“What is this bullshit?”

Randy Barker was at the other end of the line, which he should not be doing, according to the piece of paper that I assumed he was holding in his hand.

“It’s a temporary restraining order,” I said. “The notice of the hearing when I will make it a permanent restraining order is in the mail. I’m tired of you messing up my life, of threatening and jailing my friends—”

“It was one guy, and someone not worthy of you.”

“That was my decision until you took it away from me.”

“So, this is revenge.”

“No. It’s my survival. I’ve told you I’m done with you. You don’t get the hint. You keep calling and coming around here.”

“I miss you, Meleyna.”

“Well, I don’t miss you. And you don’t want to know the words with which I think of you. I swear, if you don’t agree to the restraining order when we go to court, I will tell the whole story, get it, the entire story, of why I need it.”

“You wouldn’t,” Randy said.

“You’ve given me nothing left to lose,” I spoke with heat in my words as I remembered how I felt the first week as I waited for Matthew to call and my disappointment when he didn’t. The sadness that hit me when I discovered that he had left town without a word was profound. My frustration when I found out that he couldn’t return to Arkansas for one year.

“Look, I’m sorry, Meleyna,” Randy said sounding contrite. “I went too far. I’m a jealous man, okay?”

“That doesn’t help now, Randy. And I couldn’t care less about your feelings on the matter. You didn’t care for mine. Now he’s gone, and by court order, he can’t come back for at least a year.”

“In a year you—”

“In a year I can do nothing. He won’t take my phone calls. He doesn’t answer my letters. You ruined this for me, and that is something I will never forgive.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t work. I’m hanging up the phone now, and if you call back, I will call your supervisor.”

I slammed the headset into its cradle. Rage shuddered through my body, making my hands shake. Randy Barker needed that restraining order for his own protection because I was so angry I was liable to make the man’s face hamburger if I got close enough to get at him.

It was not an impulse I liked.

I sighed and looked at the clock. Lunchtime. Though I wasn’t hungry, I thought it a good idea to check in on grandma. There were too many evenings where I’d had to wake her from the rocker on the porch to get her to go to bed. Since Matthew left, she was trying too much to help me. I was concerned she was pushing herself too hard.

“Grandma,” I called when I entered the house.

“Meleyna? Help me.”

I heard her speaking in a weak, thin voice. “I’m here in the bathroom.”

“Grandma!” I called as I ran through the kitchen, my heart beating double time in fear. At first, I couldn’t open the door, and it rattled in its frame.

“Grandma! I can’t open the door.”

I heard a groan and a scraping noise.

“I was jammed in here against the trash can, but I moved it. Try now, honey.”

I pushed on the bathroom door to find Gram crumpled on the tiny floor. She lay in a ball clutching her right arm with her left.

I pushed into the room carefully and bent to her.

“Are you hurt? Or can you sit up?”

“I can’t move any more than this, Meleyna. It hurts. Damn. It hurts so much.”

She couldn’t even lift her head. It broke my heart to see my grandmother so frail and small, unable lift herself.

“What happened?”

“I’m sorry, Meleyna,” she said with her face twisted in pain. “I lost my balance.”

“It’s okay, grandma, it’s okay. I’ll get help. Don’t move.”

“Don’t worry, honey. I can’t.”

* * *

That night I reluctantly left Gram in the care of the doctors and nurses and went home. Thank god, she’d be okay. But the doctor told me that with her osteoporosis and her falls, she’d need extended care for the foreseeable future.

For the first time, I was really and truly alone. I faced the prospect of running the kennel and living by myself. I lay in my bed staring at my ceiling cursing my life. The man I once loved was a dick that I couldn’t stand to talk to anymore, and the man I loved now wouldn’t take my calls.

I was exhausted, not just physically, but emotionally. My gut churned with a longing for Matthew, anger at Randy, and frustration with my own inability to fix to my life.

I turned to my side and curled into a ball holding my arms over my stomach. Every breath I took felt forced and took more energy from me than it gave. Every part of me hurt, but nothing hurt as much as my heart right now.

I tumbled into the dark.

“Meleyna!” called a voice in distress.

Matthew.

“Meleyna!”

I looked around but only saw darkness. It shrouded me, holding me back in a net that prevented me from moving. I struggled to go forward but found I could not.

“Matthew! I’m here! Where are you!”

“Meleyna!”

“Matthew!”

But all I heard were groans of pain.

“Matthew! What’s wrong?”

“Damn. Hurts so much!”

“Matthew!”

I woke with a start with my heart hammering in my chest, gripped by fear that something awful had happened to Matthew.

It was just a dream. I tried to relax with the reassurance my dream could not be real.

But was it? Or was it an echo of the trauma of my grandmother’s fall?

