Mom Over Miami - By Annie Jones Page 0,66

the office today, and if he had any questions, well, he’d get his answers when he got home.

She hung up the phone and picked up a pen.

19

Subject: Change of plans

To: DocPayt

Dear Payt,

I won’t be taking the tickets back to the travel agent.

Call you from Miami.

Love,

Hannah

“What was I thinking?” she asked the lady crowding the armrest and most of the so-called legroom somewhere over Tennessee.

“I really shouldn’t do this,” she said to the too-polite-to-tell-her-it-wasn’t-his-problem man behind the ticket counter when she changed planes in Atlanta.

“The reservation may be for five days, but I’ll have to go back before that, I think,” she warned the effervescent clerk in the relaxed elegance of the marble lobby of the five-star hotel in Miami.

In the room, she took in the calming atmosphere, the fresh smell, the bed made by somebody else and towels that would appear clean and fluffed daily without her having to lift a laundry basket. She threw open the curtains to enjoy the endless starlit sky and view of dazzling light reflected through the blue of the pool six stories down. That’s when she turned to the bellman, pressed a generous tip into his hand and whispered, “Tell housekeeping to keep the supply of towels coming. I’m going to be here a while.”

She had done it.

Her.

The woman who had spun her wheels in a tidy rut for her whole lifetime hoping somehow to please others had finally taken a stand and taken flight.

And to a place where it was far too warm to think about Christmas pageants.

A place sans an office and therefore devoid of office politics—and messy break rooms that needed her attention.

A little corner of the world where no one had ever heard of the DIY-Namic Duo.

And where, if anyone wanted a snack, they called room service.

“Peace,” she murmured, falling back onto the bed. “Except for one little thing.”

She glared at the brown-and-white rectangular sign boasting We Provide A High-Speed Internet Connection For Our Guests’ Convenience. She could run away from almost every source of frustration and fear in her life—but she couldn’t hide.

She had no excuse now for not replying to Jacqui and Cydney. And worse, no excuse for not turning in her column. No excuse but the fact that she didn’t have a column. That she had no idea what to say in a column.

“You have to take care of yourself and refill the well.” She reminded herself of Lauren’s excellent advice. Even Payt had told her she had to go after her dreams, to do whatever made her “happy happy.”

And she had.

For about ten seconds when she came into this room she had been the most happy happy she’d been since…

“Since Tessa smiled at me last? Since Payt held me in his arms? Since I tucked Sam in bed thankful to God we’d had him for one more day?” Her daily life brimmed with happy moments—the sort of everyday ordinary happy that she had started to take for granted.

Or worse.

That she had pushed aside to make room for all the fear and worry that she fed with her own doubts and fault findings.

How had she let it go so far that the only way she could find to remedy it was to run away from her family and friends?

You know, sweet girl, insecurities and the driving desire for independence—they stem from the same place.

Hannah recalled Aunt Phiz’s attempt to get her to confront the issue months ago. She hadn’t had the time then, and wasn’t sure even now that it would do any good.

It had been more than a year since she had stood at her mother’s grave.

More than a year since she and her sisters had discovered the source of their mother’s pain and chosen to forgive her even if they could not understand her.

How could they understand? Only her sister Sadie had been a mom then. Hannah and their oldest sister, April, had nothing to base their concepts of the mother/daughter bond on then. Just idealized visions, glimpses into the lives of their friends and the TV-show images that never wholly rang true.

But that had changed. With Tessa—and with Sam—that had all changed for Hannah. She knew now how much she could love another person, how much she could ache for them, how much she could sacrifice for them. And the toll all that could take on a person who didn’t have a solid spiritual, mental and physical foundation.

Hannah’s mom never had those things. Depression and circumstances had robbed her of them.

But Hannah had them