After losing her job and her girlfriend, it's time for Annie Abraham to admit defeat and move back in with her parents. She has hardly been back to her tiny Montana hometown since the unforgettable summer before her senior year of college, when she...
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That went better than I thought it would.
I thought Laurel would shoot me down, for sure. I thought she would tell me it's been too long, we were never that serious, she doesn't feel the same. I thought she'd be more insistent about the weight of her baggage. I'm not put off by her kids. I wasn't expecting there to be another one, sure, but she'll have to try a lot harder than that to put me off.
I didn't mean to put it all on the table like that. My intention was to play it cool, to see where her head was at, to nose around until I could tell if she was remotely into me. Instead I scooped my heart right out of my chest and thrust it into her hands and she could have thrown it back at me, but she didn't. She tucked it into her pocket and now warmth floods the space my chest.
Today may not have been a date, more of a reconnaissance, but tomorrow is, surely. She's willing to try again. Willing to take it slow, starting with dinner at her house while her kids are away. At least, the ones capable of forming memories.
I still know the way to Laurel's house. It's ingrained in my memory, the route across town to her cottage less than half a mile from here, a journey that takes me past my mom's work. I left my car - well, my dad's car, which I'm borrowing while he's away - in the lot behind her office earlier when there were no spaces on the street outside Cowboy.
im here come outside ive got something to show you, I text as I get close. Ava's still sleeping in the stroller as I carefully push her down the sidewalks that are starting to ice over as the temperature drops again. I turn the corner and catch my mom right as she's coming out of the law firm where she works as a legal secretary, wrapping her thick cardigan tighter around herself, the wind blowing her hatless hair.
"Surprise!" I call out, waving one gloved hand. "Found you a grandbaby!"
Mom gasps. "Annabelle! What the hell are you doing? Have you kidnapped a child just to make a joke?"
I grin at her. "Yeah. Was it worth it?"
Mom looks down at Ava, back up at me, at the lack of any parental figures running after me. Confusion is knitted into her brow. "I don't understand."
"Remember Laurel Jacobs? I used to babysit for her?"
"Of course." Mom hugs herself even closer. The weather's on the turn again, the sky thick and heavy and gray an hour and a half before the sun is due to officially set.
"She must've known I'd be coming back because she made sure to have another job for me."
"That's Laurel's baby?" Mom points at Ava.
"Yup."
"She had another baby? I had no idea."
"Because you don't integrate with your fellow townspeople," I say teasingly, pushing Ava back and forth so she doesn't wake up when her body realizes I'm standing still. My mom loves her own company; she's never minded that Dad works away from home so much because it means she can absorb herself in her hobbies and her dog and appreciate Dad even more when he's around.
