Maybe he’d feel better if he took Sarge for a long walk. Would it be wrong to stop by to see if Panda would like to tag along? At least that would give him a legitimate excuse to see how Amy was doing. After outfitting Sarge in his harness and leash, they headed over to knock on her door.
No answer.
He peeked in the front window. No sign of either Amy or the dog. Maybe they were around back. Again no answer when he knocked on the kitchen door. There were no lights on in the house and, worse yet, Panda’s crate was missing from its usual spot in the corner of the kitchen by the table. What the hell?
She normally didn’t take Panda with her when she ran errands, but maybe she’d needed to take the little guy to the vet or something. For now, he would take Sarge for his walk and then check in with her when they got back to make sure everything was okay.
But after taking a leisurely stroll around the neighborhood, there was still no sign of either Amy or her roommate.
“Well, dog, guess all we can do is wander on home.”
On the way inside, he picked up his mail and tossed it on the kitchen counter. After grabbing a soft drink out of the fridge, he flipped through the stack. As usual, it was mostly junk mail and bills, but at the bottom there was a small envelope that simply hadMishahandwritten on the front.
“Sarge, why would Amy leave me a note instead of calling or at least sending a text message?”
The dog woofed softly, echoing Mikhail’s own suspicion that it wasn’t a good thing. “Only one way to find out, I guess.”
He ripped open the envelope to get at the folded paper inside and read the first sentence. “Well, boy, it says here that she’s gone home to visit her family and isn’t sure when she’ll be back. That explains why both she and Panda are gone.”
Sarge made no comment this time. Continuing on, Mikhail forced himself to read the note slowly, taking each word as it came.
As if sensing his owner wasn’t happy, Sarge parked his backside next to Mikhail’s foot and leaned against his leg. He patted the dog on the head and went back to reading, picking up where he’d left off. “She says she’s grateful I was so honest with her about my past and my mom. Why I am the way I am. I’m not sure she should feel that way considering I know it hurt her, especially when it comes to how I reacted to her situation.”
He suspected that he had disappointed her, proving himself to be just like her family. Hell, he was disappointed in his reaction as well.
The dog grumbled in what sounded like sympathy. “You’re right, Sarge. I don’t like this, either, but at least it sounds like she thought the sex was great.”
She was right about that, even if she didn’t have any basis for comparison. He drew a slow breath and read the last line. Then he read it again. She appreciated his promise, but she wouldn’t hold him to it, not if it only made things harder for them both. Seriously? Couldn’t she have given him a little time to figure things out before giving up on them?
He could only come up with one reason for that: she thought he’d given up on them first.
He sank to the kitchen floor. What was he supposed to do now?
Numb, he wasn’t sure how long he sat there before Sarge whined and crawled up in his lap. He obliged the dog by scratching his head. “Dog, I wish you could talk. I could use some good advice about now.”
Sarge responded by snorting in Mikhail’s face, startling him into laughing. “I appreciate your support, big guy, but I wish bulldog love wasn’t always so slimy.”
Another reason to wish it was Joe sitting there with him instead of a fifty-pound dog with a habit of drooling. After wiping his face with the hem of his shirt, Mikhail picked up the note again, intending to put it away to reread again later. But when he reached for the envelope, he froze. Something about seeing his name handwritten on an envelope like that meant something, but what?
Then a memory popped into his brain that had him wanting to smack himself upside the head. True, it wasn’t possible to talk to Joe, but Joe could talk to Mikhail, at least in a manner of speaking. The man had left a letter for each of his three sons with his attorney. Mikhail had no idea what he’d written to Jack and Tino, but he knew for a fact those letters had helped each of them get through some tough times. The only downside was that reading those letters had also been painful for his brothers. They’d both admitted that reading Joe’s last words to them had been like saying goodbye to their father all over again.
As a result, Mikhail had been in no rush to read his own letter, but his gut said the time was now. He gently shoved Sarge off his lap and headed for his bedroom. The letter was in the same drawer where he kept his one picture of his mother.
He studied her mug shot for what felt like a long time. As always, he saw past the dark circles below his mother’s eyes and the stark pain in her expression to the fragile beauty underneath. Staring into the pale blue eyes so like his own, he did his best to make peace with his memories. “Mom, I told Amy all about you. About us. I’m still all tangled up inside about what happened back then, and I’m scared I’ve let it screw up all the good things I had going on with her. Talking to you like this isn’t going to help with that, so I’m going to go see my other mother. It doesn’t mean that I love you any less, but I really need to talk to her before I see what Joe wanted to tell me.”
Then he carefully returned the picture and took out the letter. It felt far heavier than it should have, but maybe that was only his imagination.
“Come on, Sarge. Let’s go see Mom.”
An hour later he was sitting at the table in Marlene’s kitchen. He’d already given her the PG version of what had happened between him and Amy.
Marlene refilled his coffee cup and sat down next to him. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told your brothers, Misha. You made the mess, so you need to find a way to fix things. I have every confidence you’ll be able to do that if she really means that much to you. For the record, Amy was right about one thing. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to spend your life afraid to love because of what happened to her. Try as you might, it’s just not possible to protect your heart from hurt. It nearly killed me to lose Joe, but I wouldn’t have given up the years we had together for anything. The love all of us shared as a family made it all worth it.”
She reached across to put her hand on his. “One more thing. I won’t lie to you. It wasn’t easy to have my three boys in danger all the time. To be honest, son, I worry about you being a fireman, but I also knew that was your decision to make. What I’m trying to say is that you have to let the people you love live their lives, risks and all.”
“I know.”
He finally pulled the envelope out of his shirt pocket and laid it on the table. “I think it’s time I open Dad’s letter, but it didn’t feel right reading it at my house. Jack and Tino both read theirs over in the annex, so that’s where I’m headed next.”
