As March gave way to April, as winter mellowed into spring, Dominic’s emails kept coming. Every night there was a new one despite the fact that I’d never once responded. And every night I read them all over again from the couch I’d moved back into my dad’s house from storage.
Call me a glutton for punishment. A masochist. A broken-hearted idiot. Take your pick.
My shattered heart bled for the boy who’d been charged with keeping a family together. But the man he’d grown into had done the aforementioned shattering. And while Dominic didn’t know much about sharing, I didn’t know much about forgiving.
I certainly hadn’t forgiven my mother for abandoning us, not to mention taking away my father’s financial security. I hadn’t forgiven the contractor for stealing my money. I hadn’t forgiven Front Desk Deena for taking joy in threatening me with my father’s eviction.
I didn’t know how to forgive. I knew how to move on. And that’s what I was doing.
The only communication Dominic received from me was a weekly check of whatever I could spare to go toward my debt to him. The bastard never cashed them.
Everything sucked. Every single thing.
In so many ways, I was back to the beginning. Back to BD: Before Dominic. I was back to waitressing and bartending gigs and avoiding Front Desk Deena. The only thing different was now I knew what it felt like to have Dominic Russo smile at me. Fuck me. Hold me.
It was a colossal, cosmic joke.
The nursing home came into view ahead, and I did my best to shove down my negativity. Dad didn’t deserve a visit from Gloomy Gail, spreader of depression and angst.
The side door was open—thank the gods of debt collector avoidance and health care workers who sneak outside for smoke breaks—so I let myself in and headed toward the memory ward.
Braden was on the phone at the desk and buzzed me in.
I waved and made a move for the hallway, but he stopped me with a finger in the air. “Yeah, she just walked in.”
Crap. Had Front Desk Deena spotted my surreptitious building breach? I made a frantic slashing motion over my throat. I didn’t have the money owed or the energy required for the woman.
Braden’s toothy grin confused me. “Yep. No problem,” he said, before hanging up.
“What?” I asked, grimly girding my loins for whatever shoe was about to drop on me.
“Relax,” he said. “It’s good. Really good.”
Yeah. I wasn’t falling for that.
“Oh, gee. Look at the time. I have to go,” I said, pantomiming a watch check on my naked wrist. My neck flared up as I pivoted for the door.
But there was a small crowd of people in scrubs coming through the door and blocking my exit. I already knew my dad’s window didn’t open far enough for a body—safety feature—plus it opened to the inside courtyard, and these were not my wall-scaling shoes.
I was trapped.
A nurse in pink heart scrubs handed me a Congratulations balloon. One with a French braid and librarian glasses shoved a cheery bunch of carnations at me. They were all smiling.
Clearly they had mistaken me for someone else.
“Ally Morales,” nursing supervisor Sandy said, stepping to the front of the little smile mob.
Okay. That was definitely my name.
“On behalf of everyone at Goodwin Childers Nursing Home—”
“Except for Deena,” someone coughed from the back.
“We’d like to congratulate you on being the first recipient of the Lady George Administration Memory Care Grant.”
She handed me a letter, and over the excited buzz, I managed to skim the gist of it.
Congratulations… the first recipient of the Lady George Administration Memory Care Grant… Delighted to inform you that your father’s long-term care expenses… covered in full for the next twelve months…
A piece of paper fluttered to the ground, and I bent to pick it up. It was a receipt for twelve months of care.
I couldn’t breathe, so I stayed where I was, head to knees, and sucked in air.
“How did this happen?” I wheezed.
“The foundation contacted us. We submitted your name for their approval process. And you won, Ally!”
Dad’s care was guaranteed for twelve months. That meant… everything.
I gave up on the whole breathing and standing thing and sank to the floor as an entire nursing staff cried with me.
Once I recovered a tiny bit of my dignity, after I hugged and wiped my nose on every single staff member there, I spent a joyful hour with Dad. He didn’t recognize me, but he was in a good mood and telling stories about his daughter Ally.
When he started asking what time his piano student was arriving, I decided it was time to head home to get ready for my serving shift.
My steps were lighter than they had been an hour ago. But as relieved as I felt over the unexpected answer to my prayers, my heart still ached.
I missed Dominic. And I hated that. It reminded me of how much I’d missed my mother that first year after she’d left. When I’d still had hope. I’d never really stopped missing the idea of having a mother. But every time the pang arose, it brought with it a bigger, meaner twinge of self-recrimination.
How could I miss someone who had so carelessly hurt me?
I was so busy feeling like crap that I almost walked right by the big house on the corner without my usual daydreaming. And today, I didn’t feel like daydreaming. I didn’t know if I even believed in happily ever afters like the walls of that house held.
As if to add insult to injury, an older couple appeared in the front window. They were locked in one hell of an embrace that didn’t look even remotely grandparenty.
Okay, fine. So happily ever afters existed. Just not for me. The jokester who said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved was a real jerk as far as I was concerned.
I turned my back on the happy scene and started down the block when my phone clunk-clanked inside my pocket.
I could just make out my real estate agent’s name on the dimly lit screen.
“Bill, hey,” I said.
“We’ve got a full-priced cash offer on the table, Ally,” Bill said in an excited rush.
I stopped in my tracks and shook my head to quiet the ringing in my ears. I was dreaming this whole day. I was going to wake up on my stupid twin bed and be devastated any moment now. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”
“Full-priced cash offer,” he said. “They want to close by the end of the week. I know it’s short notice, but—”
“Accept it. Oh my God. Accept it!” I said, dancing a circle on the sidewalk. Then I froze, a terrible thought stealing into my brain. “Wait a minute. Tell me the buyer isn’t Dominic Russo.”
“Who? No. It’s not even a person. It’s a trust. The buyer’s agent said the buyer fell in love with the house.”
“They did?” I whispered.
“Actually the email said fell in love in the house, but that was a typo. So you’re going to need to start packing.”
There wasn’t much to pack. A couch and a gym bag of dance clothes and work uniforms. The extent of my earthly possessions. But it was better to start fresh without a lot of baggage.
