Chapter 1
Y vonne stood still and stared out the window of her private room. The sun was barely up, and the world was silent. She had survived her first crazy day back here, even if only part of a full day. She couldn’t believe that she was once again at Hathaway House, after all the hard work she’d put in to get out of here last time. However, she was grateful to even be back again and to have these resources available to her, and yet how did that work now?
She swore when she left five years ago that she would never return, and yet, apparently, one should never make those kinds of promises. She had not seen Dennis, but she knew he was here. The grapevine had probably already filled him in. She didn’t even know how to approach him. Her nerves kicked in at the thought. They hadn’t left on good terms, and that was her fault. She had been so full of herself, and so full of the need to go on and to prove that she was fine and capable and able to be on her own, that she’d basically run from here to her future alone—certainly not considerate of anyone else’s feelings, especially Dennis’s. And now look.
It was only the beginning of her first full day back, and she already felt that same sense of helplessness that she’d felt before. And she hated it, absolutely hated it.
Nothing was worse than knowing that life was passing you by and that she could do nothing about it. Of course nobody else had seen that life was passing her by. They all didn’t understand that deep urge for her to prove that she was somebody. That drive to take control. She never even noticed the life passing her by part. She certainly never let go of the control part. And yet, now, she couldn’t necessarily do anything about either.
Life sometimes just dealt you lemons, and, even though Dennis would say, Make lemonade , it didn’t always work out that way. She’d been so sure that she could move on with life and could do great on her own. And honestly, she had. She didn’t have any reason to feel as if she had failed in that, but, because she was back at Hathaway House again, it sure felt like a failure.
She could have moved faster and missed that vehicle, yet being on the crosswalk at that moment in time was almost a message saying, Ha, you’re not that good. See? We just proved it .
Her prosthetic had slowed her down.
She’d also not been doing her exercises, hence slowing down her reaction times. Ugh . That was really hard to accept too. She was all about success, so why had she failed to do her follow-up exercises? Sure, she’d been crazy busy, but that was no excuse.
She didn’t really want to deal with that whole sense of failure all over again, but what did one do except deal? This was the hand she had been dealt, so that’s what she would do. When a man spoke from her doorway, she stilled. She didn’t even know how to react. She slowly turned, using the windowsill for balance.
Dennis leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his massive chest.
She looked at him, nodded. “Hey, Dennis.”
“Hey,” he replied, but he didn’t enter, and neither did she invite him in.
He nodded slowly, as if acknowledging the huge space between them. “How’re you doing?” he asked, still from the doorway. “I heard the trip was pretty rough.”
“All trips are pretty rough right now,” she admitted.
“And a drunk driver hit you?”
“Apparently. I was on the crosswalk, but my reaction time wasn’t there.”
“You’re still taking the blame for everything, huh ?” He stepped forward.
Her eyes widened. “Is that what I’m doing?” she asked in a mocking tone.
He shrugged. “Sounds like it to me. Are you thinking that you could have avoided it?”
“I was thinking that, if my reaction time had been a bit better, I would have dodged getting hit.”
“Not likely,” he noted. “You seem to be having some rough days. Maybe several nights too.”
“I can’t say I’ve had much chance to catch my breath since I got here.”
“At the change in circumstances, or at being back here again?”
He was always blunt, and you always knew exactly where you stood with him. “Both, I guess. I’m grateful to be back, grateful to be in the hands of the people who can help me again.” She sighed, adding a small smile. “I’m also sad to be back and so very sorry to be in this situation again, where I thought I was done.”
“I believe one of the things you said was, Sayonara, this was it , and how you were never coming back again.”
“That’s what happens when you’re a fool,” she stated, trying hard to mask her bitterness.
“You still drink coffee?”
“I do.” She eyed him hopefully. “Any chance of a cup?”
“I can get one for you,” he offered. “You didn’t eat last night.”
“No, traveling is pretty rough on me these days.”
“Stomach issues?”
She shrugged. “It’s a mix of missing body parts and the painkillers, which still knock me for a loop and nauseate me.”
