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“It feels a bit like an intrusion now, to be honest.” I’d thought a lot about it. Sly hadn’t said anything about having asked me to be his date. I assume that was off. “I’ll just pick Katie up after the ceremony, I think.”
“I won’t hear of it,” Zara said. “And I know Violet will pitch a fit. No. You have to come.”
I pulled up in front of the little stretch of dress shops along Half Full’s Main Street downtown. If we couldn’t find a dress for Katie here, Boomsmack had a couple of high end kids’ shops I thought might work. I’d put off the dress shopping too long, and now I felt bad that Zara had to get involved, but she made it seem like a fun girls’ day, as if she had nothing else to do.
“Look at that!” Katie cooed at the window display, where there actually was a little girl’s dress that might work.
“Let’s go try it on!” Zara suggested.
We got lucky. The dress was perfect, and I was relieved not to have to take up any more of Zara’s time. “One stop,” I said. “That was easy.”
“We’re not done,” Zara said. “You need a dress too.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t feel right,” I told her. “It will be awkward.”
She frowned at me and let out a soft sigh. “What if I told you that I have inside information? That I know for a fact Sly is a mess after leaving you, and that I really don’t think it’s over. And neither does Beck or Violet.”
I refused to let her words wind their way into my too-hopeful heart. “He hasn’t even texted. Not once. He didn’t say goodbye.”
“I’m not telling you that he’s become super emotionally intelligent since you last saw him,” Zara said with a wry smile. “But I guess I’m asking you a question. If there was a chance, would you want it?”
My stupid heart pounded against my chest as if trying to answer her question, worried that I would lie and it would lose its chance. I dropped her gaze, glanced at Katie poking around the shoe rack on one side of the store, and finally said, “yes.”
But then I thought about it.
“But even if there was another chance, what’s to stop him from doing the same thing again if something upsets him? I can’t make things work with someone whose first instinct is to run away.”
Zara tilted her head to one side. “That’s fair,” she said. “But maybe he needs a chance to hear your side. So he can explain his.”
I sighed, the thought of there being sides at all just feeling suddenly exhausting and depressing. Before I could sink too deeply into my funk, Zara took my arm and pulled me to where Katie was admiring a six-inch platform shoe that looked like part of a costume.
“Your mom needs a pretty dress for the wedding too,” Zara told my daughter. “Let’s find one for her, okay?”
Katie clapped and took Zara’s outstretched hand. And then I allowed them to drag me through every boutique in Half Full and half of those in Boomsmack to find just the right dress to wear so that Sly could ignore me at his brother’s wedding.
As we pulled back into the driveway in front of my house, I looked over at Zara, who was still glowing. “Thanks for coming with us,” I told her. “It was fun.” It would have been fun, anyway, if Sly hadn’t overshadowed the whole event.
“I’m just glad I talked you into coming,” she said. “Beck and Violet will be so happy.” She inclined her head. “And I bet Sly will be too.”
I sighed. I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. What in the world was I going to hope for, anyway? That he’d move in with his parents permanently? Give up hockey? Become the father Katie didn’t have? It was all a little ridiculous. Better to let a fling be a fling, even if my heart hadn’t gotten the memo.
* * *
That week at work, I came to a realization.
I was miserable.
It started when Betty called in to report that one of the cubs we’d thought had been successfully placed had been found alone two days in a row. She tracked him all week and confirmed that he wasn’t with the mama we’d placed him with or his new siblings. He’d been abandoned.
It happened sometimes, and it broke my heart every single time. He was too old now to try to place again, which left us with a couple options. Most bears were equipped to survive on their own after about six months of age. This little guy was right on that border, so we could just leave him, hoping he built a den in fall and avoided danger until then. If he survived winter, he’d most likely be fine. The other option was to bring him in and potentially offer him to a zoo, but that was an all-else-fails option.
Betty came back into the office every day, reporting what she’d found and delivering the data she’d collected. And every day, I wished to be the one doing the tracking, the one seeing that little cub with my own eyes and determining his future. Betty was more than competent, and so was her new partner, Hal. But they were doing what I loved. And it was hard to accept.
I couldn’t sit behind a desk all day. I couldn’t file reports and edit typos and be the supervisor for those doing the work I really wanted to do.
“You’re sure about this, Clara?” Paul asked when I told him.
“Yes.”
