Page 74 of Falling for You Again

“Uh, yeah it was,” I stammered, quickly brushing a hand through my hair. “Um, I’m Meli.”

“Hi, Meli. Pleasure to officially meet you.”

“And that,” I now tell Emi, “was our meet-cute.”

“I think that’s when you started falling for him.” Emi grasps my hand. Having moved since I started talking, Blueberry purrs next to me in a contented sleep.

“I think you’re right.” I can admit that now. Back then, I couldn’t process what I felt for him. I’d just left Paul, whom I thought I’d been in love with. But what I’d felt for him doesn’t compare to the cyclone of emotions for Aaron swirling through me now. Plus, it didn’t feel right,nor had I been ready to acknowledge any feelings for Aaron given my frame of mind at the time.

There’s an old Hawaiian saying:ho’oponopono.I saw it on a coffee mug while Aaron and I browsed the Shops at Wailea. When I asked the meaning, the store’s owner, a native Hawaiian woman born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii, explainedho’oponoponois the ancient Hawaiian practice of forgiveness and reconciliation, both with others and with ourselves. I looked it up on my phone after we’d left the store and learned the word roughly translates to “set things right” or “move things back into balance” by cleansing yourself of bad feelings through forgiveness to develop self-love and improve self-esteem, especially at a time when needed most.

I think that’s what Aaron and I did during the five days we spent in Maui. We paused our lives, reevaluated our choices in life, and put ourselves back into balance. I had been a runaway bride who lost sight of her goals, and he had been at a crossroad with his family and career. For five days, we lived inside a bubble of our own making.

Anyone who knows me wouldn’t have believed I flew to Maui with a man I’d met and married only twenty-four hours earlier, let alone that I didn’tsleepwith him during our entire stay, even though we’d shared a king bed for five nights. I was very attracted to Aaron from the moment we first met, and I had on firsthand authority that the feeling was mutual. We kissed at our impromptu wedding, and for show on the flight to Maui, then later at Logan International, where we’d said goodbye. But for our entire stay in Maui, we hadn’t done anything more than hold hands or sleep wrapped around each other because our bodies sought one another in our sleep. In our own way, we had been healing as we tried to understand ourselves better along with some of the decisions we’d made in the past.

I’d woken each morning entangled in Aaron’s embrace, his arm over my waist and his face tucked into my hair or the curve of my shoulder. As we watched the sky lighten through our window with theocean view, I’d threaded my fingers through his and we’d talked about everything that had come to mind.

Well, almost everything.

He never confided about his brother. I can’t blame him for not opening up to me then. I hadn’t told him about Dad’s arrest and Mom’s drug addiction. Shame is the fallen tree that blocks the path, forcing you onto another trail, our conversations veering from one topic to another. And at the time, we didn’t expect to ever see one another again after we returned to reality.

But there was one particular night—it had to have been around 2:00 a.m. as we lay in the dark—the subject of children had come up. I guess it was inevitable. As children raised by parents who’d been indifferent toward us to some degree, it made sense we’d question whether we’d be like them with our own kids. Since I’d been pretty set on not marrying again, I didn’t see myself with children.

“But Aaron felt differently,” I say, trying to explain to Emi why leaving him was the right thing to do.

In Maui he told me that even though he had no plans to marry, he hoped to have children one day. If he was fortunate to be blessed with one, he intended to be the one thing his parents hadn’t been: present. Because of the demands of their company and Graham being an older father, they hadn’t been actively involved in raising Aaron and his siblings. Kaye and Graham had left that up to nannies and coaches and boarding schools.

“He’s going to be a great father. I can’t take that from him.”

“How does being married to him keep him from being a great father?” Emi challenges.

“For one, he can’t marry Fallon if he’s still married to me.”

“You said he doesn’t want to marry her, and he told you five years ago he has no interest in marrying anyone.”

“He says that now, but people change their minds. Look at how different my parents are with me now than when I was a kid. Or Aaron.For a guy once opposed to marriage, he was totally ready to stay married to me. He changed his mind.”

“Because he was married toyou.”

“Look, I had just convinced myself that I could devote equal amounts of attention to woodworking, running a business with Aaron, and being married to him. Throw parenthood into the picture? That’s an equation for disaster. Either I’ll start resenting him for pulling me away from my work or he’ll resent me for spending too much time at the shop. I know it, Emi.”

“But you love him. That should be enough.”

“I don’t think it is.” Not only that, I’m afraid it won’t be.

“What are you going to do about Artisant, then? Will you still rent from him?”

I sink back into the cushions. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Without Aaron involved, I seem to have lost interest in the shop. I know it’s because I’m upset and depressed, which keeps me from thinking clearly. But I honestly don’t know right now if I’ll keep Artisant running or tell Uncle Bear to shut it down.

“Either way,” I continue, “Aaron needs to devote his full attention to his future family and not worry about me.”

Emi sighs, and I can tell she doesn’t agree with me. “I love you, Meli, but I think your nobility is misplaced. Was leaving better for him or for you?”

“Both of us.”

Her eyes narrow. “Are you sure there isn’t something more going on here?”

I pull back. “What do you mean?”

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