Page 57 of Butterfly Sisters
“I didn’t say your path would be easy,” Meredith said. “I have firsthand knowledge that it can be a pain in the ass.” She laughed. “But all you can do is follow your gut because your path is within you, not anyone else.”
“So, you’re saying that I might have to choose between Colton and my career?”
Mama came in and settled in the chair opposite them with her steaming mug.
“Your whole life, you’ve worked to get yourself to this career,” Meredith continued. “What you have to ask now is: who are you and what do you want?”
Leigh thought about the question. “If I ever moved forward with Colton, should I have to choose?”
Meredith leaned forward to put herself in Leigh’s line of view. “Would giving up your job for someone fulfill you?”
That question was even harder. Leigh pulled the blanket up further and thought long and hard about it. She might go crazy if she couldn’t do what she’d spent her life working for, but there was a part of her that wanted to wake up every morning beside the person she loved, to have coffee out on a deck somewhere and talk about nothing in particular. “I think I’d go crazy without the thrill of my career,” she said. “I feel like I need to make Colton see that it’s really all going to be okay.”
“I think you’ve just answered the question,” Meredith said.
She couldn’t actually have to choose work over Colton. That didn’t make any sense.
“Look, my whole life, I wanted my family to be happy about what I chose to do with my life because that’s who I am,” Meredith said. “If you all aren’t happy with who I am, then you can’t really loveme. So, while I wanted the love of my family, I had to leave. It’s a lot like what you’re facing now.”
“But you helped us to understand,” Mama said, piping up. “And if you’d let us, we’d love to be your family again.”
Meredith stared at her, her thoughts visibly moving inward. Her gaze fell to the blanket, her eyes unstill, as if she were reading some imaginary text, her mind clearly whirring.
“The difference between your situation and this one is communication,” Leigh said. “You never explained it to us in terms we could understand. But now you have, and we totally get it.” She linked her arm with Meredith’s. “We’ll have differences—sure. Some of them really big ones, like what to do with this cabin. But in the end, we’re sisters.”
Mama set her mug on the table and reached for both her daughters’ hands. “There’s no instruction manual on how to be a parent and I haven’t always done the right thing. I’m still learning even now. But one thing I do know after being with you girls this week is that love has to come above it all. We have to follow our hearts and accept the things we can’t change.”
Meredith set her cider next to Mama’s and drew her into a hug. Leigh followed, wrapping her arms around her mother. In that moment, their mother’s tears were different, as if they were tears of relief.
Love has to come above it all.Mama’s words rolled around in Leigh’s head. She needed to find Colton and make him talk to her. And she needed to listen to him. That was what love was about.
NINETEEN
Elvis howled from the other side of Colton’s front door as Leigh knocked for the second time. The porch light was on and had been for quite a while—she could tell by the bugs that were circling it—and she could see through the window that there was a light on in the living room, so he must be home, right? She knocked again and then rang the bell, sending Elvis into another fit.
“Colton, it’s Leigh. Please answer the door,” she called through it, hoping he could hear her. “Please. I want to talk to you.”
When he didn’t answer, she went around back to find both his trucks in the open garage. “Colton?” she yelled up to the deck, but she was met with silence. With purpose, she marched back around to the front door and rang the bell again. Elvis ran back and forth inside, barking. Why wouldn’t he answer? If he was avoiding her, that was ridiculous. They could certainly have a conversation like two grown adults.
She went back down the steps and peered up at the house. An upstairs light was also on and she could’ve sworn she saw his shadow. When the door still hadn’t opened, she ran back up to it and banged on it with her fist. “Colton!” she called out. “You’re being incredibly immature!”
Nothing.
Leigh crossed her arms and paced the long front porch, letting out a big sigh. She wouldn’t sleep tonight, knowing he was this upset with her. It gnawed at her from the inside out. Leigh considered what she really felt here and, her emotion taking over, she decided that he was like family. She needed to tell him something that she’d always wanted to say. Stomping back over to the door, she rang the bell three times in obnoxious succession. “Colton! I never told you as a kid, but I love you! You’re important to me, and Ineedto talk to you about this!”
There was a click. Then the front door opened and a dripping wet Colton stood in a towel, all abs and tight pecs, taking her breath away.
“I was in the shower.”
“Oh,” she said, shrinking back. “Sorry.”
Elvis came onto the porch and greeted her as Colton opened the door wider, gesturing for her to come inside. She stepped over the small puddle that his dripping body had made on the hardwood, and tried not to look at the wet footprints leading across the room and up the stairs for fear she’d imagine him standing in the shower where those footprints had started—she needed to focus on the issue at hand.
“That was a little dramatic, don’t you think?” he said, his fondness for her winning out over his anger for a moment.
“Sometimes drama is necessary to get your point across,” she replied.
He offered her a seat at the bar in the kitchen and then, still in his towel with a bare chest, he poured her a glass of wine, setting it in front of her.Mamma mia.
