love,” he says. His statement doesn’t land as advice. It’s his belief. It’s his friendship. It’s something Jamie would’ve said if he were here, grinning and proud as hell.
“We’ve got work to do,son,” Elias adds, his voice thick with emotion, the wordsoncarrying weight it never has before.
“Yes, sir.” I hold his gaze, even as mine starts to blur. “We do.”
