23. Holly
TWENTY-THREE
HOLLY
“What am I supposed to do?!” I cried into the phone and imagined Tracey flinching from my shrill voice in her AirPods.
After Graham dropped that bomb in my lap, he went back to eating his lunch like he hadn’t rocked my world, stolen my breath, and given me a knockout punch all at the same time.
It shouldn’t have come as such a shock, not with how we left things the day before, not with the things he’d said to me— I’m finding it hard to think about leaving— I’d thought of those words on a near constant loop since I put Jonah to bed last night.
I should have known then that he’d stay. It was naive of me to assume that goodbye would be our last. Graham enjoyed the chase, he always had. Now that he was in my town, I had nowhere to run.
“I can come up there and play defense,” Tracey said. She meant it. She’d do it, too. She’d dropped everything and driven overnight to get to me before, once when Jonah and I had the flu so bad I was certain we would both die.
“I can’t believe this.” I was pacing outside at the back of the restaurant. I’d waited until I knew Graham left, had watched him get into a gray Toyota Tundra, and then I waited another half an hour, busying myself by pretending to prepare the payroll until I gave up and called Tracey. “I can’t believe I saw him yesterday. I can’t believe he knows about Jonah. And now he’s here. He said he’s staying for six weeks, Tracey. I can’t avoid him.”
There was a thick silence as I stared up at the blue sky. It was gorgeous, and I was starting to roast in my black pants and white short-sleeve shirt I always wore to work.
“I don’t think you should avoid him,” she finally said, and it was done so hesitantly, with such worry in her tone, I flinched.
“You can’t be serious.”
“He’s the only guy I’ve ever seen you attracted to, Holly. He’s the only guy you’ve cared about, and you haven’t even tried to date since Jonah.”
“Not true,” I muttered and kicked at loose mulch that had escaped our landscaping on the sidewalk. “I tried.”
“You’ve had two dates.”
“So.” If I’d had any doubts before, I now knew where Jonah got his pouty voice from.
“Listen, I’ll come there. I’ll kick his butt back to Charlotte or wherever he is. Heck, if you need me to, I’ll shoot him and bury the body. I’ll do anything you need, but right now, I think you have to consider this. He’s back , and you’ve always missed him. It wouldn’t hurt you to give this a shot. Maybe it’ll go nowhere.”
“Yeah, and then Jonah will be devastated.”
“And maybe it’ll end up being everything, and Jonah will have the father you’ve always wished he had.”
“If my test results come back…”
“If they come and we can celebrate, then you don’t have to mention it. If they come back poorly, you’ll have help. And more, Holly…Jonah would have someone if…”
“That’s enough,” I whispered, but it was harsh enough to stop Tracey in her tracks.
I knew the chances. Words like survival rate, terminal, and reoccurrence had lived rent-free in my mind for the last two weeks ever since my annual exam came back with inconclusive results. Now I was spending my free time researching oncologists and treatments.
As much as I wanted to hope for the best and keep a positive spirit like Caroline, Tracey, and my doctors have said, I’d never had a run of good luck in my life.
“I know, and I’m sorry. Of course you don’t bring Graham into this because of that.”
“That’s why I want him to stay far away.” I laughed coldly.
“He’s a big boy, Holly. He’s going to do what he wants. Take the time to figure out what it is you want.”
I wanted my health. My happiness. I wanted freedom, and most of all, I wanted to give Jonah a life better than I ever bothered possibly imagining.
I’d tried dreaming before, and the shattered glass shards of them being broken still scarred my heart. I wasn’t all that revved up to give it another shot.
* * *
“All right. What are we doing today?” I squirted dishwasher detergent into the machine, closed the door, and pressed the start button.
Jonah was at the kitchen table, done eating, reading a comic book about a famous baseball player Paul had bought him. I’d hated reading when I was little, numbers and facts were more my thing, along with running outside and biking, but Jonah loved to read. He soaked up every age-appropriate book I gave him, and his teacher had started recommending books for him much higher than his grade level. For now, we were sticking with books about sports or fictional stories based on real-life players. He gravitated toward baseball and hockey players, though the hockey ones were harder to find.