“Ah, so do you want any food to go with your coffee?”
She stared down at her cell phone. “It’s too early yet. It’s only 6:00 a.m.” She frowned at him. “How come you’re even here?”
“Why not?” he replied. “I tend to live here these days.”
She stared at him. “And yet you’re the one who tells me that I’m a workaholic.”
“I am a workaholic,” he confirmed cheerfully.
This was more like the old Dennis Yvonne knew, instead of that first-awkward-meeting Dennis.
He added, “It doesn’t change the fact that I do what I do because I love it.”
She nodded. “That’s what I thought I was doing too,” she noted, “until life, for a second time, wiped me right out.”
“Let me get you that coffee.” And he disappeared, his footsteps striding confidently down the corridor.
That was one of the things that she’d always had trouble with. His inner sense of knowing, understanding that what he was doing in his life was where he needed to be and what he needed to do. She hadn’t had that same confidence in her life. She hadn’t had anything like it.
She’d loved him to distraction but couldn’t stay for him, so what did that say about her? Deep down she knew that he had loved someone else, his true love dying early. Yvonne knew better than to fight a losing battle with a dead lover turned into some perfect saint. Yvonne finally let go of that, realizing her own lack of self-confidence was the real culprit.
She’d spent a lot of time over the last few years on her solo journey thinking about the choices she’d made. It had only been five years, but, man, just catching sight of him this morning was enough to make her heart break. And more than that, it was enough to see the distance in his own gaze and to realize that so much had changed between them.
Maybe not enough and maybe too much. She had a lot of making up to do. And, even at that, she wasn’t sure she could get anything out of this attempt except forgiveness. Yet she would take even that right now.
She still had to focus on her rehab journey now, the same as last time. Previously she’d been determined to make it on her own, positive that nobody else could help her, that nobody else was of the same mind-set, so they didn’t know what she was going through and couldn’t possibly understand. To say she had been a fool was so obvious today, but she had been oblivious to that fact before.
And now, here she was back again, and all she could think about was how she could not do it alone. This time she desperately wanted to have somebody by her side, for the days that went bad, for the nights that got terrible—even more so when she felt everything was wrong in the world and where someone would need to encourage her to keep trying, even when she would rather give up.
This time, in so many ways, was worse than last time. It shouldn’t have been. It should have been a triumph for Yvonne to successfully walk back into Hathaway House as a new employee, not a returning rehab patient. She’d retrained in the IT field, knowing in the future that her leg and prosthetic would give out on her, and she didn’t want to retrain into yet another career down the road.
Now she was quite a programmer, which was great, but a lot of her life was empty. She’d spent so much time struggling to get back on her feet, to return to the world as a full-time wage earner, to get back to being independent—both financially as well as physically. However, all she’d found in her previous five years was how so much of her life was one thing and one thing only. Empty .
*
Dennis headed to the kitchen. He stared down at his trembling hands. He’d known that Yvonne had arrived last night and had checked with the nurse to ensure Yvonne was okay. But to see her today, to see that beaten look on her face, was heartbreaking. For the umpteenth time he cast his mind back to how they’d left it and how she needed to leave. Even though he wanted to say so many things to make her stay, he also knew that she wouldn’t, that she couldn’t, that she had to go.
Now she was back, and what did that mean for him? Possibly nothing.
With a loud sigh, he shook his head. He had only known romantic love two times in his life. His first love had died young, leaving Dennis thinking that was his one and only chance. He still loved her to this day. He easily acknowledged that to himself and others. Yet he was wise enough to not make her into a glorified saint, a perfect woman with no flaws, as too many people do when a loved one passes on. Truly that hadn’t been a problem, once he met Yvonne. Both of his loves were true loves, but each woman was totally different and distinct.
Yvonne was his current love and probably would remain in his heart for the rest of his life. He couldn’t and wouldn’t force Yvonne to feel the same way about him. That was totally up to her. That was what made falling in love so heady, so awesome, and so terribly frightening as well. Talk about making oneself totally vulnerable. That’s what love was about.
