Page 8 of Someone to Hold
I shrug and focus on my half-eaten turkey sandwich. “I told him he needed to be gone by the time I got out of the shower. And he was.”
Sloane sits back in her chair and studies me. “You didn’t specify whether or not you made it clear he shouldn’t come back.”
I press my lips together, but don’t answer.
Avah lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Molly, come on. This is the guy who tried to convince Teddy not to marry you.” She leans forward like I need to focus on her words. “On the eve of your wedding.”
“I was there, Avah. I remember. But Linda hired him. She told me she’d pay for a nanny while she’s on her trip, and I need the help. If Chase is her choice, how can I say no?”
“Sweetie, we can find a better candidate.” Iris Dixon, Skylark’s former mayor, reaches across the table and takes my hand. “If your mother-in-law refuses to pay foryourchoice of nannies, we’ll pitch in. You have options.”
“What options?” I swallow back the emotion threatening to choke me. “This morning proved I can barely get the kids off to school on time, let alone handle my flower business and the farmhouse. It’ll be weeks until I’m off crutches, and longer until I’m cleared to drive. Even if I could handle the farm, I can’t make deliveries or set up the booth at the local markets like this.”
“We’ll take turns driving you,” Sadie offers without hesitation. “I have lots of flexibility in my training schedule. We’ll put together a calendar.”
“It’ll be like a meal train, only a ride train,” Iris adds. “At least until we find somebody else you can hire.”
This is exactly what I love about my friends. Sloane—who owns the local bookstore, Cover to Cover—brought us together under the guise of a book club, but somewhere along the way we became each other’s ride or dies. I don’t bother repeating that my inability to pay someone for the kind of help I need is part of the problem. Sure, I make okay money once the spring and summer seasons kick into high gear and I’m selling flowers to florists, co-ops, and setting up my booth at the weekly farmers market and local art and craft festivals. But still, money is tight.
Teddy lit up every room he walked into, the kind of person who made everything feel like an adventure.
Basically, the polar opposite of me. At least this current version of me.
I was in bad shape after he died. The suffocating guilt over what had pushed him to take those early-season risks on the river—namely the state of our marriage—made it feel like I was the one drowning. Plus, our five-year-old twins missed their daddy and didn’t understand that he was never coming back home.
This business I run is one I love and created through my ownhard work. It gives me purpose. No one had any reason to believe I could make flower farming a success, even me. But it’s going better than I hoped, and I don’t want to give it up. Growing flowers means something to me, and finally being independent means everything.
“It’s time to stop letting Linda control your life.” The words sound so simple when Avah says them. She’s gorgeous and confident and has a hot investment banker fiancé. I’m supposed to be providing the flowers for her elopement at the end of the summer, but it’s doubtful I’ll even be here then.
“What does it matter when we’re moving to Albuquerque with her?” I ask, more to myself than my friends.
Silence greets the statement, like no one knows how to pep-talk me out of my sad, small existence. Not that I expect them to. It’s a prison of my own making.
“You don’t have to live the life everyone expects.”
All of us turn at the words spoken by Piper, Sadie’s younger sister. She became part of the book club a couple of months ago after she moved back to Skylark at the end of last summer when she broke off her engagement. We all wanted her to join, but it took Sloane to convince her to agree to it.
Sloane doesn't seem to realize that she touches her fingers to the ends of her hair every couple of minutes. It's growing back after months of chemo. First, the brutal rounds last summer and fall, then more treatments leading up to her stem-cell transplant at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville right before Christmas.
She came home to Colorado in February, and the soft dark fuzz has been filling in ever since. Now it's a bit longer than a buzz cut, making her delicate features even more beautiful. Her doctors say she's doing well, that her counts look good, but I catch the way she still touches her hair like she's making sure it's real, that it's staying this time.
Piper flashes a half-hearted smile. “I mean, do as I say,not as I do. I’m not exactly a role model for making living-your-best-life decisions.”
“You made the decision not to marry an asshole.” Sadie gently nudges her sister. “That’s something.”
“I’m not living anywhere close to my best life,” I agree, almost reflexively.
“You’re a great mom,” Iris tells me, and I know I should just accept the compliment. I love my kids more than life, but I’m twenty-seven and have spent almost my entire life letting fear have power over me. Fear of being left behind or a burden to people. Of not being worthy of love unless I’m contorting myself into knots to make other people happy.
I shrug and take a sip of water to ease the sudden burn in my throat. “What kind of example am I setting for my kids? That it’s okay to let someone else dictate your life? That you should just accept whatever scraps of affection people throw your way? I’m teaching them that love means being treated like an also-ran, and that terrifies me.”
“Then maybe it’s time to step up to the bucket list challenge,” Iris suggests. “There’s nothing like checking something off a to-do list to make you feel good.”
“Not all of us are Type A plus,” I counter, attempting a smile.
“A plus plus is more like it.” Iris pushes a leftover sweet potato fry around her plate, and the din of the crowded diner fills the brief pause in conversation as servers weave between tables balancing plates of Nick Dixon’s delicious comfort food. “There’s no shame in my tightly wound game. But we all know what it’s like to let fear dictate our lives.”
Sloane’s gaze meets mine. “We do need someone to step up next for the challenge.”
