46. I Stopped
I Stopped
Zoe
‘Good morning, sweet girl.’
Grandma smiles at me from her position at the table, a stack of pancakes and a plate of fruit in the middle, ready for breakfast. I don’t feel like eating, but I know she won’t give me a choice.
‘Well, I told you to sleep on it, and you have, twice, so, have you figured it out yet?’
‘Grandma, what do you want me to say that I haven’t said already?’
She huffs, frustrated, and stands, then walks out of the room, and I grab a pancake from the stack.
‘Take a look at this.’ She dumps a book on the table in front of me.
‘What the…’
‘Your birthday book. You wrote in it on your birthday every year until you were seventeen. You were supposed to do it until eighteen, but you went and got yourself hitched, and coming to see your old Grandma wasn’t a priority that year.’
‘Grandma.’
‘I’m over it, Zoe, but I’m done letting you waste your life.’ I snap my gaze up to hers. ‘You made Luke a promise, but you haven’t been living — you’ve been existing. There’s a difference. Now look at the damn book and tell me again that you have everything you ever dreamed of.’
She grabs her plate, throws three pancakes onto it, and, snatching the bottle of syrup, stomps out to the porch.
I stare in her direction for a minute, shocked, before turning my attention to the book in my hand.
We all have one of these: Doug, Bree, and I. Grandma loved getting them out each year to fill them in.
I open the book.
Name: Zoe Addison Campbell . I read the words written in Grandma’s handwriting.
Age: 1 .
I look down at the tiny little handprint and smile, but I know I’m not going to find what she wants me to find at age one.
I flip a few pages forward.
Age: 5.
What do you want to be when you grow up: Esplora.
Esplora? What the heck is that? She really should have continued filling it in for us. I turn the page.
Age: 6.
What do you want to be when you grow up: An explora.
Esplora… explora… explorer. I smile down at the page and run my thumb over my handwriting.
Age: 10.
What do you want to be when you grow up: I want to travel the whole world!
I swallow hard.
Age: 12.
What do you want to be when you grow up: I want to see the world and discover new places that nobody ever went to before.
I remember writing this. I’d forgotten all about the birthday book, but now, I remember.
Age: 14.
What do you want to be when you grow up: I don’t know what I want to do for a job, but I want to travel.
Age: 15.
What do you want to be when you grow up: When I graduate high school, I’m going to travel to California, stopping at all the places I want to see, then I’ll travel the world from there. I don’t know what I’ll do for a job, but I’ll see the whole world.
Age: 16.
What do you want to be when you grow up: Luke and I want to buy a house and have two kids, so I’ll be a mom and a wife.
Age: 17.
What do you want to be when you grow up: I don’t know.
I gasp and inhale. I stopped dreaming.
‘ Grandma, ’ I call out as panic hits me. ‘I stopped,’ I cry as her arms wrap around me. ‘I stopped dreaming for me.’
‘Yes, sweetheart, you did.’
She holds me as I cry, and when I calm down, we sit on the porch, letting the morning sun burn the fall chill from our skin.
‘You always wanted to travel,’ she says softly as I silently accept the truth I had blocked out. ‘Even as a little kid.’ She chuckles at a memory. ‘The other little girls were putting on tiaras and having pretend weddings to their prince charming, and you were putting on a deerstalker and hiding in the bushes with a nature discovery kit. Bree was making the boys pretend to commit crimes so she could chase and arrest them.’
Grandma laughs, and I can’t help but do the same. Bree always wanted to be a cop, never strayed from that dream, and made it her reality.
‘Not many five-year-olds grow up to be what they wanted to be,’ I say softly.
‘No, well, you stopped being so bothered about finding undiscovered species of bug and more interested in seeing the world. You remember when you asked me to buy you a world map for your wall?’ I nod. I do. ‘You would sit and read books about all these different countries, sticking a pin in the map every time you read about somewhere you wanted to visit.’
I remember the map on my wall. I can’t remember taking it down.
‘Luke came from a different world to you.’
I swallow hard. I knew we’d get to Luke. I just don’t know if I want to hear it.
‘He needed stability, Zoe. Buck and Leo offered him a real home, Forest Falls offered him safety, and he held onto that with both hands. He wanted the safe, stable, small-town life because where he’d come from was the total opposite of that. He fell in love with you, and you fell in love right back, and, well, young hearts do strange things. Trust me, I was married at eighteen, too, so I get it.’
