Chapter 10 Hallie
Hallie
Mothers are the people who love us for no good reason.
And those of us who are mothers know it's the most exquisite love of all.
~ Maggie Gallagher
“Mommy!” Mia shouts from upstairs.
“What are you doing up there, sweetheart? We’re going to be late!” I shout back.
Mia’s feet thump down the old wooden stairs. “Why do you get a vacation and we don’t?”
She emerges into the hallway still wearing her pajamas and carrying Mister Bear, the stuffed animal she’s had since she was one. He’s wearing a soft ball cap we bought for him at one of those build-your-own toy places.
It’s hard for a seven-year-old to wrap her brain around the irregularity of a firefighter’s schedule. I can’t blame her. It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around it too, if I’m being honest. But we’re getting there.
“I get four days off sometimes,” I explain. “It’s a part of my job because we work day and night when we’re on shift.”
“I don’t want to go to school!” She practically whines.
It’s not like Mia to be so moody. She seems to love her new school. Maybe she didn’t sleep well.
I deflect rather than addressing her complaint head on. We don’t have time for a battle of the wills this morning.
Henry Cavill comes bounding down the hall, practically bowling Mia over—the dog, not the actor. If the actor bounded down the hall, you could knock me over with a feather. And then I’d be rushing to get him out of the house before my mom saw him. Heaven only knows what she’d say.
Mia pats Henry on the head.
“Do you want to know something really fun and a little exciting?” I’m thinking on my feet here. Maybe I’ll take Mia somewhere after school—just the two of us.
“Yes!” Mia bounces on her toes.
“Get dressed. I’ll pop waffles in the toaster and make bacon. And then I’ll tell you on the way to school.”
“But, Mommyyyy,” she whines.
“Come here,” I say, squatting and extending my arms.
She collapses into me.
“Are you okay?” I ask her, lifting my hand to feel her forehead.
She nods into my neck. “I just want to stay on your vacation with you.”
“If it makes you happier, I’ll be unpacking boxes.”
She pulls her head back. “That’s not vacation!”
“Right?” I agree. “Let’s get you to school and we can do something fun after. Okay?”
“Okay.” She nods her head and leans back into me for one more hug.
Mia heads to her room and I get busy in the kitchen making a quick breakfast. Mom shows up a few moments later, the dog at her heels. He’s massive—like a fourth human in this motley family, only the mop version.
Mom grabs a mug down from the cabinet. “There’s been a change in the baseball practice schedule. There’s an email and a text. Practice is today after school instead of tomorrow.”
“Seriously?” I ask. “How does the coach expect us to comply with such last-minute notice? What if this had been a day I was at work?”
Mom smiles, pouring herself a cup of coffee from the carafe and walking to the fridge for creamer.
“That’s why you have me, dear. It truly was a genius move, moving in with you. Solved all the problems.”
I take a deep breath, pull the bacon out of the pan and set it on the paper-towel-lined plate. Mom snags a piece and hums her appreciation.
“Mmmm. That’s good bacon.”
“It’s from a local farm,” I tell her. “Our captain is engaged to the farmer’s daughter.”
“That’s one way to get your bacon,” Mom teases, wagging her brows.
I shake my head at my mom and laugh softly. Then I set out plates around the island and plop the bottle of syrup in the middle.
Mia shows up wearing leotards with multi-hued pink stripes, a purple corduroy mini-skirt and a red shirt with a hedgehog flexing fake muscles that says, I’m Awesome! I exchange a look with Mom that says, Pick your hills, this outfit isn’t one we’re dying on today.
While Mom and Mia dig into breakfast, I pull up the baseball team email on my phone.
Then I pour myself a protein drink while softly muttering under my breath about coaches who think they can change schedules without talking to parents. I’m not mad. I’m just inconvenienced. And life is already asking a lot of me right now with motherhood, work, moving in, my mother, the dog …
Mom notices my under-the-breath grumbling. “If you could see the man, you wouldn’t be so upset.”
“What?” I ask, hoping she’ll drop the subject of the baseball coach in front of Mia.
She doesn’t. “I’m just saying, he definitely takes care of himself. I think he’s single too.”
Heat tinges my ears.
“Mom!”
I make bug eyes in Mia’s direction. She seems engrossed in her waffle, but still.
“He’s not for me, dear,” Mom continues. “I draw the line at a ten year age gap. Unless it’s Henry Cavill, of course.”
The dog hears his name and stands from the spot where he was impersonating an oversized, chunky floor mat. He walks to Mom and she breaks off a piece of bacon and feeds it to him—straight from the counter.
“Mom!”
“What? It’s just a bite of bacon.”
“Please don’t feed him from the table or island.”
“Okay, fine,” she says, ruffling Henry’s head like I’ve offended him with my rules.
“Bacon is poison for dogs,” Mia pipes up. “You could kill him, Nana.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Mom says. “That’s an old wives’ tale. I’ve been giving my dogs bacon for years.”
“And they all died,” Mia observes flatly.
Mom hoots with laughter. “You’ve got me there.”
“Let’s hustle,” I tell Mia. “Brush your teeth and grab your backpack.”
“Are you driving me?” she asks.
“She misses you,” Mom says, unhelpfully.
“I am driving you,” I smile at Mia. “And … bonus! I’m taking you to baseball practice, too.”
“Yippee!” she shouts, heading toward her room. “You can meet Coach G. Don’t worry if he doesn’t smile at you. He’s nice without smiling.”
“She’s not wrong,” Mom says. Again with the wagging eyebrows.
