Where We Left Off

I snapped awake.

Breathe, breathe.

Sweat slithered down my back. My heart sprinted.

The space where I lay was damp with perspiration, all clammy and uncomfortable like I’d used the sheets as a towel after a swim, my body’s outline wet and chilled.

I looked to the monitor on my nightstand and the angelic scene of my baby deep in slumber met my eyes. It slowed my breath. Steady, steady.

I let the relief slide out as I leaned against the headboard.

A year and a half and yet it was like yesterday to me.

It was actually every night, stuck in a dream.

It was a dangerous job, we knew that. He’d been an officer for a year already when I’d first met him, so it wasn’t as though I’d had a say in his profession. Even if I had, though, I would’ve encouraged it all the same. Some people were meant for that line of work. Dylan certainly was.

He was brave beyond belief.

Now it was my turn to be brave.

I grabbed my terrycloth robe from the closet and slipped into it, tightening the belt around my waist before making my way to the kitchen. The fluorescent lights flickered on, stuttering to illuminate.

2:08 a.m.

Coffee. That was in order for this sort of hour. I took the grounds from the freezer and put a pot on, waiting for it to brew. My stomach growled, encouraged by the smell, and I tried to remember if I had eaten any dinner. The plate in the sink reminded me of the chicken enchiladas Mrs. Scuttle from church brought over this afternoon. So I had eaten, tonight at least. That was good.

Once the coffee was ready, I poured myself a steaming mugful and took it with me to the den, my fingers curling around the handle, my palm cozied against the warm ceramic. There was one of my favorite vanilla candles on the desk and I lit it with a match. The flame flickered against the dark as the aroma dispersed sweetly into the air.

That tension from being thrust awake seeped slowly from my body, more importantly, my mind. I could do this. I could.

Dad did it for years and we were good. When Mom was first diagnosed, I think he knew the inevitable outcome. The way he enjoyed her—enjoyed all our short time as a family—it was as though each moment would be a last.

I wished I’d paid more attention to how he was able to do that. Treasure the lasts.

I slid into the desk chair and tucked my feet up underneath me, the robe blanketing my cold legs with fabric. With the mouse in my hand, I stirred the computer to life. It hummed angrily, reminding me of another inevitable expense. The windows on the screen were still open and I clicked through the tabs. I’d done all the math and every way I calculated it, I came up short. I’d give anything to be with Nana and Tommy again, but the way the market was, there was no way I would ever get back what I owed on this house. I’d be stuck here until things eventually leveled off.

Stuck.

Even still, I busied my mind by searching cottages and townhouses back in Kentucky. Ones that shared the same zip code as my family. Ones where Corbin could walk to his great-grandmother’s house after school for fresh baked cookies or for help with his reading homework. Ones where I could send him over for a cup of sugar. Ones where we felt as one again, living life together, even if not within the same walls.

But I had two families now.

Tori was here, at least for another month before she left for college. And Sharon and Boone were just fifteen minutes away. I’d never had a sister, and it had been years since I had a mother and father in the mother and father sense that most people had, but I had them. I wasn’t willing to let that go, even though I’ve had to let Dylan go.

So I’d stay up late at night and dreamed of an old life back in Kentucky. I’d decorate the rooms in my head. Practiced writing my name and address on an envelope, just to see how it looked. All my current return address labels still had Dylan’s name printed on them. I tried using a Sharpie to black it out once, but something looked off. A little morbid. But I’d ordered a roll of 500. It seemed like such a waste of a perfectly good label.

My eyes blurred. The screen waved in my vision and I sniffed the tears back, using my sleeve as a tissue.

“Pull yourself together, Mallory Quinn,” I instructed. It didn’t work.

I let myself weep into my coffee mug until the tears were gone and there was nothing left besides a few sighs and the shudders that follow a hearty cry.

“Okay. Now pull yourself together.” I let myself have second chances when it came to things like this.

