“Really?” I was flabbergasted. Sarah, the queen of giving out a fake phone number after the one-night stand.
“Really. And I think he might feel the same way.” She was quick to add, “But who knows? You can’t tell with vacation flings.”
I nodded, playing along. “Yeah, I mean they never go anywhere.”
We fell asleep with the TV still on, knowing that we would part the next day and go back to reality. That was okay; I was ready for it.
Chapter 20
When I arrived home, I hugged the girls with ferocity. The trip had worked wonders for my state of mind, but I frequently felt incomplete, as if I’d lost an arm or a leg. Holding my girls, I realized that Leah and Hannah filled that void. While I had enjoyed the long, hot showers and the selfish indulgence of alcohol and rich food, I wouldn’t trade lives with Sarah for anything. I breathed in the girls’ strawberry hair. They always smelled like candy, even when they’d gone days without a bath, as if innocent sweetness wafted out of their pores. Mom said Leah had cried because she missed me, but had slept well all three nights. Amazing.
Hannah held my hand for the majority of the evening, as though the simple gesture could anchor me and keep me from leaving her again. After I put Leah to bed, Hannah and I sat on the couch. She informed me that Annie was no longer her best friend because Pop-pop was and that she liked spaghetti.
I expressed surprise at both admissions, and Hannah said gravely, “Mommy, things change when you’re not here.”
“I guess they do!” I tried not to smile. “I won’t go away again for a long time, okay?”
“Did you go and try to find Daddy again?”
I had a stab of guilt. When I flew out there, that had been my intention. After my stranger chase through the streets of San Diego, the need to do the Greg Barnes tour had died. I decided to lie, thinking that alternate explanations would be too complicated. “I did look for Daddy. But I didn’t find him.”
Hannah absorbed that for a moment. “Do you think we’ll ever find him?”
“I don’t know.”
She sagged against me briefly, and then in the way only a four-year-old can recover, she bolted upright. “Oh! I know what I forgot! I forgot to tell you that I want another puppy!”
“You do?”
“Yup, I just decided when you were away. Can we?”
The time had come for everyone to move on. I didn’t have the heart to say no outright, but I was just starting to feel on my feet again. Dogs meant training and walks and things I wasn’t sure I could keep up with. Yet. “What if we could get a cat instead? I think that would be nice, Hannah. We’ll go to the ASPCA and adopt a cat that needs a home. What do you think?”
“Would he be a kitten? Like a baby?”
“Probably not. But that’s okay. We’ll give a cat a home when he doesn’t have one. It’s better than getting a kitten.”
After a moment, she nodded. “Then he’ll have a family. He’ll have us, right?” Her big brown eyes, mirror images of Greg’s, implored mine, seemingly desperate to get the right answer.
“Yes, he’ll have us.” I pulled her to me, and for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, kissed her head, smoothing her hair.
With my newfound resolve and my self-proclaimed “awakening,” I viewed my house with a critical eye. When had things gone to pot? I realized we’d gone the entire winter with the screens in the doors, as Greg hadn’t been there to replace them with storm windows. The back door where Cody had scratched his way out remained ripped. The gutters had clogged because Greg hadn’t been around to clean them out in November after the trees shed their leaves. The winter hadn’t been kind, and the blocked gutters had collected water, which had frozen, and because of the weight, the gutters sagged in places, straining their brackets. I wondered if I would stay in the house, with the big yard and all the work, if it remained just me. There were tough decisions in my future.
For the time being, I needed to get control over my home and learn how to do the things Greg had done. I watched a YouTube video on screen replacement, made a trip to Home Depot to pick up new mesh, and rescreened the patio door. That job took me half of a Saturday. Dad called twice to see if I needed any help, but I declined his offer. I borrowed a ladder from Pastor Joe because the one I found in the barn seemed rickety, and while Greg might have kept on using it, I wasn’t about to break my leg or worse.