Chapter Twenty
You are enough. You are so enough. It’s unbelievable how enough you are.
—Sierra Boggess
There was a growing restlessness in Hollis’s chest.
Whenever things felt too good to be true, he typically found himself worried that he’d suddenly wake one day and realize it was just a dream. It didn’t take a psychologist to understand why.
When something good happened, he was wired to think that he’d get double the disappointment as his penance for the momentary joy. Sometimes triple. He’d tried to work through this belief system. If he worked hard, he was rewarded with success.
Even though Hollis had turned down Pop’s offer, he’d been chewing on the prospect in the back of his mind.
He wanted nothing more than to continue maintaining the trees and running Pop’s business during Christmases to come.
During the off seasons, he could foster and train dogs.
There was so much he could do with a property of this magnitude.
Pop’s offer was everything he could possibly hope for, and more.
Well, there was one more thing that would make his life next to perfect.
Mallory. He’d always assumed she was out of his league, but here they were, and the attraction was mutual.
They liked the same things, got along well, and could talk for hours and never run out of things to discuss.
Every time he saw her, she got prettier in his eyes.
Even at the end of rehearsal, when she had her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail.
Actually, that was when she was the prettiest.
When Hollis had imagined what love would be and feel like, this was exactly what he’d envisioned. His thoughts stumbled over themselves, coming to a sudden stop. Love?
Hollis scratched the back of his head, feeling that restless energy grow inside him again. The problem with allowing yourself to have feelings like love was that the more you cared about someone, the harder it hit when they decided they no longer cared.
Hollis’s very first memory was of watching the taillights of his father’s truck drive away, leaving Hollis at the boys home when he was six years old.
The taillights were bright at first, and then they dimmed and burned out.
Hollis remembered seeing a firefly flash in the distance.
In a split second, his heart lifted with the tiniest glimmer of hope, because he thought his father had changed his mind and was coming back for him.
For that moment, he thought his father had decided that Hollis was, in fact, a good boy, worthy of his love.
The fireflies lit up and went out, lit up and went out, and Hollis had the painful realization that it was just his imagination playing cruel tricks. His heart doing the same.
Hollis didn’t want to be the guy who was too afraid to have dreams and chase the happy ending. Some of the boys he’d been in foster care with had ended up in jail over the years. Some of them were divorced several times over.
And a few actually got it through their thick skulls that they were never at fault. They had never done anything wrong. They weren’t bad boys. Just boys who had desperately needed love.
There was that L-word again. Hollis was one of the lucky ones, who’d found a family with Matt and Sandy. And Pop.
“I don’t care about what you’ve done,” Matt had said when Hollis was seventeen and fresh out of juvenile lockup for the fifth time. “I really don’t. All I care about,” Matt had told Hollis, “is what you’re going to do now. You have a choice.”
Matt waited for a long beat as Hollis wordlessly debated what Matt meant.
What choice did he have? Did he have a choice about staying with Matt and Sandy or going to live somewhere else?
Did he have a choice about doing something else and getting tossed back in juvenile detention?
He was nearly eighteen. Getting locked up again probably meant prison.
Matt nodded to himself, as if Hollis had asked the questions out loud.
“You have a choice about what kind of man you’re going to be.
In four months, you’ll be a legal adult.
The boy that you were and have been will be gone.
You’ll be a man, and as a man, there are different paths you can take.
Actually,” Matt corrected himself, “there are only two paths. You can go down the straight and narrow path or you can choose the path that leads to trouble. Misery. You can choose to hang out with the wrong crowd, the kind that gets you in trouble. The kind that pulls you down. Or you can choose to be a real man, something your birth father wasn’t. ”
Those were fighting words. Hollis remembered this ball of fury gathering inside his chest like a small hurricane.
Every muscle in his body tensed. The muscles in his jaw bunched and his teeth gritted as he held back all kinds of things that he wanted to spew at his new foster parent.
He held back though, because he was scared and had nowhere else to go.
“I didn’t know your dad personally, of course,” Matt told Hollis.
“But a man doesn’t leave his child. A man makes mistakes but not by choice.
