Carry Her Heart (11 page)

Ned took it as a challenge, thought a moment and said, “Snow pants.”

“Come on, that’s a bit of a cheat. When’s the last time you wore snow pants?”

“Last time I went skiing at Peek’n Peak with Mela,” he said.

He hadn’t mentioned her in a long time. “Do you miss her?”

Ned shook his head. “No. I thought maybe, if nothing else, I’d miss the companionship, but it’s been six months and I don’t. That seems harsh to say.” He sighed. “I do feel her absence sometimes, but it’s not quite missing and more of a passing thought than a heartache, if that makes sense. And now that I have Princess, the house seems full enough.”

I nodded. I understood that. I’d always been someone comfortable being by myself. Even as a child. Give me a book and a comfortable chair and I could make an entire day of it.

Other people needed people. I couldn’t imagine my mom without my dad. Even the judge and Anne seemed to . . . well, fit. Josiah and Muriel, too.

Ned and Mela? Obviously not.

And Anthony and me?

I knew the answer, but I wasn’t ready to face it.

Ned and I walked, in the peppermint-scented snow, and I wondered if I was one of those people who were simply meant to be alone.

I pondered my relationship with Anthony for the next two weeks. The annual snowstorms began arriving in earnest. Band after band of cold Canadian air blew over our warmer great lake, picking up moisture. When it reached land, it dumped not inches of snow but feet.

The back garden became a winter fairyland. Snow coated the branches. My birdbath froze over, and every day I trudged along the packed-down path and melted the ice and replaced it with water before I filled the feeders.

Some days, when the weather wasn’t too harsh, I walked through the snow-covered garden, enjoying the starkness that was so different from the lushness in summer . . . different but equally beautiful.

I missed writing on my porch, but truthfully, the chair by the window was only a foot from where I normally sat. It was a Stickley chair and I swear they designed it for me to write from.

From my seat I could still watch the rhythm of my neighborhood.

I watched school begin, then end each day. Kids arrive and depart.

I saw delivery people drive by and occasionally stop.

Being inside served to separate me from everyone else. I felt more removed, and the world seemed much quieter than it felt in other seasons.

In that silence, there was nothing for me to do but think.

I saw very little of Anthony. He was busy with a case; I was busy with a deadline. When he did come over, we didn’t talk about Thanksgiving or children. We also didn’t speak about what I now suspected were his political ambitions.

Moving to a new city as a partner in a law firm. That might have been a strategic business move, or it might have been the first step in a political career.

The subjects we didn’t speak of added to the wall that was growing between us. Each visit, it became more apparent and harder to ignore.

Ned had been busy with work, too. I wondered if he was investigating things for Anthony’s case, but he didn’t say and I didn’t ask. I just knew that he left his house early, so most mornings, I went over, got Princess, and walked the dogs together. But without Ned’s company, I had even more time to think.

Normally I’d be thinking about whatever book I was working on—my work-in-progress. Or I’d be thinking about Amanda’s Pantry. But now, all my thoughts were on Anthony as I tried to work out what I should do.

When I was totally honest with myself, I acknowledged I didn’t need to work out what I should do. I was working out how to accept it. How to accept that I’d spent a year with a man I didn’t love.

The week before Christmas, Anthony called and asked if he could come over. It was a very formal request, especially coming from a man who more than once had made decisions on both our behalves.

As I waited for him, I realized there was no sense of anticipation. I hadn’t missed him. All the little snippets of thought that had skittered around the fringes of my awareness landed with a thud.

I thought about what Ned had said about Mela. He could picture his life without her.

I didn’t want to admit it, but I couldn’t avoid the realization any longer . . . I felt that way about Anthony. I could picture my life without him in it.

And I knew what I had to do. Or rather, I admitted what I’d known for some time.

When I met Anthony, there’d been no spark. But he was nice and I thought that warmth was just as good as full-out flame.

The two of us would have been good friends, but we’d tried for something else. But it’s hard to find something that was never there in the first place.

We’d been seeing each other for over a year and I knew that we would never be any closer than we were now.

That wasn’t fair to Anthony, and it wasn’t fair to me.

I couldn’t decide if I should tell him after dinner or before.

I decided to make a salad and have it in the fridge.

He arrived promptly at six. “I thought I was going to be late.” He was bouncy happy and carrying a bottle of wine, which he thrust in my direction. “The verdict came in. Not guilty.”

“Congratulations,” I said and meant it.

“Thanks. I know that the case took a lot of time away from us. We never really talked about Thanksgiving and . . .”

Part of me—a part I’m not very proud of—wanted to forget about breaking up with him tonight. He was so happy. It was unkind dumping news like this on him. And it wasn’t as if I didn’t like him. I did. We’d been dating for a year. What were a few more days?

A lie.

“Anthony, we need to talk.”

His happy expression melted away. “So this is it?”

“Could we sit down?”

He nodded. We sat on the couch. Anthony on one side, me on the other. There was an entire empty cushion between us.

I thought that pretty much summed up our relationship.

“I had a dream a while ago. It started out as a scene for my new story. It was about a midsummer’s celebration. A bonfire. I don’t think we’ve ever had a bonfire, or even a spark between us. Anthony, we don’t belong together.”