‘I really loved him, Grandma. It wasn’t just puppy love.’
‘I know, honey, but here’s the thing about you. You live to take care of people and make them feel better. You take care of Bowie, your mama, and you look out for Doug and Bree, Cara too now. You take care of that whole damn town any time they’ll let you. Luke needed love, stability, and safety, so you gave up what you wanted to give him that. He wanted to get married, so you got married. He wanted to buy a house, so you saved to buy a house. He wanted kids, and you started trying to have a baby before you were ready. You always wanted to be a mother, Zoe, but you wanted adventure, you wanted to see the world, you put all that aside to apease Luke.’
‘Are you saying that I just wanted to take care of him?’
‘Not just , but you wanted to give him what he needed, even at the cost of what you needed. I loved Luke, Zoe. He was a good man who adored you, but when he died, I hoped eventually you would realize how much of you had been pushed aside.’
‘Grandma.’
‘Growing old in Forest Falls was never your dream, baby. The perfect little small town life, the house with the the neat yard and picket fence — that was never your dream — those things were Luke’s dream. The bar was never your dream — that was your dad’s dream. You loved them and mourned them so deeply that you refused to let their dreams die with them. So you took those dreams and you made them yours, but what about your dreams, Zoe?’ I inhale shakily as she reaches for my hand. ‘What happened to that little girl who wanted to see the world?’
‘I don’t know, Grandma. I don’t know if she’s still in there.’
‘Leo does,’ I snap my gaze to her, and she smiles softly. ‘He always did, sweetheart. That boy would walk to the ends of the earth if he thought it would put a smile on your face.’
‘Why did nobody tell me?’ I ask softly. ‘You, Bree, Mama even. You all seemed to know how he felt, but nobody told me.’
‘Would it have made a difference if you’d known? You were with Luke from such a young age. It just would have made things complicated. We let him have his secret, for all your sakes.’
‘I love him, Grandma.’
‘I know, baby.’
‘I loved Luke.’
‘I know that too.’
I take a deep breath and blow it out.
‘Do you know when I stopped thinking about traveling? I don’t remember. I know I had that map on my wall, but I don’t remember ever taking it down.’
‘It was around the time Luke’s mom came to town.’ I feel the frown tighten my brow. ‘You were so scared she was going to take him away, and then, instead, it was even worse when she said she wasn’t.’
I remember now. His mom didn’t come to take him home. She came to tell him she was handing guardianship to Buck. Luke didn’t want to leave town, but he wanted his mom to want him. He was heartbroken and became convinced everyone was going to leave him eventually.
‘He was scared I would leave.’
He never asked me to stay. He never asked me to give up my dreams, but he never wanted to leave Forest Falls, so I chose him. I took down my map, and I made a promise to myself to always be his safe, his secure.
‘What do you want, Zoe? Don’t think, just answer. What do you want?’
I turn my attention up to the sky, then close my eyes, inhaling deeply and blowing it out, one breath at a time.
‘I want to go with Leo.’
‘Because he wants you to?’
‘No.’ The speed of my answer surprises me. ‘No. Because I want to go. When I found out about California, I was hurt that he hadn’t told me, and then I was so proud and excited for him and this huge opportunity, but I was jealous. I was jealous that he could say yes, that he could go and see these places that he visits, doing what he loves.’ I laugh. ‘That is so dumb, right? I was jealous, but I still said no.’
‘What is the obstacle?’ Grandma shrugs like she already knows she’s going to have an answer for whatever I say.
‘The bar.’
‘Get a manager. Next?’
‘My house and my mortgage. I can’t pay myself like I would if I’m not working and paying a manager.’
‘Well, you know Cara did say Missy was looking for a place to rent in Forest Falls.’
My eyes widen, and she smirks.
‘Next.’ Her arched eyebrow makes me laugh.
‘Grandma.’
‘Come on, baby, we’re on a roll.’
‘Bowie.’
‘Facetime, next?’
‘Oh my god.’
‘You got nothin’.’
‘No, I got nothin’.’
‘Then I guess you’re going to California.’
‘Oh my god.’ Am I really doing this? ‘I have to call him.’
‘Yes, you do.’ She chuckles. ‘Go on, sweetheart.’