There’s a difference, you see,” Matt said.
“Everyone makes mistakes, but when you know better, you do better. And if you don’t, that’s a choice.
Hollis, I’m not just offering you a chance to live with me and Sandy until you’re eighteen.
I’m offering you a seat at our dinner table.
A job with the crew. A second chance.” Matt shook his head.
“I don’t give free rides though. A man works for the roof over his head.
He works for the food on his plate. A man works, and he works hard. ”
Hollis was still quiet. His anger had fizzled out, and he was just confused. Lost.
“Take your time,” Matt told him that day. “The offer isn’t going anywhere tonight. Just know you have a choice. Life isn’t about what was done to you; it’s about what you make of it.”
The truth and wisdom in those words seeped in over the following week, and he realized the gift that he was being handed.
Since that time, all those years ago, Hollis had been working on Matt’s construction crew.
He worked hard, like Matt said, and earned his own place.
He supported himself and worked on himself.
Once again, Hollis was at a fork in the road, facing two paths. How had the right one when he was almost eighteen suddenly become the wrong one at almost thirty?
“Deep thoughts there, buddy?” Evan asked, making his presence known as he approached.
Hollis glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Usually you’re the guy that no one can sneak up on.” Evan stepped up right beside him. “Mr. Hypervigilance.”
Hollis shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “Matt’s retiring, and he wants me to run the construction company, starting early next year.”
Evan didn’t pat Hollis’s back. That’s because Evan understood the dilemma. “Okay.”
“There’s more.” Hollis blew out a heavy breath. “And Pop offered to hand over the tree farm to me.”
This time, there was a response from Evan. His eyes widened and his jaw went slack. “Whoa! What do you mean by that?”
Hollis faced his friend. “Pop offered me the farm. Not just to run it during the holidays or to stay in his house. He offered to sign over the land to run the tree farm and use the land as I see fit. I could take in more rescue dogs. I could train them and run events through the barn.”
“That’s amazing!” Evan looked around, admiring the landscape. “I don’t get it, bud. Why aren’t you jumping up and down right now? Why the long face?”
“As much as I’d love to, this land isn’t mine. After all Matt has done for me, I can’t just take his birthright.”
The joy slowly faded from Evan’s expression.
There. There was the too-good-to-be-true moment being realized.
“I see,” Evan finally said, turning his attention to the trees as the cool air blew around them, rustling leaves and branches. “Matt doesn’t want to run this farm though.”
“Right. Matt wants to level the land and, in his retirement, he wants me to expand the construction company.” Hollis blew out a breath. “I can’t choose one family business over the other. It’s not even my family.”
“Wrong. You’re their family. And Pop offered the farm to you because he knows you’ll value what’s he built. You’ll protect it. Pop trusts you.”
“Matt trusts me too.” The stress of the situation made Hollis want to pull his hair out. “You’re my best friend. That’s why I called you. I need you to talk some sense into me.”
“Here I thought we were going to discuss your love life,” Evan said.
Hollis chuckled, even though there was nothing funny about any of this. “What would you do?”
Evan pushed his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels.
“It was hard when June came to live with me after her mom passed. June wanted to live with her grandma on the West Coast. Her grandma wanted her to live there too. Some part of me wondered if a good man would let his daughter go where her heart wanted to be. If I was a bad man for keeping her with me. Another part told me that a good man would care for his daughter.”
“Of course,” Hollis said.
“What I realized is there is no black and white. It’s all gray. A good man weighs his choices and does what he thinks is best, hurting as few people as possible in the process.”
Hollis shook his head. “People are hurt either way.” He kicked the dirt at his feet. “I guess the path forward is the one that hurts me and not them.”
“Being the martyr is never the answer.” Evan patted his back. “Leveling the tree farm is absurd. You love the farm the same way Pop does. And it’ll allow you to take in the dogs. Matt will understand. Just sit down and talk it out.”
Hollis shrugged. Talking to Matt was definitely the right thing to do, but disappointing or upsetting Matt was the last thing he ever wanted. “You thought we were going to discuss Mal and me, huh?”