I tossed and turned all night long trying not to think of Graham and his purpose for being here. Maybe he’d run off after I jumped out of the booth yesterday and told him to go home. That there wasn’t anything for him there.
Unlikely. Graham giving up on something wasn’t a strength he possessed.
“Park!” Jonah slapped his book closed and jumped off the kitchen chair. It scraped along the tiled floor, but his feet thundering to the front door made the screeching sound inconsequential.
I had the morning and afternoon off from the diner, but I would go in before the dinner rush and stay until we closed. Saturdays were our busiest days, and I couldn’t even stay hidden back in the office working on payroll and scheduling and ordering. It was also the day I insisted Caroline take off, so while our morning workers could handle breakfast and lunch without me, one of us had to be there for dinner and beyond.
Thank God for Emma and Annie. They were lifesavers. Heading into their junior year of high school, they begged for as many hours as possible to save up for college tuition, and Caroline and I quickly complied. Fortunately, the summer weather had been perfect for tourists, and we’d had a steady stream of locals with a slight uptick in visitors. I attributed that to my recent foray into strengthening our social media presence and working with the city to get our name out there more with marketing fliers and catalogs that got sent out all over the state.
The old adage was true: you had to spend money to make money, but I’d done most of it with very little upfront cost.
I was seeing it on the back end, though, for certain.
All things that I could think of at work, and not while I was spending the beginning of my day with Jonah.
“Neighborhood park or city park?” I asked and slipped into my knockoff Birkenstock sandals.
“City! ’Cause then we can get ice cream after and run through the splash pad.”
“Sounds like a perfect plan. Maybe we can invite Ella and June?”
Ella and June were Cole and Trina’s daughters. Ella was his age, although in a different classroom at school, and June was a year behind. They were all young enough that it didn’t matter to Jonah that most of his friends were girls.
“Yes!” He was tugging on his tennis shoes at the door to the garage, and his little brows puckered. “Does Mr. Robbie have kids at his house?”
Robbie and Ashley were friends with Cole and Trina, so I also knew them well. They were also foster parents, so while they had a few long-term placement children in their home, they occasionally had short-term ones.
“I haven’t heard,” I told him. “And Carlie and Addison are probably too old or busy.”
At twelve and fourteen, they’d been with Robbie and Sarah the longest. Sarah desperately wanted to adopt them, but their mom kept making the minimal effort with long stretches of absences in between, so the courts kept hesitating to allow the adoption to go through. Due to my own issues with my parents, especially my mom, I’d been able to relate to the girls when I first met them.
“Maybe they can watch me later.”
“We’ll see. I don’t have any plans tonight.” Babysitters were an expense my budget didn’t always allow for.
“Fine.” He slapped down the Velcro on his last shoe and jumped to his feet. “Last one to the truck is a rotten egg!”
The door slammed shut behind him right before the quiet hum of our garage door opening kicked on.
I pressed the lock button on my key fob and hoped it worked before I followed him outside. I had nothing wrong with letting Jonah win occasionally, but I’d always win this game no matter how many times he tried to win by closing the door in my face.
“Hey!” he shouted at me, laughing while he tugged on the door handle. “Unfair!”
I ruffled his hair as I scooted by him. “So was closing the door. Second try. You ready?”
I stood at my side of the Pilot, key fob in the air, other hand raised in the air. “Hands up, kiddo, lemme see ’em.” Once he did, I grinned at him. “Last one to buckle is the rotten egg, got it?”
He nodded seriously. “Yup.”
I hit the unlock button, and we both dove to the handle and into our seats. My purse got caught in the door, losing precious nanoseconds, and Jonah’s click and then squeal erupted through the back seat. “I win! You stink, Mommy!”
“Yeah, yeah.” I laughed. “I stink.”
“Pee-you!” He pinched his nose together and scrunched up his face. “Guh-ross.”
Laughing, I started the SUV, backed out, and once the garage door was closed, we headed off to town, where I’d spent the day with Jonah, thinking about him and playing and getting ice cream and doing all the things he thought were cool to do with his mom before taking him to see Paul for a while.
And I wouldn’t spend a single second thinking of Graham. Or that he was in town, probably looking for me. Tracey had been right last night.
Until I knew what I wanted, or what I hoped for in having him around, I intended to avoid him at all costs.