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 flashed Eleanor a bright smile. “Only when I’m right.”
Marilyn picked up her plate and silverware, signaling an end to both breakfast and this conversation. She would, however, have the last word. As always.
“Eleanor, you’re going to do what you want. You always do. But know this—men don’t change. It’s simply not in their nature. He left you, and he will leave you again. Trust me on this.”
With that, she took her plate to the sink, then left the kitchen in typical dramatic form.
Eleanor looked at her sister. “What were you thinking bringing up Dad like that?”
“I’m tired of lying about it. We know how it was like between them right before he died. But of course, we can never discuss it. I guess maybe what you said last night at the party rubbed off on me. It’s time to start speaking my mind. Time to stop worrying about everyone else’s feelings. I think you should give Max a shot. More than that, I think you’re looking for any excuse to do it.”
Eleanor sighed. “He hurt me, Allie. Bad.”
“You were different then. Not as independent as you are now. I don’t believe what Mom said at all. I think people do change all the time. Things happen. Max almost died! You don’t think that had any effect on him figuring out what he wanted in his life going forward?”
“Another good point. What if wanting me back has nothing to do with me?” Eleanor suggested. “What if this is just him clinging to any part of his former life? He came home to nothing.”
“And if it’s not?”
How did she explain her fear? “I wasn’t enough for him back then, Allie. As much as he loved me, I wasn’t enough.”
“I don’t believe that for a second. Because if that were true,
