Page 8 of One Little Chance
During our first and only year of marriage, I barely saw him. I finally realized that everything about us was surface and shiny, but not durable, not real. As I peeled the layers back to rediscover myself, Tyler grew more distant. He married a woman I didn’t even recognize when I looked in the mirror. He didn’t marry me.
As Tyler called to cancel trips back home, over and over, I realized, I didn’t know him either. The two of us picked each other like a temporary antidote—me wanting him as a distraction from my real life and him wanting me to bolster his ego when he wasn’t on the road.
He didn’t even come back to sign the divorce papers or talk to the lawyer. Everything was done from the road. His final goodbye was sent via email and with a heart emoji.
I didn’t regret him as much as I regretted running away from my problems, my family, my home, and myself.
In my first year after the divorce, I met with a therapist and admitted aloud, “I loved Sophie from Sweet River, but I ignored her voice for so long I don’t know how to recognize it anymore.”
She nodded along then said, “Maybe you should start talking to yourself more then? Because Sophia may be in Dallas right now, but she’s still the girl from Sweet River.”
I spent each week that year re-learning myself in my tiny apartment in Dallas.
Did I still love to run? I hadn’t run since high school. I bought myself running clothes, and the first time my feet hit the pavement, my entire body went warm with joy.
Did I miss church? I found a church across town and slipped into the back pew, tears stinging my eyes as we sang an old hymn.
Could I forgive my dad? I’d ignored phone calls and visits for so long. It’d become an old bruise I avoided. Finally, after years, he and his wife drove across the state to spend the weekend with me cooped up in my little apartment overlooking the cityscape. His new wife, Heather, actually made me laugh and taught me how to make cinnamon rolls. Dad was still Dad, I realized, just a lot more imperfect and human than my younger self let herself see. I handled our relationship carefully but made room for him in my life again.
It took a few years, but I found myself again. Sophie from Sweet River could exist anywhere, I learned, and if I ran away from home, it could still make its way to me.
I was driving back to my apartment from work one day, on the phone with my brother Orlando, when he asked, “If you could live anywhere in the whole world, where would it be?”
It wasn’t some tropical island or European city.
My mind immediately went to that old house down the street from Sweet River Elementary. The house Jordan and I would drive by, dreaming of a future together in those walls. I had the words he’d said when they were seventeen memorized like a favorite passage in a book.
I’ll fix that house up for you someday. You’ll be able to walk to school to teach every morning. Hang twinkle lights at Christmas. We’ll paint it any color you want.
My old dreams were still alive, still twinkling like stars that hadn’t faded. A heartbroken girl had crushed them in her fist, but an older, smarter version of her was unfurling her hand, sifting through the remnants, reassuring her, “Don’t worry, things break. But we can fix them.”
Chapter 4
DECEMBER 23RD, 2023
My Christmas tree was glowing in the corner of the room as the morning sun streamed through the window blinds. Mom poured me a cup of coffee in the kitchen while she asked, “How are you feeling today? It’s a big day.”
“It is a big day,” I said through an exhale as she placed the mug in my hands. “It’s also been a long time coming.”
She nodded affirmingly, then glanced down at her watch. “We’ve got a little time. Want me to pull out the scrapbooks?”
My eyes went wide. I hadn’t seen Mom’s scrapbooks since we were high schoolers. Not since the divorce. “Yes, please.”
I followed her to my bedroom where she’d left her bags. She walked over a canvas tote and slid out an armful of scrapbooks, pulling years’ worth of memories from that small tote bag.
“These were once the scary monsters under my bed.” She chuckled. “But when I moved into my new house and came across them, it got me pulling them out more.”
“Scary as you thought?” I asked as we spread the books out on my bedroom floor, plush gray carpet under us.
Her chin trembled. “Some parts, maybe. But you know what? Mostly they are precious. We made some good memories.” She opened the first page to baby pictures. “Little bald babyOrlando.” She turned the page. “That Christmas morning you got your bike. The time Uncle Joe dressed up as Santa.” I chuckled at my uncle wearing a big white beard.
I placed my hand on Mom’s. I rested my head on her shoulder. “We’re filling up more scrapbooks today.”
She flipped open one of the books. “There’s one I wanted to show you.” She turned a few more pages to a page with photos from when Jordan and I had to have been eight or nine. I was dressed up in a pretend wedding dress, a white towel over my head as a veil. Jordan clutched a ring pop in his pocket. His hair was soaked with gel like he’d tried to fix it for the occasion.
I couldn’t contain my grin. “I remember this day. We’d made a big deal of this pretend wedding.”
“You even got your dad to play the ‘Wedding March’ on the piano,” Mom said through laughter, her finger stroking the picture. “Orlando was your man of honor.”
