She slumped into a chair and reached for her purse, which she’d slung over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. After rummaging through it and pulling out her cell phone, she looked at the missed call from Edmund from a few days ago. She hadn’t called him back. She’d completely forgotten about it.
Leaning back in the chair, she pressed his number and waited for the call to connect. As soon as she heard his voice, she began to cry.
* * *
Talking to Edmund had only made Julie feel worse than she had before the call. She’d called to give him comfort. But Edmund had ended up trying to comfort her, telling her that he’d always felt comfortable with her living in his mother’s home, and it had made it easier for him to live his life without worry.
She’d hung up the phone feeling lonely.
She’d left Margaret. Julie knew the old woman loved having her live in her house. Julie had been so preoccupied with her own angst over taking steps to come home that she hadn’t spent any time thinking of what it really meant to Margaret for her to be there.
Many elderly people lived lonely lives, but Julie hadn’t been Margaret’s only companionship. Margaret had liked her independence, such as it was with her use of a walker. She had a visiting nurse who regularly came to the house to visit and bring Margaret shopping or to have her hair done. A housekeeper came every two weeks to clean. Julie couldn’t remember her name because every time she’d asked Margaret she would tap her forehead with her fingers to let her know she’d drawn a blank on the name.
It had been Julie who had been lonely. Maybe Margaret had seen that in her. Now she really was alone. Caleb wasn’t coming back tonight. She couldn’t hear Margaret’s TV on in the bedroom as she used to do when she came home from a shift. The house was quiet. Being alone in a house and looking at your life staring back at you in every shadow was hard.
The walls were closing in on her. She’d seen it happen before. Many times. She needed to get out of the house, away from her surroundings. But where would she go? Take another drive? Caleb was with Katie over at the chapel house. She didn’t want to intrude on their time together. She’d been gone so long from Sweet that it seemed strange for her to just drop in on an old friend from high school.
Katie had been her closest friend at the end. She’d been the one she’d spent most of her time with. Were any of the other girls from school even still in town? She didn’t know. She knew where some of them used to live. But they may have moved on just as her parents had. Or they were married and living somewhere close by. But how would she know? She hadn’t had time to catch up with anyone and hadn’t wanted to stay in touch with anyone. Even her own family.
It was her fault. Dr. Matthews would be angry and proud of her for accepting it. Angry because it was a destructive thing she always did. She stayed alone. But she’d be proud that Julie had recognized it. She could almost see Dr. Matthews’ finger tapping her colored lips that had lipstick bleeding in the cracks around her mouth as she asked Julie what her plan was to get herself out of her funk.
“Get out of the house,” Julie said to herself. “Take a walk, take a drive, or go where other people are.”
Dr. Matthews had recited the words often enough, Julie didn’t need to have say them to her now.
She needed a cat or a dog. Why didn’t Caleb have a pet? Having a dog or a cat or even a guinea pig would make loneliness so much easier to take. She never could have one of her own in any of the places where she’d lived. But some of the old ladies who’d rented her a room had their own pets. There were times when Julie had taken comfort with a lap cat or a really big dog that thought he was a lap dog and would make her laugh when he wanted to cuddle with her.
But there was no cat or dog here for Julie to snuggle up with and keep her company. She was alone. If she stayed there, she’d continue to be alone.
Before she could stop herself, she abandoned her plans to hang new curtains, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door. Maybe a drive would help. But as soon as she went down the stairs, climbed into her car and turned the engine over, she realized the one place where she’d felt comfortable as a teenager was the Lone Creek Ranch. She had forgotten how much she’d loved riding out at the ranch. She hadn’t realized that until she’d gone there to see Hunter.
But it was late. Trip Taggart was a good guy, but Julie had no business out there. She couldn’t exactly drop by. What she knew for sure was she couldn’t stay at the apartment alone anymore.
Sweet Montana Secrets: Chapter Four
“I’ll bet I’m the last person you expected to see tonight.”
Hunter had almost missed the knock at his door as he headed for the bathroom to take a shower. She was right. The last person he’d expected to be at his door tonight
