You just get over it, Anne thought wildly, even though she knew it was unfair. Out loud, she managed, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t either. And that’s why I need some time to think. Not just about next steps. Look, until yesterday, I don’t think I realized I was still so traumatized by what happened with Fred. I guess I’ve got a lot of unfinished business with myself I need to start addressing.” A pause. “Maybe you do, too. I don’t think I’m the only one who’s frightened.”
Her chest was constricting. “Yes. I’m scared.”
“Because you think I won’t come back to you?”
“I’m terrified you’ll take this away from me. Forever.” It was hard for Anne to get out her confession. What if speaking it aloud made it come true? “It’s like I’ve never eaten anything before in my life, and yesterday you set a decadent meal in front of me and told me to take a big bite. Now you’re pulling away the plate and telling me I might never eat again.”
“Ah,” Sadie said quietly. “That’s an interesting analogy. What’s the meal? A cheeseburger?”
Like the one she’d devoured at Burger Bliss. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
When Sadie spoke again, her tone was very gentle. “You’ve deprived yourself of so much for so long, haven’t you?”
Food. Intimacy. Desire. Anne swallowed. For years and years, she’d kept herself away from all of it as best she could. Tried so hard to make her body not need. Lived her life in the smallest possible way while telling herself she had everything. Anne had prided herself on staying contained within narrow perimeters.I don’t. I’m not. I can’t.
It hadn’t been all misery. Abstaining held its own sour joy, small and hard, and she’d fed on that instead.
But she hadn’t deprived herself of everything. The rotating crates of wine in her pantry—the ones she didn’t let Sadie see—those told another story. For years, drinking had been Anne’s sole physical indulgence, the one pleasure she didn’t restrict.Wine’s warm fuzz was as close as Anne could get to leaving herself behind.
After a few glasses, her brain always drifted pleasantly elsewhere. Away from her inconvenient body. Away from any want or feeling or need.
Anne let a slow, shaky exhale drain from her lungs. Shit. This was what Sadie meant by unfinished business, wasn’t it?
“All right,” she said slowly. “Slowing down does have its merits. I can see that now.”
“Really?” Sadie’s immense relief was unmistakable.
“Look, I’ve always thought it was a waste of time to be self-involved—”
“Self-reflective.”
“Self-reflective, then. But you have a point. I could stand to examine a few things in my life, too. Old habits.” Anne suddenly felt very, very tired. “You ran away from me, but I think—maybe I’ve been running away from myself, too. For a long time.”
“Come home, then,” Sadie said softly. “You’re a wonderful place to be.”
“Maybe I don’t like that I’m”—sudden embarrassment, nausea—“someone who needs a glass of wine to feel better about herself. Someone who’s afraid of a sad little fast-food meal.”
“Oh, my sweetheart.”
No. Anne wouldn’t start crying again. She’d spent too much time doing that lately. “At the house, you said I was becoming another Anne. If that’s true, then I want the Anne I’m becoming to be the—the person you deserve.”
“Anne.” Sadie’s voice brimmed with emotion. “You deserve tobethat person. And I can’t wait for the day you realize it.”
Anne furiously brushed her cheeks with the back of her right hand. She sniffed. Couldn’t answer. It was too much just to withstand the bright, beautiful enormity of Sadie’s faith in her.
“So what do we do now?” she managed. The flame of her earlier distress still flickered hot in her chest, but she’d managed to turn down the burner to low heat. Sadie wasn’t saying yes, but she wasn’t saying no, either. She just needed time. “What’s the next step?”
A pause. Then, “Let me suggest something. What about—”
“Mom?”
Startled, Anne whipped her head around so quickly, she nearly lost her balance.
Brooke stood at the back door of the main house, holding the baby. Colton, her middle child, clung to her waist. Hal was next to them both.
All three stared down at Anne.