Chapter 11 Hallie
Hallie
I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her.
I do not feel as well without her. I would be better off
without a hand or a leg than without my sister.
~ Erin Morgenstern
I pull up in front of a Victorian home in a section of town just outside Downtown Waterford.
The carved wood sign in the front lawn hangs on a wooden pole: The Dogwood House.
Someone converted the upstairs of this old home into a bed-and-breakfast and the downstairs into a tea room.
Leave it to Avery to find the sweetest spot for lunch.
I would have picked Judy’s Diner since that’s where the guys at the station sometimes go.
I pull the key from the ignition and lean back in the driver’s seat. My shoulders feel like they’re straining to touch one another. I hadn’t even noticed until now.
Inside the front door, a hostess stands at a wooden pedestal. “May I help you?” she asks. But then she immediately adds. “Oh! You’re Hallie! The new firefighter. Your sister’s right over there. Follow me.”
Avery spots me and waves from her place at a small circular table near a back window. The wainscotted wall behind her is topped with a floral wallpaper that extends up to crown molding and a hammered tin ceiling.
“This place is darling!” I say, taking the seat across from Avery and accepting the menu from the hostess.
“Enjoy your lunch,” the hostess says with a smile.
“I knew you’d love it,” Avery says. “You deserve something girly in your life.”
“And living with Mom and Mia doesn’t count?” I say with a teasing smile.
“Not even close.”
We order the house salad and soup of the day, and the waitress brings out a basket of bread that’s filled with an assortment of herbed breads like a rosemary focaccia and soft breads like cranberry loaf.
“I could eat this basket of bread and call it a day,” Avery says, grabbing a slice and setting it on her bread plate. “So, tell me everything.”
“Everything?”
“How is it working at the station? How’s the move coming along? How’s life with Mom and that massive, adorable dog of hers … Everything.”
I chuckle. “What about you? I live my life every day. I’m sort of burnt out thinking about my job and motherhood—and Mom. Give me an escape. I’d rather hear about your art. What are you working on? What have you been doing for fun when you’re not hunched over the iPad designing something fabulous?”
“Want to see?” Avery buzzes with the excitement of a creative when they’re in the middle of a project that’s flowing.
I love when she gets like this.
She reaches down into her messenger bag and pulls out her iPad. The waitress arrives with our salads. Avery clicks the button and hands the tablet across the table.
“Oh, Ave! It’s gorgeous,” I tell her.
“You think so?”
I give her an are you kidding me glance and then turn my attention back to her artwork.
Our soup arrives and she slides the iPad back into her bag.
We chat about her life and mine, laughing and soaking up the chance to be alone together.
By the time the waitress approaches our table to check if we’d like dessert, I’m settled back into my chair, a satisfied smile on my face.
“How about it, Hallie?” Avery asks. “Want to split something?”
“After all that bread?” I ask.
Avery turns to the waitress and says, “I guess we’ll get the check,” at the same time as I say, “What do you have?”
We end up ordering a house-made berry cobbler to share.
“So, what are you doing this afternoon?” Avery asks.
“I’m going to Mia’s practice since it falls on my day off, and then I’m hanging out with my daughter. I’ve been so busy trying to empty all the boxes, I’ve just been letting Mom take her to baseball.”
At the mention of the boxes, my mind drifts to the photo from all those years ago in Munich.
I shake the thought out of my head and say, “I haven’t missed this much baseball since Mia started playing.”
“Well, you’re not a school secretary anymore,” Avery points out. “Your schedules don’t line up so matchy-matchy the way they did in Maryville.”
I glance up, holding my bite midair. “Do you think I messed up, becoming a firefighter? Am I shortchanging Mia—and myself?”
I stare down at my bite, setting my fork back on my plate and swallowing the lump in my throat.
“Are you kidding me?” Avery asks, her voice loud enough to draw a few turned heads.
I pop my bite in my mouth and shake my head. I’m not kidding. It’s a question I've been rolling through my mind ever since we moved here. Was this the right decision? Will Mia find true friends? Is this schedule too chaotic for her—for me?
“Girl.” My sister sets her fork on her plate and braces her hands on the table.
“You are a rock star. You’ve had it in you to do something like this since we were kids.
Sure, you worked in Dr. Fast’s office. And you loved being a part of his pediatric practice.
But you were never meant to be behind a desk.
Working at the school once Mia started there made sense.
But you shelved a piece of yourself to do those jobs.
