LITMIR.BIZ

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up.

      The house now empty of guests, it was just Eleanor with her mother and her sister as she explained over eggs and bacon where Max had been for the last two or so years, everything that had happened to him, as well as how they’d left things between them.

      It was strange, Eleanor thought. How different she felt waking up this morning. For one, her first thought hadn’t been about Head to Toe and what her schedule looked like for the day. For another, it was the crazy realization that Max was once more alive.

      Not just in the physical sense. But alive for her. A decision she needed to make. An action she needed to do. It was like breathing for the first time after holding her breath for so long.

      Maybe for more than two years.

      “It is absolutely not a good idea. Do not encourage your sister,” her mother said to Allie.

      “Mom, it’s the most expedient way to end this,” Eleanor said.

      Because that was what she told herself. A few days with Max. Closure on their relationship. A real end to what had been the most significant relationship of her life.

      “I know Max. He’s stubborn as heck. He’ll beat this drum endlessly until he realizes the truth. That what we had is over. Then he’ll give me the divorce, and I can finally move on with my life.”

      Her mother rolled her eyes. “Right, because in the two plus years since his death, you’ve been able to move on. What was Daniel? Maybe the third person you’ve been out with in two years.”

      “Technically the fourth.” Three blind dates—one of whom canceled at the last minute, but she had agreed to the date so that counted—and Daniel. Then there was that other incident, the one she didn’t like to think about because of how it made her feel. Certainly no reason to inform her mother of that.

      “I was married for three years, Mom. It’s not the strangest thing that, while I was growing my business and getting over my failed marriage, then the death of my husband, dating would not exactly be a priority for me.”

      It was another argument she’d had often enough with her mother in the past two and a half years. Marilyn wanted her to move on, find another husband and start having babies.

      Eleanor hadn’t been ready for any of that.

      “Tell yourself that if you want, but I know you. And him, although not as well. Whatever it is about him, it acts like some kind of drug for you. You let him charm you for a few days, and you’ll find yourself falling back under his spell. Telling yourself, he’s changed. Then eventually when he goes away again, you’ll find yourself where you were when you decided to leave him the first time. Do you really want to go through that again?”

      “Of course not,” Eleanor mumbled. It wasn’t possible she could fall for Max again. Having him and losing him had hurt too much. It left a wound that, if she was being honest with herself, hadn’t ever healed.

      Allie was shaking her head.

      “What?” Eleanor asked her.

      “Eleanor, it’s simple. I know you were devastated when you left him. The reason you were was because you did love him. And when he was reported dead, you were like a zombie. I know because I lived with you for three months after. That’s how worried we were about you.”

      “Right. That’s why it can never happen again.”

      “You say that like you can control it. Do you still have feelings for him or not? If you do, then you owe it to both of you to hear each other out. You guys...just being around you guys as a teenager, I could feel the love. It’s what made me certain that it was real and it was out there. It’s why I was certain when I fell for Mike. I know it’s been a few years. I know this is like something out of a bad soap opera. But you’re both to blame in this.”

      Eleanor’s jaw dropped. “How can you say that? He left me!”

      “And you left him. When you knew he loved you more than anything. When you loved him more than anything. You gave up on the two of you first, and that’s not like you.”

      “Allie!”

      “You did, Eleanor,” her sister insisted. “And now I can say, being in a relationship myself, that ultimatums never work. They just piss everyone off.”

      “I can’t believe you’re taking his side.”

      “I’m not taking anyone’s side. I’m telling you to think about how you felt when you saw him last night...”

      “Sick. I felt sick when I saw him last night and ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes,” Eleanor informed her sister. She felt the same queasy feeling now looking down at her plate of eggs with the yellow yolk running everywhere.

      Because Max loved eggs. It was their Sunday morning tradition.

      Shit.

      She hated that she now seemed to be in this perpetual spiral of memories, good and bad, of her time with Max.

      “What about Daniel?” her mother insisted.

      “What about him?” Eleanor asked.

      “If you do this thing, if you spend this time with your ex-husband, can’t you see that you’ll ruin any chance you have with him?”

      “Mom, Daniel and I have been on a few dates. Our second one ended with me telling him he needed to leave because my long-lost husband, aka Indiana Jones, just returned from out of nowhere. I don’t think there is much of a future there for us.”

      “Hmph,” her mother sighed. “A nice man, a man of means, a handsome man who wants to date you. That’s who you can’t see a future with. But Indiana Jones, that’s who you are pining over.”

      “I’m not pining,” Eleanor insisted.

      “You haven’t answered my question,” Allie told her. “Do you have feelings for him? Mom obviously thinks you do.”

      “Of course I do. It was right there on her face when she saw him again. Like she couldn’t look away.”

      Was it? Eleanor wondered. Was it right there on her face?

      “Mom, I don’t get it,” Allie said. “If you think she still has feelings for him, why wouldn’t you be encouraging her to see where those feelings might lead? He is her husband, after all.”

      “Because he’s going to hurt her,” Marilyn told her younger sister. As if Eleanor wasn’t sitting at the same table. “Again. And frankly, I don’t want to have to pick up the pieces. If you were supportive of your sister, you wouldn’t want that to happen, either. You’re getting married in a few months. Right now, everything is hearts and flowers with you. All you want to see are happy endings and that’s simply not reality.”

      “Just because you and Dad weren’t happy, that doesn’t mean nobody can be happy,” Allie said.

      Which caused her mother to gasp.

      Eleanor, too, for that matter. Allie was the quiet one. The pleaser in the family. It was Eleanor who was usually the source of her mother’s upset.

      “Allison Ann,” her mother said tightly. “How could you?”

      Immediately, Allie ducked her head. “I’m sorry, Mom, but it’s true. If Dad hadn’t died so young, can you honestly say you wouldn’t have thought about getting a divorce?”

      “Never. Divorce was simply not an option for us. Your father’s and my relationship was...complicated. We’ll leave it at that.”

      “All I’m saying is that Max and Eleanor are complicated, too. Maybe she shouldn’t write off her marriage so easily.”

      Starting to get annoyed with the way they were talking about her, Eleanor said, “I love how my little sister is telling me how to live my life.”

      Allie picked up her orange juice and

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