Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“Amalie,” Dr. Stein reminded her unnecessarily. “You were going to finally visit her grave.”
Not a morning went by without Kerris thinking about her little girl, and some days the pain was as fresh as it had been when she woke up with an empty womb. Other days it was a dull ache, distracting, but not consuming. She’d think she was getting better, putting that behind her, only to burst into tears at the sight of a mother and child in the park, or at the grocery store.
“Have you given any more thought to that?” Dr. Stein asked.
“Um, I have.”
“You have visited, or you have given more thought to it?”
“I thought about it some more, and I will do it soon.” Kerris stood, glancing at her watch. “Looks like we’re done.”
“I say when we’re done,” Dr. Stein corrected, her voice like a hammer wrapped in fluffy cotton. “We have three minutes left. I’d like to spend these last three minutes talking about Amalie.”
“I can’t.” Kerris gulped, blinking back the tears thoughts of her baby girl often brought to her eyes. “I’m not ready.”
“You’ve made so much progress over the last year.” Dr. Stein wrote something in the margins of her notes before standing to face Kerris. “Please don’t think I’m not proud of you. I am, but there’s a next level. And to get there, you’re going to have to deal with both of these issues. Amalie, and your relationship with Walsh. If you don’t want to end up hurting him the way you hurt Cam, you need to be honest and figure out what you really want from him and for both of you.”
Dr. Stein voiced Kerris’s fear. That she would hurt Walsh. That as much as she cared for him, as much as he meant to her, as deeply as she felt connected to him, that her damaged self would hurt him. She couldn’t live with that. And yet, the thought of him made her throb. Not just him physically, but his gentleness, his intuition, his sensitivity, his intensity, his strength. Could she really do the hard work it would take for all of that to be hers? Did she even deserve it?
* * *
A week later, Kerris was no closer to peace. She’d been wrestling with the issues Dr. Stein unearthed. The past was a labyrinth she couldn’t find a way out of. With every turn she took, she hoped it would lead to an exit to a new life, a new chapter, but each turn just looped her back into old memories, old patterns, old hurts. Sometimes, alone outside, Kerris could work things out that made no sense when she was indoors, so she set out for her garden.
“Mama Jess, I’m out back picking greens and tomatoes.”
Kerris let the screen door slam behind her, stomping toward the garden. She’d spent a lot of time out there in the week since she’d sent off the divorce papers. Seemed like this garden was a form of therapy all its own.
Kerris grabbed the bucket they always left at the garden gate, and slipped on her hot-pink Hunter rain boots. She rolled up the sleeves of the men’s shirt she’d snatched up from the Salvation Army thrift store last week, the tail of the oversize shirt flowing to mid-thigh. With the shirt completely covering her tiny cutoff denim shorts, and the hot-pink rain boots covering her calves up to her knees, she didn’t want to think about the picture she made. She looped her hair up into a knot on top of her head, secured with a wooden spoon.
She started down a row of tomatoes, bucket in hand, squatting to inspect the first bushel, not turning when she heard Mama Jess come up behind her.
“I think you were right about these tomatoes, Mama Jess.” She tossed the words over her shoulder, moving onto the next bushel. “Still a lot of green. We do have a few in the house, though, right? I was gonna make a salad tonight for myself since you’ll be off playing bingo.”
Kerris stepped across a couple of rows, careful to avoid the still-growing vegetation. She reached down to caress a collard green leaf.
“These are ready, though,” she said to the still-quiet Mama Jess. “I’ll pull some of these and we can have them for dinner tomorrow night. How’s that sound?”
The woman wasn’t this quiet even when she was asleep.
“Did you hear—”
Kerris turned, and the words froze in her throat and then melted under the heat of Walsh’s gaze. He was still on the tomato row, a few feet behind her, incongruous with his tailored slacks and his expensive shoes planted in the dirt of her garden.
“Walsh.” She dropped her bucket.
“Kerris.” The brewing storm in his eyes said the evenness of his tone was a lie.
“Why are you here?” One hand flew up to her messy hair and the other tugged the tail of her Salvation Army shirt.