Page 49 of For 100 Reasons (100 3)

“Avery, pass me that icing bowl and scraper, will you, honey?”

“Sure thing.” Mom’s washing dishes from our baking while I’m working at the chopping board cutting vegetables for our lunch salads. I set down the bright red pepper I’m dicing and reach over to fetch the metal mixing bowl that’s sticky with sweet, buttery vanilla sauce.

“Can’t let this go to waste,” I say, grinning as I swirl the rubbery spatula around the sides of the bowl, then stick the end of it in my mouth.

; She laughs and shakes her head, making room for me to step in beside her and put the items in the sink. It’s been a good day with her. I didn’t realize how badly I needed the kind of slow-paced, easy companionship that she and I have always had together.

With the windows open and a warm afternoon summer breeze blowing in off the lake, carrying the fragrance of warm cinnamon and apples through the entire house, I cling to the simplicity of the moment like the small slice of heaven it truly is.

But it’s only close to perfect because part of my heart is three hours away from me in New York.

Maybe she hears my sigh as I go back to my cutting board and resume the rhythmic chopping. Or maybe it’s just maternal intuition that makes her too aware of the undercurrent of contemplative gloom that I haven’t been able to set aside all day.

She dries her hands, then wraps her arms around me from behind, her chin resting on my shoulder. “If you’d rather go back home to the city tonight instead of staying for dinner, I’ll understand, you know.”

“What?” I set down my knife and scoop the peppers into a small prep bowl. “I don’t want to leave. I’m exactly where I want to be, Mom. I’m where I need to be right now.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Releasing me, she moves to my side and leans back against the butcher block island so I have to look at her. “I think what you really need is to talk things out with this young man of yours.”

It almost makes me laugh to hear her refer to Dominic Xavier Baine, billionaire corporate titan, as my “young man”. She’s never met him, and I’m not sure she’s fully grasped the magnitude of who he is in the world of global industry and megadeals. To her, Nick is simply the man her daughter has fallen in love with. The man I continue to love even though he keeps breaking my heart open every time I think it’s starting to heal.

He hasn’t tried to call again since this morning. After my mom and I came back to the lake house, I listened to the messages he left on my phone. I’d been dreading that I’d hear a lot of empty promises and apologies, or arguments that I had overreacted the other night. Instead Nick’s messages were brief, succinct.

I miss you.

I love you.

Please call me.

I’ve started to dial his number more than once, ultimately deciding that whatever we needed to say to each other is too consequential to take place on a phone call.

And if I’m being totally honest with myself, I’m terrified that the next time I talk to him might be the last—that after coming together based on lies and deception, we may never be able to find our way to a place of truth.

My mother sighs, hooking a strand of my loose hair behind my ear as I pick up the knife and start taking out my frustrations on a handful of multi-colored heirloom tomatoes. “Well, you know your own heart, honey. Just know that I’m always going to be here for you.”

“I know, Momma.” I glance at her and smile. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby.”

She goes back to the sink while I finish up the salad preparation and stow everything in the refrigerator. I’ve just put away the last bowl of vegetables when the front doorbell rings.

“Oh, that’s probably my new neighbor,” she says, setting down the pot she’s washing. “I let her borrow my weed whacker last week and she keeps promising to bring it back.”

Shaking off her wet hands, she reaches for the towel draped through a cabinet pull.

“That’s okay, Mom. I’ll get the door.”

I head through the small house to the screen door out front. My feet stop abruptly, and for a second I just stand there, frozen in place.

It’s not Mom’s neighbor.

It’s Nick standing on the shaded stoop of my grandparents’ old house. Despite the heat, he’s dressed in jeans and a navy T-shirt that only sets off the bright cerulean color of his eyes. Eyes that are fixed on me with breathtaking intensity from the other side of the flimsy wood-framed screen door.

“Hi,” he says.

Just one word. A single syllable that releases an entire wave of emotion inside me.