But the dream felt real.

I wouldn’t rest until I knew if Matthew was safe and unharmed.

I swung my legs over the bed and checked the time. Six AM. Somehow, and probably because of my exhaustion I’d slept through the night. I wanted to call Matthew, but it was 4 AM in Idaho. I’d have to wait.

Fuck waiting.

And maybe it was because it was an unholy hour in Idaho that an exhausted-sounding Matthew answered the phone.

“What?” he demanded grumpily.

“Is something wrong?”

“Meleyna?”

“Tell me, Matthew. Are you okay?”

“Why are you calling? And at 4 AM? What the hell?”

“Because—” I felt foolish all of a sudden. How was I going to explain that a dream freaked me out and that I felt compelled to call? “Because I got worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” Matthew said with a voice as rough as sandpaper.

“Okay.” I didn’t know what to say then. Matthew didn’t sound happy to hear from me, and now I felt very stupid. “Look, I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

Matthew said nothing. The seconds stretch to an interminable length. I thought I heard Parker whine, and the scratch of Parker’s nails on a hard surface and Matthew ordering him to lay down. But eventually, his rough voice came on the line. “It’s not a bother, but, oh damn. Look, I’ve got to go back to sleep.”

“But-”

“Thanks for calling, Meleyna. Goodbye.”

The line went dead before I could say another thing.

I stood in my kitchen in my sleep tee and panties and stared at the handset of the phone as if it would spring to life again. But it didn’t. Matthew had hung up the phone.

It was a fucking terrible way to start the day.

* * *

“Who was that Grandma?” I said. I had spotted a man leaving my grandmother’s new apartment in the assisted care facility we chose.

She beamed at me.

“Something I’ve been working on for a while. That was my lawyer.”

“Lawyer? Grandma, what did you do?”

“Did you know the price of land has gone through the roof? It’s because of all those Yankees that have been moving into the area the past few years. My goodness, my granddaddy bought two hundred acres for just two thousand dollars. Now a hundred acres is worth two million.”

“Grandma?”

“So, I sold it!”

“What!”

“Of course, once you pay taxes, and the other bites that the government takes out of you, you get maybe a million and a quarter. But I need the money, Meleyna. One, to pay for this lovely place here and the sale of it will keep here nearly twenty years if I so chose. And I enjoy living here, Meleyna. I do. It’s been wearing on me being alone so much in that big house. It’s a house meant for a family. But you, you aren’t looking to start any family.”

“Grandma,” I said with despair in my voice.

“Now, that ain’t no judgment. That’s how things are. We still have a hundred acres. That’s still way too much for us. You might end up selling it anyway because once I go, the elderly tax protection on the land will go away.”

“Grandma, don’t say that.”

“Meleyna, when you get to my age, you think about putting things in order. And I worry that you are living your life for an old lady, instead of for yourself.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“It’s my job to do that, Meleyna. I love you, sweetie, more than my own life. And I can’t bear to see you as unhappy as you’ve been since Matthew left.”

“It can’t be helped,” I said.

“Maybe it can’t. But you should be living your life for you, not me. So here.” She held out a long piece of paper to me.

“What’s this?”

“Look at it.”

I took the check and stared at it, shocked.

“That two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars is for you. More than enough to pay for vet school. And some extra for pocket money. I’ve paid a gift tax on it, so you don’t have to pay any.”

“Grandma, this money is too much.”

“No, sweetie. It is not. You’ve done too much for me. Now it is the time I take care of you. Take that money and do whatever you want with it.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I know things didn’t work out with Randy, or with Matthew, but you deserve to find someone who loves you for who you are. So, you should go and find him, whoever he is.”

“You knew about things with Randy?”

“Meleyna, I’ve always known. From the first time I held you as a baby, I knew you were something special. When your little baby hand gripped my finger so strong, I realized that you were a different kind of girl. Maybe it was angels whispering in my ear. It might have been your guardian angel telling me I needed to hold tight and love you as much as I could because you needed it. So I did, and I always will, regardless of who you love. I know that Randy is gay, and I know that you loved him in spite of it. I’ve known for years. But it’s time for you to find someone who loves you for you.”

I stood blown away by grandma’s words. She had known about Randy and me. Grandmother never cared that I had stuck with Randy despite the scandal it could have caused, and she still loved me.

“Susan Michelle Harris,” I said, shaking my finger at her. “You’ve been lying to me all along. Here I thought you were merely terrific. You didn’t tell me how awesome you are.”

“Well, Meleyna Margaret Harris,” she scolded, “that’s not my fault. You should have known on your own account.”

I smiled. “I guess I should have.”

She beamed. “Now, get out of here and go live that life of yours. And don’t come back until you have one!”