Firefighting? That’s so you. And Mia will adjust to the move and the schedule. She’s resilient.”
I sigh, feeling tears of relief well in my eyes. I dab at them with a corner of my napkin. “Thank you.”
“Of course. I’m not just blowing smoke, either. You rock. I’m so proud of you. And, I was also going to say, if you need Mom to have a sleepover at my place anytime—just to give you some breathing room—say the word.”
“Like, a week-long sleepover?” I joke.
“Maybe a weekend,” Avery retorts.
We both laugh.
“Going to baseball practice will be so good for you,” she says, taking a sip of her tea. “You’ll prove to yourself that you can juggle all the things—work, motherhood, life … And …” There’s a glint in her eye. “Now you’ll get to see the coach.”
“You and Mom,” I practically moan. “So, he’s a coach. I’ve seen coaches before.”
“Yeah. You say that now. Wait til you see the man.”
“I’m not looking at men … or for men … or even in the vicinity of men.”
“You’re literally surrounded by four men for twenty-four hour stretches.”
“They’re my co-workers.”
“Not all men are Danny,” she says with a softness to her face.
We barely call my ex-husband by name, let alone speak of him. He all but absented himself from my life and Mia’s. Why dignify him with conversation about him?
“Danny wasn’t all bad,” I defend, mostly out of habit.
“If you call flaking out on your family good,” Avery says, her face morphing into something more stern and defensive on my behalf.
I start to say something, but what is there to say? Danny’s ambition got the better of him. And fear. And who knows what else.
“I just can’t do this,” he said. As if there was an option—as if we could change our minds and walk away. I had sat there, my hand over the hollow pit in my abdomen while he calmly laid out his exit strategy.
Danny tried to hang in through the pregnancy—even Mia’s first year of life. But, the day after her first birthday, he asked for a divorce.
I didn’t contest it. Why would I? What woman in her right mind fights to keep a man around when he’s itching to get away from her?
“Enough talk about flaky men,” Avery says. “We need to end this lunch on a positive note. You have to call me tonight to tell me what you think of the coach. Deal?”
“Of his coaching skills?”
“Whatever you want to call it. I want to hear your reaction.”
“Deal,” I say.
She practically giggles with excitement and I shake my head at her. “Why don’t you date him if you think he’s so great?”
“Not my type.”
“Yeah. That’s so obvious by the drool dripping down your chin,” I tease her.
“He’s hot. But I’m more into the artsy type.”
“Two artists,” I muse. “What could ever go wrong there?”
She laughs and tosses her napkin at me. I catch it and hand it back to her. She insists on paying for lunch and we walk out, thanking the waitress and hostess on our way.
“We have to come back here again,” Avery says.
“I’ll treat next time,” I tell her.
“We’ll see,” she says.
She leans in and gives me a hug, holding on longer than most people do. I tug her close, letting our connection ease even more of the unacknowledged stress I’ve been lugging around.
“I’m so grateful for you,” I tell her.
“Back at ya,” she says, smiling. “Remember to call me tonight with a hot coach report.”
“I will.” I almost roll my eyes. “Just prepare to be underwhelmed.”
“Mm hmm.” She wags her brows and heads off to her car, still talking to me as she goes. “So underwhelming is he, this chiseled man who should be on the cover of some magazine. You’ll be unaffected, I’m sure.”
“Get a life!” I shout after her.
“Great idea! You first!” she shouts, laughing.
I run a few errands after lunch and pick Mia up from school. We dart home so she can put her school things away and change, and then we head to the ball field.
The Waterford Community Center sits off to the side of the wide park-like property. Cars fill the parking lot. Scattered trees line the edge of the lot and the park beyond the ball field.
I glance around, and an army-green vehicle catches my eye.
My pulse momentarily kicks up.
That’s Greyson’s Jeep. It has all the same markings and coloring. What’s he doing here?
My eyes narrow and I scan the parking lot as if he’ll appear suddenly. I don’t know if I’m ready for the guys at work to know about Mia. I will tell them, but I’m still establishing myself—earning their trust and proving my capability.
Mia jumps out of the van and starts running toward the field.
“Catch up, Mommy! I want you to meet Coach G!”
I pick up my pace, reaching her just as she runs onto the field. We’re the first family here. A coach is standing near the dugout, his broad back turned to us, head bent, looking down at a clipboard.
Mia runs toward him. “Coach G!” she shouts.
He turns and our eyes meet. For one disoriented beat he feels too familiar.
Greyson?