Chapter 55 Hope #2
“Adorable. She brought them in last week. They were wearing the costumes from their ballet recital. And Zoey lost another tooth.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. They’re growing up so fast.”
And I was missing it. I was as crazy about those girls as I was about their father. The empty spot that had ached in my chest ever since I’d left felt like a fresh wound.
“Jillian came back for a long weekend,” Kirsten continued. “And guess what—she’s met someone in Atlanta.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Apparently it’s pretty hot and heavy. She sold her house, and he’s coming with her to the closing next month to meet Peggy and Griff and the girls.”
“Wow.” Jillian was in a relationship—and she, too, was selling a house. “Sounds like a real estate boom in Wedding Tree.”
“It is. That new software business has started moving here. Apparently the founder lived here for a few years when he was a teenager, and he’s decided to move back.”
“I remember Lauren said about a hundred employees would be moving to town.”
“Yeah. It’s not huge, but it’s big for a town the size of Wedding Tree.”
We talked some more, and then I hung up. Something inside, some gnarly little weed of emotion that I thought was dead and gone, oozed some bitter juice. It took me a moment to identify the taste. When I did, a zing of shame shot through me.
Jealousy. I was jealous.
Of Jillian?
No. Not Jillian. I was actually happy for her. It was about time she got beyond the shadow of her sister.
So who, then?
All the new people moving to Wedding Tree, I realized. I was jealous that they got to live there, while I had to live here.
“Whoa, girl,” I muttered to myself. “What’s going on?” A coworker walked by and gazed in curiously. I fiddled with my phone, pretending I was talking into it. I was losing it, talking aloud to myself. I gathered up my things, headed to my apartment, and phoned Gran.
“I just realized I’m jealous of the people moving to Wedding Tree while I’m stuck in Chicago,” I blurted.
“Who said you’re stuck in Chicago?” she asked.
“This is a wonderful opportunity that will never come my way again.”
“Sounds like you’re reciting a line from a script. How can it be wonderful if you don’t really want it?”
That made me pause. “But I should want it.”
“Should is the most useless word in the English language. What would you rather be doing?”
“Painting murals and living in Wedding Tree.”
“Well, then, there’s your answer.”
“But . . . Matt asked me to stay, and I’m afraid that’s influencing why I want to be there. And I don’t want to build my life around a man.”
“Seems to me you already did,” Gran said mildly.
“What?”
“Well, if you’re not doing what you really want to do because you’re avoiding Matt, you have built your life around him.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Yes, it is. But that’s exactly what you’re doing, isn’t it?”
I stared out the window. Was it true? In trying to avoid the very thing I swore I’d never do again—compromise my career for a man—had I gone and done it?
Oh, fudgeruckers. I had! For an entirely different reason, to be sure, but it still had the same result.
Even worse, I’d made a career decision based on the opinions of others.
I’d taken a job I didn’t really want because everyone said it was too good to turn down—but who the heck was everyone?
Courtney? My old friends from college? People I didn’t know or really like in the art world? People like my ex?
Was I still trying to prove I was somehow good enough?
My eyes filled with tears. A moment later, my chest filled with a sense of giddy optimism. So . . . if I didn’t really want the job, and I didn’t really want to live in Chicago, and I did want to live in Wedding Tree, well, then, what the hell was I doing here?
“Listen to your heart, honey,” Gran said.
I clutched the phone tightly against my ear. “How do I know it’s my heart talking, Gran, and not fear or insecurity or neediness?”
“It’ll tug at you. It’ll pull and pull like a fishing line when the bobber goes under.
But you’ve got to get rid of the deadweight that’s got you snagged—all that guilt and anger and fear—before you can fully feel it.
You’ve got to forgive everyone who’s ever hurt you, and most of all, you have to forgive yourself.
Pack it in a suitcase and send it on its way. ”
I hung up the phone with Gran and paced around my apartment. I needed to forgive my ex—and I needed to forgive myself. I needed to let the past go.
And all of a sudden, it hit me: I could. I’d been feeling like a victim and a loser. I’d been feeling so guilty for having the bad judgment of marrying my ex and losing Mom’s inheritance that I’d lost all faith in myself.
I’d made a mistake, yes, but I’d corrected it, and I’d made lots of good decisions since then.
Going to Wedding Tree, helping Gran, making new friends—even falling for a stand-up, good-hearted, grounded man like Matt.
All of those things were good decisions, decisions that more truly reflected who I really was.
I could forgive myself. And as for my ex—well, he was the one who’d ultimately lost. Yes, he’d used me and run through my money, but it hadn’t made him rich, and it sure hadn’t made him happy.
The rumor mill had it that he was courting a wealthy woman nearly twice his age.
When it came to the things that really counted in life, he was dirt-poor. He was to be pitied.
And so was I, if I stayed here in a life I didn’t want.
Right then and there, I felt as if I’d put down a backpack full of rocks. The room felt brighter. “Thank you,” I whispered, although I wasn’t sure if I was talking to God, or Gran, or maybe myself.
No. I was sure.
I was talking to all three.