The only thing he could do was be himself and see how she felt about him this time around.
Dennis, in his innate wisdom, knew that changing himself to be better for another person didn’t ever work out. You had to change for you. You had to be you, honest and authentic to yourself. If you were lucky, the people in your life returned the favor by being honest and authentic back. And Yvonne certainly had been that way back then.
However, what she’d wanted was so different than what Dennis saw them sharing together that he had been forced to walk away and to just let it be. Just let her be. It had been hard. Watching her leave broke his heart. Now here she was back again. Not to see him, not because she was a success and came back to be their full-time IT person, proving how well she’d done solo out in the big wide world. Nope, she was here because she was broken again. And that was even harder for Dennis to see.
At the kitchen he quickly poured her a cup of coffee and looked at the food currently available, wondering if she needed something until the full breakfast was served. It was early definitely, but not so early that he couldn’t get her something if that’s what she needed. Still, she hadn’t exactly made her choices clear. And, for the first time, hesitant and doubting himself, he just snagged a muffin full of lots of seeds and nuts and put it on a plate for her and carried it back to her, along with her black coffee.
The whole time he stared down at his hands, wondering what he would do about his shaky reaction. Everybody would know, just as everybody had known last time. But now Hathaway House was so much bigger, so much crazier here, with more staff and more patients. Yet, for all Hathaway House’s growth, all these people remained a tight-knit family. So everybody would keep watch over everybody else—something he hadn’t personally had to experience, except for many years ago.
So now he would be in prime position for everybody else to watch him and to see how his renewed relationship with Yvonne unfolded. In a way, it was only fair. He’d watched so many relationships in these last several years, but they’d all worked out. Only Dennis’s relationship with Yvonne had gone off the rails.
Giving himself a stern talking to, he continued to her room and knocked gently on the door. When he heard her voice, slow and heavy, he opened the door and stepped in, asking, “Are you all right? Do you need a nurse?”
She tried to shake herself awake. “I dunno. I might just need to sleep some more.”
“In that case, I won’t give you the coffee.”
She stared at the cup, steam coming off the top. “Just leave it. If I can drink it, I will,” she murmured. “Otherwise…”
“Otherwise,” he interrupted, “you’ll just fall back asleep, and that’s what you need primarily.” He carefully put both items on the bedside table. “I brought a muffin, just in case you get snacky.”
“Ah, Dennis,” she muttered. “Still looking after everybody.”
“Sure,” he replied in a casual tone. “I enjoy being of service, like the rest of the staff here.”
“You were always too good to be true.”
He wasn’t sure if the drugs were talking or something else. “Did the nurse just bring you a painkiller?”
She shifted in bed, her eyelids falling closed. “Yes. I wasn’t expecting it to knock me out quite so fast.”
“Seems you need it,” he murmured. “So just rest.” And he backed up to the door.
“I’ll do that,” she muttered, but her words were slurred, as she turned her head to the side.
He saw her drop off again. He wasn’t sure that this was even normal. As he looked up the hallway, one of the nurses exited a room close by, and he asked her, “Yvonne’s out again. Is that okay?”
The nurse nodded. “She’s pretty exhausted and in a lot of pain.”
He frowned at that. “I was hoping her pain wasn’t so off-the-wall.”
“I’m hoping it’ll get better too,” the nurse shared. “I guess you two know each other, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” He gave a hard sigh. “She was a patient here a long time ago.”
“Let’s hope we can get her back on her feet and back out into the world again,” she murmured. “It’s got to be hard to return to rehab.”
Funny how he’d never really thought about that angle, but maybe it was. Maybe that was part of the problem here. Maybe it just felt like a failure to her, which was something she didn’t handle very well.
“Hopefully she’ll be much better after this,” the nurse added, with a gentle smile. “Let her sleep.”