Two hours passed quickly, one click leading to another until I was looking at plantations in Georgia where I could own a “small piece of history and huge portion of southern charm.” I had no idea how my search led me to the opposite coast, but it was a distraction and I welcomed it. In this particular house I’d found, Corbin and I would breed and raise French bulldogs and compete in chili cookoffs with the award-winning recipe we’d discover behind a broken board in the pantry. We would call ourselves the Chili-Bulls because it was convenient to lump our two titles as one and because that was as creative as I got at four in the morning. Our prize pup, Sir McDoodle, would win the 2025 National Dog Show, allowing Corbin to go to Duke and major in neuroscience with the earnings.

I giggled to myself.

Was that the life I really wanted to lead? I’d never even made homemade chili.

This was crazy. Maybe I was crazy. No maybe about it.

But what was really crazy to me was that one move—one decision—could change so much.

I’d told Nana to turn right that day.

Dylan offered to cover his partner’s shift.

So here I was, a twenty-eight-year-old widow and mother.

And I was lonely. God, I was so lonely.

I reached for my cell phone and unplugged it from the computer where it had been syncing.

Three rings and she picked up. “Nana?”

“Mal, sweetheart.” Her voice was thinner than it used to be, shakier. Despite the frailty to it, she spoke with a chipper tone and I could tell she’d been up for a while. I was thankful for the three-hour time difference between us on nights like this. “Can’t sleep?”

“Not even a little bit.”

She huffed into the mouthpiece. “Not even a little bit. Well, that certainly will not do.”

“Do you own a large pot for cooking chili?”

“No, I can’t say I do,” she answered, then paused. “Do you need a large chili pot for something?”

“Not in the immediate future, but someday.”

“Okay,” she said. I could hear her smile, even through the phone. “I’ll be sure to grab one on Black Friday this year. You know, just to have on hand.”

I sighed.

“Another bad dream?”

I was a grown woman with a child of my own, but the only place I wished to be right now was snuggled under Nana’s patchwork quilt, her reassuring hand stroking through my hair, her soft words telling me everything would be okay.

“Yeah, bad dream.”

The computer dimmed, the screen saver turning on. It was a terrible idea to have the Pictures folder go into slideshow mode when the mouse sat quiet for too long. Dylan had set it up. He thought I would be grateful for the digital album that highlighted our good memories. But it was hard to look at his wide smile. Our smiles. Even the computer couldn’t sleep without his face flashing across it.

I swallowed and shook the hell out of the mouse.

“I’m thinking of moving back to Kentucky.”

Through the earpiece, I could hear Nana’s hesitant breath release. “Oh, Mallory. You know that’s not the best idea.”

“Why isn’t it?”

I was looking for a list of pros and cons here. For the good to outweigh the bad.

“Sweetheart, it’s nice for Corbin to be near his grandparents.”

“What about you? And Tommy?”

“Let’s face it, I’m no spring chicken.” She laughed. “And with Tommy’s declining health. He’s stopped painting and …” She trailed off. I didn’t have to ask her to elaborate. “Boone and Sharon would be devastated if you took their only grandbaby from them. Rightfully so. There’s no real reason for you to come back to Kentucky, sweetie. California is where your life is now.”

She was right and I knew it. I just had to hear her speak those truths to me once again. To help convince my heart what my head already knew.

Switching gears, she asked, “How’s the job hunt going?”

“Nothing permanent yet, but I’ve got a position I’m starting on Monday at a flower shop about twenty minutes away. It’s their busy season with proms and weddings, apparently.”

“That’s great, Mal!” she said, her voice hopeful and kind. Nana was so good at being those two things. “Maybe it will turn into something.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, hoping—needing—something to keep my feet planted in California when my roots felt half a world away. “Maybe it will.”

I swiveled the mouse on the desk and clicked out of the websites until they were all closed down, cleared from the search history.

Then I shut the computer completely off, letting my irrational dreams fade black with it.