Page 118 of Happy After All

I feel hollow.

“They still wouldn’t have been the love of your life.”

“No,” she says. “Not the love of the life I lived with Marty. As we’ve already discussed, Amelia, the loss of someone is the loss of the world. It’s also the loss of who you were before.”

I know this. I think about it all the time. The before and the after.

“Marty was the love of my life, of my youth, the one who held me after our greatest loss. The one who formed so much of who I am. When he was gone, I had to find a different life. It stands to reason that for the new woman I was, shaped and changed by my grief, there could have been a love. There wasn’t, and I’m happy with it. I was never motivated enough to search for it.”

I’m stunned by this.

“That ... makes so much sense,” I say.

“Of course it does. I’m very wise. Because I’mso old.” She smiles at that.

Sheisold. And it’s beautiful. Wonderful. Just like her.

“Alice, I am going to write you the smuttiest book as a thank-you.”

“Make sure it’s substantial.” She holds her hands out as if she’s measuring a salmon she caught.

“I can do that,” I say.

“Does this have anything to do with that handsome gentleman in room thirty-two?”

“Maybe,” I say. Though I realize there’s no point in hiding anything from Alice. “Yes.”

“You should never be anything less than the love of someone’s life, Amelia. So the question will simply be whether he’s smart enough to snag you or not.”

Or a million other things. I’m not going to argue with her. Instead, I’m going to hold all the wisdom she’s just shared with me close to my chest.

I’ve had two of the most important conversations in my life in the last couple of days. With her. I want to hang on to everything I can.

For the first time, I wonder if it’s a gift that I’m not yet a mighty oak.

That I can still change and bend, because that’s the time of my life that I’m in.

Because I’m thirty-two. Because there are so many more doors left open. So many more worlds.

I suddenly don’t feel afraid. Of whatever is going to happen with Christopher, or whatever might happen with Nathan.

I decide to go back to my room. I decide to get back in bed with him.

The parade is in just a couple of days, followed by the reading of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” performed by Christopher.

It will all take care of itself. For now, I’m just going to be in this world that’s only me and Nathan.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Plot Moppet—a small child in a romance who exists solely to drive the plot forward or cause a shift in the romance between the main characters.

Rehearsal for the children’s performance is happening at the Pink Flamingo today. It’s amazing to think that only a couple of days ago I might’ve struggled with this. There are some shards of glass still embedded in my heart that cut a little bit, but I’ve figured out how to carry them better. I have my found family to thank for that. And so many things. Even the meddling.

Maybe especially the meddling.

The courtyard is in absolute shambles. There are children in angel robes, in stocking caps and scarves that they don’t need. There is a mitten floating on the top of my pool.

Alice is warming up at the keyboard, and the notes of “O Holy Night” are plinking through the air at an extremely high volume.

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