And, with that, he returned to the kitchen and was greeted with a sudden silence, as if everybody had been talking about him. He turned around and addressed everybody, “Yes, I did have a previous relationship with her. Yes, I’m sad that she’s back because I know it means she’s hurt. No, I have no idea what it means for us, where any relationship with Yvonne will go. So a little respect and a little time to adjust would be helpful.” And, with that, he left the kitchen.
Ilse followed him and explained, “We weren’t talking about you.” He frowned, as he studied her silently. “They just knew that somebody had come in who’d had a previous relationship with someone,” she told Dennis. “After you walked out, I gave them a quick explanation.”
He sighed. “And, of course, I’ve just made it so much worse, haven’t I?”
She smiled. “No, not at all. You have to remember, not everybody has been here as long as you and I have. So, a lot of people don’t have a clue how much we all went through when we first started here.”
“No, you’re right,” he murmured. “It just seems so different right now. Yet seeing her again? It’s as if we were never apart these last five years.”
“Do you need to take off for a couple days?” she asked him, eyeing him carefully.
“No, I don’t. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped the gun in there.”
“It just shows me how rattled you are by all this.”
“Sure,” he conceded. “How would you feel if you found somebody again who you loved?”
“Terrified, scared, nervous, exuberantly euphoric.”
“I feel all those things,” he admitted, “but not the euphoric part because she left, because she didn’t want anything to do with me.”
At that, Ilse frowned. “I do remember her leaving. I’m not sure she was rejecting you as much as proving to herself that she could do this, could graduate from Hathaway House and could make it in real life. Her leaving was pretty tough back then. It was tough on all of us because we all hurt for you.”
“And yet it was the right thing for Yvonne to walk away,” he noted. “It was what she needed to do.”
“And you let her go, thinking of her desires over your own,” Ilse pointed out. “Whether that was smart or not, I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” he stated, a sadness in his soul. “I know she’s back, but I also know it’s not where she wants to be. She’s not back here for me.”
“And yet what you aren’t privy to this time,” Ilse stated, “is where she’s at mentally right now. For all you know, everything has changed in her world. Maybe she’s looking for something completely different.”
“Maybe,” Dennis muttered, “but, once again, she’s traumatized and in a tough space, so what she really needs is support, but with no commitments.”
“Don’t decide what she needs before she has a chance to tell you what she needs,” Ilse noted, with a gentle smile. “I think this is a very different woman here at present than who was here last time,” she shared, “if for no other reason than she has learned and grown a lot from being out in the big bad world.”
He frowned at her and then nodded. “You could be right there.… Still, I know she’s not after anything from me. Otherwise she could have come to me at any point in time in the last five years.”
“Remember though,” Ilse added, “as a matter of pride, it’s very hard to reopen a door you closed. Whether she wants to open it or not, it’s a,… it’s a hard thing to do. It’s a hard thing to face. She may see it as admitting she’s a failure. So she may let it slide day in and day out, until, all of a sudden, it’s too hard to open that door because you have no reason, no explanation or excuse as to why… you didn’t do it earlier,” she explained calmly. “So maybe just relax and let things naturally happen between you two, without preconceived ideas or some timetable. If you are meant to be with Yvonne, it’s meant to be. If it’s not meant to be, well, I’ll sit here and commiserate with you all over again.”
He winced at that. “That’s not a memory I want to revisit.”
She chuckled. “But we went on baking sprees that were a lot of fun.”
He grinned at her affectionately. “Only you would think baking sprees were a lot of fun.”
“Hey, we came up with some great recipes, and it was a good way to get your mind off everything else that was going on.”
“It was at that.” Dennis opened up his arms, and she stepped in, and they hugged gently for a moment.
“Remember,” she whispered, “that Yvonne’s hurt, she’s injured, and what she needs right now is a friend.”
He nodded. “Being a friend is something I’m good at. I just, one day, had thought maybe I would be more than a friend.”
“And you don’t know that it won’t be. Give her space, give her time, and see what she wants for herself.”
“Will do.” He sighed. “And now is that food ready? ’Cause, boy, oh boy, I can hear the animals in the cage outside.”
Ilse burst out laughing. “Breakfast is ready. Let’s get it moving.”