The days dragged by. My heart felt like it had cracked open and lay heavy in my chest, and the tears constantly threatened. I missed him so badly that most days I felt like I was underwater–looking at the world around me and wondering why I couldn’t connect, why everyone and everything was cloudy and distant, inaccessible.
I worried too–what was he doing? Where was he sleeping? How was he communicating with those he needed to communicate with? Was he scared? I tried to turn that off as it was one of the reasons he’d left. He felt like less of a man because he depended on me for so much in the outside world. He hadn’t said that exactly, but I knew it was true. He didn’t want to feel like I was his mother, but rather that he was my equal, my protector, the one I depended on sometimes.
I understood. It still broke my heart that leaving me was his solution to that problem. Would he come back? When? And when and if he did, would he still love me?
I didn’t know. But I’d wait. I’d wait forever if I had to. I had told him I’d never leave him and I wouldn’t. I’d be here when he got back.
I worked, I visited Anne who was recovering quickly, I walked along the lake, I kept Archer’s house clean and dusted, and I missed him. My days inched along, one rolling blankly into the next.
The town had gossiped fervently for a while and from what I had caught wind of, once it was revealed, no one was too surprised that Archer was Connor’s son too. People speculated about whether Archer would come back and demand to take what was rightfully his, or whether he would come back at all. But I didn’t care about any of that. I just wanted him.
Surprisingly, after the day of the parade, there had been radio silence from Victoria Hale. I thought distantly that maybe that should be worrisome–she didn’t seem like the type of woman to lie down quietly and accept losing–but I was hurting too badly to do anything active about it. Perhaps she just believed that Archer was no threat to her. And maybe he wasn’t. My heart ached.
Travis tried to talk to me several times after the day of the parade, but I was short with him and, thankfully, he didn’t push it. I didn’t hate him, but he had missed so many opportunities to be a better person when it came to Archer. Instead he’d chosen to belittle someone who was already struggling in so many ways. I’d never have any respect for him. He was Archer’s brother in name only.
Fall turned to winter. The vibrantly colored leaves withered and fell off the trees, the temperature dropped dramatically, and the lake froze over.
One day in late November, several weeks after Archer had left, Maggie came up to me where I was restocking behind the counter and put her hand on my shoulder. ‘You planning on going home for Thanksgiving, Bree honey?’
I stood up and shook my head. ‘No. I’m staying here.’
Maggie looked at me sadly. ‘Honey, if he comes back while you’re gone, I’ll call you.’
I shook my head more vehemently. ‘No, I need to be here if he comes back.’
‘Okay, honey, okay,’ she’d said. ‘Well, then you’re coming to our house for Thanksgiving. Our daughter and her family will be in town. And Anne and her sister are coming over too. We’ll have a real nice time.’
I smiled at Maggie. ‘Okay, Maggie. Thank you.’
‘Good,’ she’d smiled, but somehow she still looked sad.
Norm sat down with me at the break table later that day when we were closing up and all the customers had gone, a piece of my pumpkin pie in front of him and took a big bite. ‘You make the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever had,’ he said, and I started crying right there at the break table because I knew that that was Norm’s way of telling me he loved me.
‘I love you, too!’ I sobbed out and Norm stood up, scowling. ‘Aw geez. Maggie!’ he called, ‘Bree needs you.’
Perhaps I was slightly over-emotional.
