Mom came out of the pantry just as I sat down. I grabbed a chip and loaded it with the good salsa and took a bite. Much better. It had a nice spice, but full of flavor.
The perfect amount to burn your mouth if you kept eating more of it, but you couldn’t seem to stop yourself because it tasted so good.
Dad winked at me with his back still toward Mom.
“Hey, your brother is thinking of proposing! He even went to look at a ring.”
“Wow! I can’t believe it.” I really couldn’t believe it. He’d thought about proposing for years. I’d only believe it when they were on their way to their honeymoon.
Mom was forever optimistic however.
“Let’s go sit on the patio, honey.” She grabbed a bottle of wine and two glasses and waited for me to come into the kitchen.
I held the back door open for her. We walked outside and sat down on my mother’s homemade patio. It was a gorgeous creation that she had built completely herself.
A perfectly pieced together masterpiece of rock.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” Mom asked as she poured two glasses of wine, then set the bottle down on the patio table.
Usually I answered with the typical “Good. Work is good, life is good.” But I wasn’t sure it was right now. “I think…I’m a little confused right now.”
Mom nodded. “About what specifically?”
“Life.” I laughed as I took a sip of my wine. My tongue was still tingling from the salsa I’d tried.
“It’s good to be confused about life sometimes.”
“Why is that?”
“Because then you take the time to make sure you’re on the right path. Wouldn’t it be worse if you lived your entire life, always sure, and then reached the end of your life to realize you’d done everything wrong?”
I swirled my glass, mesmerized by the wine swishing around.
“Well, yes. I guess that’s true. I don’t want to have a life of regrets.”
“Exactly. So don’t be discouraged when there’s times of confusion. That only means you’re human.” She reached over and patted my hand. “Now, is there anything I can help you with?”
“It’s Fletcher.”
She didn’t even blink. Not surprised in the least I still wanted to talk about him.
“I can’t seem to let him go.”
“Do you want to let him go?” Mom asked.
“That’s what I’m confused about. I thought I did, but now I wonder if I’ve let myself be influenced more by other people than by what I wanted.”
Mom didn’t say a word, simply sat there sipping her wine.
“I think I would have been more patient with Fletcher if I hadn’t listened to other opinions.”
“He still wants to work things out with you,” Mom stated.
“Yes. And I think he means it.”
A frog croaked from the flower bed.
“This is going to sound crazy, but I think there’s something going on with him. I don’t know what, but I think something is keeping him from being able to be with me, even though he wants to.” I shook my head. “I sound like an insane person saying that.”
“No, you’re not. I know how intuitive you are.”
“He says he’s going to tell me when he can. I don’t know what it is. Maybe something personal he needs to work through himself.” I paused, then added, “I can understand that. I’ve been doing my own amount of soul searching.”
“You’ll do what’s right for you and Fletcher. Just know that no matter what, I love you and will back you all the way.”
“That means a lot, Mom, thank you.”
We sat in silence as we sipped our wine.
“What if…” I paused, staring at the pepper plants that would soon be replaced with a cottage for Grandmother. “What if our timing wasn’t right?”
Mom hummed quietly under her breath but waited for me to finish.
“What if we’re supposed to be together, but just not now? Maybe someday in the future? Maybe we both still have a lot of growing up to do.”
“I wouldn’t say you have a lot of growing up to do. I’d say you have growing to do together. Every couple grows and changes together. You might not be the same person in ten years that you are today. Fletcher might be completely different five years from now. People grow and change, but what you want is someone who is willing to grow. Because that means they will continually be working to become the best version of themselves. Do you think Fletcher is that man?”
Fletcher had said he would tell me everything by the end of the month. He’d been adamant about that. Meaning that he was taking legitimate steps to make time for us.
Wasn’t that growth?
Did I dare allow myself to hope?
Chapter Twenty-One
Fletcher
Heading in right now.
I slipped my phone back in my front jeans pocket after I read West’s text. I stayed close to the fence as I made my way forward to be ready with camera in hand to take pictures of the two trucks that were pulling down the drive.
I grinned as I remembered Saidy’s text earlier that day. That was my girl. She was still mad, but still looking out for me. And she wasn’t wrong about Sullivan. I wish I could tell her how right she was, but right now I needed to get photo and video evidence of the trucks unloading at the warehouse.
But I was going to buy Saidy a new limited edition wallpaper book just for that text. She was always nervous to share her “feeling” with people, because she didn’t want to come across