“Not happening,” I tell my mom.
“I don’t see why not. You’ve been single for six years. That seems like long enough.”
I huff out a short snort of a laugh. “Okay. First of all, I didn’t know there was a timeline on these things.
And secondly, I just moved here. I’m getting settled into my new job.
It’s not time to bring a man into the picture.
You saw Mia this morning. She’s adjusting too.
I don’t need to rock her world any more than I already have. ”
“You can rock her world as much as you need to.” Mom wags a finger at me. “You’re a good mom. She’s not fragile. And one day, she’s going to move out and get her own life. You’ll wish you had listened to me then.”
“Just like I have my own life?” I send my mom a playful look.
She shakes her head in amusement and probably a shred of frustration.
“I have a few minutes before Mia moves out. I think I’m good,” I say, but Mom’s words sting like a light pinch. She doesn’t mean them to—or maybe she does.
“Who’s moving?” Mia asks, appearing in the kitchen doorway.
“No one you know,” I say, shooting a warning glance at my mother. “We’re all just settling here.”
Though, maybe my mom will be moving out in the next month or so. A girl can dream. I love her, but having her underfoot—and the large beast she brought with her—is a bit much.
“I’m going out,” Mom announces when I grab my keys and purse.
“Oh?”
“Yes. Coffee with a friend.”
“A friend?”
“I make friends,” she says with a sassy look in my direction that makes her look a lot like me as a teen girl. “You should try it sometime.”
Henry Cavill walks up to me and stands at my side. The gesture is oddly grounding. I ruffle his white, moppish hair. “I don’t need friends. I have you and Henry.”
“You can call him Daddy,” Mia says, giggling.
“Yeah. No,” I say with a smile at my silly child. “Let’s scoot. We have to get you to school.”
Drop-off is an event at the elementary school.
Cars line up in the circular driveway out front and along the main street and side streets.
Kids pour out, hauling backpacks and school projects, waving to one another and clustering with friends.
I’m sure the aerial view would look like a multi-colored anthill.
Mia hops out of the van shouting, “Don’t forget about picking me up!”
“I’ll be here,” I promise. “Have the best day ever!”
I watch her practically skip up the sidewalk when she sees a girl she obviously knows.
I drive home in silence. No radio—just my thoughts to keep me company. My mom’s teasing still pricks at me. A man. Who has time for a man? And where does she think I’d meet this elusive man?
I’ve had six years to process the shock of Danny deciding family life wasn’t for him—after we were already in full swing.
He left right after Mia’s first birthday.
And I grieved the loss of him, but more the loss of my dreams. Getting pregnant changed the entire trajectory of my life.
But I wouldn’t trade my daughter for anything.
I can’t imagine bringing a man into our lives. We’ve been doing this solo for so long now. I don’t even think I’d know how to kiss someone anymore. It seems like one of those skills that might need practice to maintain peak-level abilities.
I shake my head, pulling up in front of our house and parking. Leave it to my mom to plant some ridiculous thought about Mia’s coach in my head. Now I’m going to be thinking all the wrong kinds of thoughts about him when I meet him this afternoon.
I let myself in the front door and Henry comes bounding off the top of the couch where he’s taken to curling up like a massive cat. He’s the most confused dog I’ve ever met.
He’s wagging his tail and bumping into me, kissing my hands and whimpering as if I left him for hours instead of twenty minutes. I look down at the living room floor and gasp.
“Henry! What did you do?” A pair of Mom’s beige granny panties are on the living room floor in shreds along with one of Mia’s colorful socks and one of my favorite slippers. I pick up the items and tell the dog, “No.”
He has the good sense to tuck his tail.
“At least you’re an equal opportunity destroyer,” I say, taking the remains to the kitchen trash can. “Am I going to have to get you toys?”
He wags his tail. “You’re a blackmailer? Oh, Henry. Aren’t you clever?”
His tail picks up speed, thwacking the kitchen cupboards.
I have a few unpacked boxes still left in my room, so I get busy unloading those while Henry flops down on the rug next to me.
I’m going through one full of scrapbooks and clippings when I come across a photo I had developed from my phone camera roll years ago. I tug it out of the stack and hold it up.
My breath stalls. I put a hand to the center of my chest. There I am, bathed in lamplight on the streets of Munich at night. And standing next to me is the soldier I met the night before he deployed—Ace. I smile at the memory, running my finger along the edge of the photograph.
I stare into his ice-blue eyes. “Did your life go just as you planned it, Ace? Are you back in Tennessee somewhere?”
I think back to my declarations that night: I’m going to be a world-famous surgeon. I’m not mad at younger me. She had her whole future open to her. I’m only slightly envious. After all, she didn’t have Mia, and I do.
My phone pings with a text just as I’m setting the last scrapbook into the trunk at the foot of my bed.
Avery: Still on for lunch?
Hallie: That depends. Are you charging me for an unofficial therapy session?
Avery: Mom?
Hallie: And the dog. But, yes. Mostly Mom.
Avery: Bring it! I can’t wait for some sister time.
Hallie: Give me a minute to freshen up. I’ll be there in less than a half hour.
Avery: Yay!
I glance down at my comforter. That photo from Germany is lying on my white quilt. I guess I forgot to slip it back into the stack of memorabilia from my gap year in Europe. I open the trunk, pull out the shoebox and toss the photo in.
Then I grab an outfit from the closet and hop into the shower.
My thoughts still linger on that night in the photo—to the girl I was nine years ago in Munich.