~ ALLIE ~
I’m taking the coward’s way out, I figure as I flick on the turn signal at my mother’s exit. It’s childish; the bank didn’t want to play nice with me, so I’m grabbing my dollies and running to my mommy.
How did I even think I was ready to take on a run-down kennel and turn my fledgling nonprofit into something bigger, more effective? I’m too young—just like Logan used to tell me.
And it stuns me that he was right. I am too young for him. He’s a SEAL—faced down more tragedy in his 32 years than most people do in their lifetime. I’m just a silly woman with a useless degree and a dream that is bigger than my bank account. He knew the world would cut a person like me down to size, and he was right.
I just didn’t think it would be his family taking the first slice of me.
I turn onto my mom’s street and am greeted by rows of two-story colonials, each with the same stone and siding façade. It’s a newer community. I’d almost wonder if it’s a JLS Heartland development, but I think the houses are smaller here than is their norm.
My mom swings open the door only seconds after I pull into the driveway, not even giving me a chance to take a breath or prepare myself to see her again in this house that isn’t my home. It still feels awkward to me.
She wraps her arms around me in an embrace that could only come from a mother. As I fight the tears, I’m reminded of Logan’s mom—how welcoming she was to me, how truly excited she was about my mission with the dogs. Did Logan tell her what happened, I wonder?
I’ll probably never know.
My mother pulls back from me only inches and touches a finger to the dark circles under my eyes. “Honey, you look exhausted. Have you been sick?”
“No. Just tired.”
“Come on in. I’ll make you some chicken soup, anyway,” she says. Chicken soup can save the world, or at least my mother believes that. And truly, when she makes it up the way she does, I’m pretty convinced of it, too.
“New car?” she notes, glancing at the silver SUV as I pull out my bags.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “A donation to my organization from someone.”
“They donated a new car?”
She’s checking out the leather seats and eyeing the dashboard that, to me, still looks more like it belongs in a sci-fi movie than in a car.
“You must be doing some things right for those dogs if you’re getting donations like this, Allie.”
Yeah, or spreading my legs for the right guy, I think, feeling a knot of disgust with myself.
“I’m so proud of you,” she continues, oblivious that her words are rubbing salt in my wounds, and proving to me that I shouldn’t have come here. I should have just crawled into a hole for a month. “You’re saving lives, Allie. It’s your dream and you’re making it happen.”
I burst into tears at the mention of my dream.
“Oh, honey, what’s wrong?” she asks.
I tell her then. I tell her everything, first leaning against my car in the driveway till she leads me inside the house and sits me down at the kitchen counter. I’m so grateful that her husband isn’t home now, and I can have a little time with my mom by myself.
I tell her about the wedding, Logan’s family, and what happened with the foreclosure. I even tell her about the damn SUV, as she browns some chicken in olive oil to ready it for the soup. The loud sizzle and the smell of paprika and pepper soothe me as I pour my heart out to her in a way I haven’t done since Devin dumped me back in college.
She slices an onion and the scent wafts my way, giving me a good excuse for the tears in my eyes.
“It sounds like you really love him, Allie.”
The lump lodged in my throat almost blocks my admission. “Yes.”
“Have you told him that?”
“No. Neither one of us has said it,” I answer begrudgingly. “And why bother? We were doomed from the start.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“He’s never going to stay in Newton’s Creek. I think he regrets ever moving there—did it on impulse and now he’s just figuring out his next move. He belongs on the coast somewhere.”
“And you think you belong in Newton’s Creek?”
I nod firmly.
“Why?”
I really don’t want to tell her the truth. “I miss Dad,” I say vaguely instead.
She nods, turning down the heat on the stove and sitting beside me. “And what else do you miss?”
“I miss our house. I miss being able to feel close to him around every corner.”
She lowers her head. “I moved from that house for all the same reasons you wanted to stay.”
“What do you mean?”
“We watched you grow up in that house, Allie. Together. All the milestones you reached were with your dad at my side. You remember racing down the staircase to see the tree on Christmas morning, but I remember sitting with your dad watching you race down those stairs. You remember the swing in the backyard, but I remember putting it together on the hottest day of the summer with your dad. You remember riding your bike in the neighborhood Fourth of July parade that ran in front of our house, but I remember sitting with your dad on the front porch as you rode by. He was always there for me. For us. And it was such a blessing. I couldn’t face another moment in that house without him.”
“You really loved him, didn’t you?” I’m remembering what Logan said now, how he thought my mom might have married so soon again just because she couldn’t stand the idea of being alone after being with someone she loved for so long.
“I loved your dad in a way I could never love another man. He gave me you. He gave me my best memories. He gave me the best chapter of my life.” Tears are pooling in her eyes. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my husband now. He’s a good man, Allie, and he showed me that I really can laugh again and feel a warmth in my heart again. But it’s a different kind of love for a different phase in our lives.” She takes my hand as it rests on the counter. “What kind of love do you feel for Logan?”
I shake my head, trying to find words. “Something so powerful. I know it hasn’t been that long that we’ve even been together, but when I’m with him, things feel so right I can’t even put it into words.”
“Do you picture your life with him?”
“It’s hard not to.”
“In Newton’s Creek?”
I shrug. “Anywhere.”
“Then it sounds to me you found your home. Your home is with Logan.”
I sigh. “I don’t know how I’d face his family again. It’s even worse that they didn’t know. Now I’ll be poor, pathetic Allie. I don’t want to be that to them.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re a capable young woman who is saving the lives of countless dogs. There is nothing pathetic about you.”
“I don’t want their sympathy.”
“Then tell them that.”
“And I don’t want their charity either. I know it’s crazy, but I feel like Logan throws his money my way too quickly, like it’s nothing to him. I know him, Mom. His last words to me were that he was going to fix this.”
“So, let him.”
“That’s not what I want though. I can’t even stand driving that car because it reminds me of him. I don’t want more things that I depend on to be somehow attached to him. I’d be just like you with the house, you know? Unable to get away from his memory after he leaves.”
“You’re assuming he’ll leave then.”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation.
“Allie, you are a passionate person. You’ve always felt things so deeply. You find a mission and you think you’re the only one who can accomplish it the right way simply because you feel its weight so deeply in your heart. You’re so much like your father in that way. I’ve seen all that you’ve accomplished and it amazes me. It makes me proud. But you’re wrong to think you’re the only one who feels things so deeply. That you can’t share your load with someone else.” She pats my hand as she stands. “Take some time. Cry it out. Lick your wounds. But promise me that you won’t go through life thinking that you have to do things alone.”
She kisses my forehead, and glances at her watch. “It’s 5:00 in some part of the world right now,” she says with a smile. “How about a glass of wine?”