“I thought with time . . .” He let the sentence die off.

He didn’t need to go on, because I knew just what he was saying. “Me, too. I like you. And I care about you. But we both want different things.”

“Kids,” he said.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“I thought you might change your mind on that as well.”

I shook my head. “It’s more than just that one issue. When we spend time apart, we both seem comfortable with it. We both seem to get along just fine without the other. Maybe I think we both deserve to be with people we can’t stand to be apart from.”

He nodded. “I’ll confess, I was relieved that you didn’t kick up a fuss when I was spending so much time on this case. I’d had other girlfriends who weren’t so understanding.”

“And I was happy to have uninterrupted time to work on a book.” Maybe if I were completely on my own, it would have been different. But Cooper and Ned had both been around. And my parents were always there. My life still felt well populated with people without Anthony around.

I think that was the point. If I were with someone I truly loved, even if my life were filled to capacity, I’d still feel the lack of his presence.

“So we’re over.” Anthony made it a statement more than a question.

I nodded and spanned that no-man’s-land cushion and took his hand. “I think we both deserve to find people we can’t live without. People we can’t be apart from because it causes an almost physical pain. People who know us inside and out and like us anyway.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to say something. I had an inkling last Christmas.”

“What happened last Christmas?” he asked.

“I was living in terror you’d want me to go to that hockey game with you,” I confessed with a laugh.

He gave a little halfhearted chuckle, then said, “I guess I can confess that I worried you’d want to come. I knew you didn’t like hockey. But at least you came up with the idea for a perfect gift. I didn’t have a clue, and while I did notice that your copy of
Have Space Suit—Will Travel
was worn, I only noticed after Ned gave me the idea. I was thinking I was going to have to ask him for a suggestion for this year, too.”

I laughed. I should have known it was Ned, my sci-fi buddy, who realized how much I loved that book. “I had the idea of giving you some sporty sort of gift, but Ned was the one who told me the team and game.”

“So what you’re saying is Ned knows us better than we know each other?” Anthony half joked.

Only half, because I think he realized that there was a lot of truth in that statement.

I thought about Anthony’s comment about my clothing on Thanksgiving. He wished I’d make an effort more often. Ned had said he liked me in my normal mode of dress.

Yes, Ned knew more about me than just my love of science fiction.

The thought made me uncomfortable, so I brushed it aside and concentrated on Anthony.

“So we’re okay?” I asked. “I mean, I hope I see you at the annual Amanda’s Pantry dinner along with the rest of the firm. I don’t want things between us to be . . . weird.”

He smiled. “I’ve never had an ex who worried about us being okay after a breakup. But then you’ve never been an average girlfriend, so the fact you’re going to be a non-average ex makes sense. But to be clear, yes, we’re fine.”

“If I ever need a lawyer, I’d call you,” I said and I meant it. I had complete faith that if I ever needed help and asked, Anthony would come running.

He smiled. “Well, of course you would. After all, I just won a big case. I’m good.”

I looked at Anthony and realized he was a friend.

I don’t know how I could have thought he was anything more than that, but I knew for a fact he wasn’t anything less. And when we met in the future at dinners or just around town, I knew I’d always be genuinely happy to see him and anxious to catch up.

“So, would it be weird if I asked you to stay for dinner after I broke up with you?” I asked.

There was no halfhearted smile or small chuckle. Anthony shook his head, rolled his eyes, and genuinely laughed. “Yes, but Piper, we’ve been together for a year . . . I’ve gotten used to your weirdness.” He paused. “Maybe that sums us up. I’ve gotten used to you; you’ve gotten used to me. But just because we’re accustomed to each other doesn’t mean we’re in love.”

“No, it doesn’t. But it does mean we can be friends?” I said more than asked.

He nodded. “Absolutely.”

We had the wine he’d brought and my salad. He told me all about his case and I told him about my book.

We talked and laughed.

And that’s when I realized how relieved I was that I wasn’t going to lose his friendship.

Maybe we didn’t have a spark that would lead to love and a relationship like my parents, Ned’s parents, and his bosses had. But we had warmth between us that I thought would make us very good friends.

And I had room for more friends.

After the most painless breakup I’d ever had, I couldn’t get my dad and Aunt Bonnie out of my mind. They’d been friends for years, but never more.

I didn’t want to ask him about her in front of my mother, in case it was a sore spot—though I didn’t think it was—so I went to his office a couple days later.

Dad was working on a new textbook. He found working at his office was more conducive to writing than working at the house.

His office was the equivalent of my front porch, so I understood it.

But while my front porch had a few pieces of wicker furniture, a plant, and an expansive view, my father’s office was filled with a desk, an extra chair, and his books—four walls of books. His lone window was Hobbit-sized and looked at a huge pine tree, so what little natural light filtered through it had an odd green tinge to it.

I liked writing when I felt I was a part of things. My father liked writing in a literary equivalent of a solitary cave.

He looked up from his desk and smiled. “Piper, what a pleasure.”

“I know I’m interrupting, but Dad, I wanted to ask you something.”