I jerked out of my reverie at Alyssa’s question.
She, Josie and me were sitting together having lunch at Weatherby’s. It was two days after Christmas. Mickey and his kids were returning the next day. My kids had ended their rift with their father and went to him the afternoon of Christmas day (as was his turn) and with my blessing had been staying with him since.
So I had been suddenly and unusually alone.
Alone enough to finally come to terms with what was happening.
The last real conversation I’d had with my guy, he’d shared that if what we “went the distance” he was moving his family into Cliff Blue with me.
But it bore repeating, that was the last real conversation I’d had with my guy.
He’d been gone for a week in Phoenix with his kids but even before he left, he had removed himself from me.
And after he left, I heard more from Cillian and Ash than I did from Mickey, not only through their constant communications with my kids via texts and calls, but directly to me (via mostly texts).
All I got from Mickey was such as, “Phoenix is great,” and “Cill kicked it in the flight simulator,” and “Yeah, I know we need to plan our Christmas thing. We’ll talk about it when we get back.”
There were no, “You’d love it here,” or “You should have seen Cill in that flight simulator,” or “Can’t wait to have our thing, baby, love you.”
In fact, there were no “love yous” at all.
I said it when we were disconnecting and his reply would be, “Yeah. Same.”
Yeah. Same.
He was pulling away and I had no idea why.
I focused on Alyssa. “I think Mickey’s gonna break up with me.”
“What?” she shrieked and I saw heads turn and this was probably because Josie added her own unusually loud, “Pardon me?”
“Shh,” I hissed, leaning into the table to do it.
Alyssa, across from Josie and me, leaned back and Josie leaned toward me.
“What?” she repeated.
“He’s pulling away from me,” I told them.
“As it might feel, Amelia,” Josie stated. “He’s an entire continent away.”
“He hasn’t said ‘I love you’ in nearly two weeks.”
“Fuck,” Alyssa muttered.
She got it.
Josie didn’t.
“He may be in company and not desirous of sharing this depth of emotion in front of his friends. You did say they were staying with someone he grew up with, a man who’s a fighter pilot in the armed services, thus a man’s man and with both, his friend might tease him about such things. Perhaps he feels private sentiments should remain private and he hasn’t had a chance to gain that privacy.”
“That would include before he was with his friend Chopper and his family,” I told her.
Her eyes slid to Alyssa, which meant she had no reply to that.
“We talk…about everything,” I shared. “We call each other all the time. We touch base. We keep in the know. He’s hardly calling me at all.”
Josie looked back to me. “He is on vacation, honey.”
“That isn’t Mickey,” I whispered.
She sat back and her pretty blue eyes turned worried.
I pressed my lips together to stop myself from crying.
When I succeeded in this endeavor, I told them, “No matter what, for months, we talk before we go to sleep. We haven’t done that since he left. I asked him about it, him being away, and he says it’s the time difference.”
“They are hours behind us,” Josie said gently. “They could be busy.”
“You love a bitch, you find the time,” Alyssa snapped.
I looked at her.
Oh yes. She got it.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said.
“I don’t either,” Alyssa returned. “But you should call his ass on it and set up a meet to find out what’s up his ass the minute he gets back.”
Confronting Mickey Donovan. Not high on the things I found exciting.
No, I did find it exciting because that was our thing.
I just didn’t find it exciting now if, in doing it, he broke up with me.
“If he’s done, he’s going to be done,” I said, sitting back, shoulders slumping. “He’s Mickey.”
“He owes you an explanation,” Alyssa retorted.
He did.
I just wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
My eyes drifted to the salad I’d barely touched.
Since we got together, nothing, not anything, not in all that had happened gave indication that this wasn’t heading to something real. Something permanent. Something forever.
Mickey giving me a happy life and more importantly, me having the opportunity to give the same to Mickey.
There had been extreme craziness, the kind that could tear people apart, and it had all ironed out. Alcoholic ex-wives. Dirtbag ex-husbands. Troubled kids. Crappy jobs.
Heck, Mickey’s business was all set to go. He had two big jobs lined up to start on his return (contracting work, which was more money) and he was quitting Ralph his first day back to work.
I couldn’t imagine what had gone wrong.
Except in all that goodness, I was still me.
Boring Amelia Hathaway, no job, no drive, no ambition, spending her time baking and decorating and volunteering at an old folks’ home.
“Amelia,” Josie called.
I glanced her way, mumbling, “I’m not hungry. Do you mind if I take off?”
“Think you should stick with your girls, baby,” Alyssa told me gently.
I looked to her. “You have to get back to work and so does Josie.”
I, however, did not. It was one of the few days I didn’t go to Dove House.
With my kids at Conrad’s, I had exactly nothing to do.
“I’ll juggle an appointment,” Alyssa offered.
“I make my own hours, Amelia,” Josie reminded me.
I shook my head, digging in my purse at my side to pull out some bills. I took out a lot of them and threw them on the table.
“Lunch on me,” I said, not looking at either of them and sliding out of the booth.
“Amelia, stay,” Josie cajoled as I grabbed my jacket off the hook that was on a high bar that led up from the end of each booth.
I looked to her. “Really, I just need some alone time to think.”
“Babe, you should—” Alyssa started.
“Later,” I interrupted her, and pulling on my coat while juggling my bag, I made my escape.
I went to my house, walked in from the garage and stopped by the glorious dining room table on top of which, weeks before, Mickey had fucked me.
Then right there, he’d told me he loved me.
There were no used pop cans or cake plates with crumbs or cookie tins with the top askew along with no kids at my bar.
There was a fabulous chaise lounge with standing lamp and a table on a magnificent rug on the landing by the windows, this courtesy of a good find by Josie’s interior designer.
The space was huge.
Huge and beautiful.
Huge and cold and empty.
And I found myself standing there, staring at the beauty I created, thinking that I hoped when my kids went to college that they did it far away and never came back to Magdalene.