Page 23 of I’m Not Yours

The next day, I explored the contents of the blue cardboard box. It was the last step for me—then the space my dad occupied in my head was going to be banished forever. What I found shocked me.

Inside were some of my mother’s things: A burgundy velvet covered jewelry box. Her wedding ring with a miniscule diamond that I remembered her leaving when we fled. A brooch with a hummingbird on it. A colorful Mexican fan. A ceramic vase painted with blue flowers.

What shocked me was his note. My dad, my often violent, uncontrollable dad, wrote that he loved me, that he loved my mother, that he was sorry.

That word sorry came up at least ten times. He blamed himself and took full responsibility. He blamed himself for my mother’s death.

Without my abusive attitude and behavior, MaeLynn would not have high-tailed it for Montana. I take full blame for MaeLynn’s death. I loved her, Allie, as I have always loved you, too. I am dying a broken man.

I say this not to make you feel guilty. You were right to walk away from your old man. You had to. I was a mean SOB and a threat to you.

“Your Grandpa Tad left me money, Allie. I spent part of it to get cleaned up, to get off the booze once and for all. I hate what I’ve done.

Hate myself. Can’t remember a time when I didn’t hate myself.

I think it started with my old man. You know the scars on my face?

They’re all from him and his fists. I turned into my old man with you and your mother, the last person I wanted to be.

But now I’m sober and I got to try to make amends, even though it is far short of what you deserve.

I bought the apple orchard for you. I remember how you always ate apples out of the orchard near our trailer.

I remember thinking way back then that it was kind of cute how you always had apples with you.

Now I know you were always looking for apples to eat because you were hungry, because your loser dad did not provide food for you.

I spent my money at the bars. I failed you because I was too drunk to do anything different.

Allie, I am sorry with everything I got.

My gift to you is all the apples you could ever want or need.

What I should have given you and what you had a right to expect.

I love you, Allie, and I wish you the very best. I am truly sorry.

I choked up over that box, and when I got myself together, I walked through the apple orchard my dad left me. My apple orchard now.

I picked a Jonagold off a tree as Bob went running after those tantalizing squirrels, Margaret following her man with her tongue hanging out.

Mr. Jezebel Rooster cock-a-doodle-doo’d. He gets his times messed up.

The apple was delicious.

I found the ring in the middle of an apple pie we were sharing on Jace’s deck as the sun went down over the blue mountains in the distance, pinks and yellows settling over my apple orchard down the hill.

At first, I couldn’t even figure out what I was looking at. What was it and what was it doing in my pie? I pulled the ring out of the crust and licked it. It was quite the sparkler— absolutely stunning.

Jace reached for my hand and dropped down to one knee. Gotta love that. “Will you marry me, Allie Pelletier?”

“Oh yes. Yes, I will.” He picked me up, swung me around, and kissed me the way he always kisses me, full and passionate, with love, bodies together tight.

“I love you, Allie. I’ve loved you since I met you, and I’ll love you when we’re old and making apple pies together for our great-grandchildren, using your mom’s recipes.”

“That’s a really beautiful image.” I held his face and kissed him, loving him wrapped around me, loving us, loving our future.

“Sure is,” he drawled. “As long as you don’t burn the pies.”

I laughed and elbowed him and he grabbed me, flipped me over his shoulder, and shut the bedroom door with his cowboy boot.

I was a fool.

A hopeful fool.

I called a baby doctor.

She had a cancellation the next day, so I took it. She did the exam.

She said, “We can fix it.” I was stunned.

I told Jace the news as soon as I saw him. He picked me up and swirled me around.

I told Pearl the news about our engagement.

She hugged me and asked for the pieces of my mother’s purple-flowered china plates that my father had shattered.

I didn’t know why she wanted them, but I handed them over.

For a wedding gift, she created a four-by-five-foot mosaic of Jace’s house, which is where we are going to live. She used the pieces of the plates to form the flowers in the trees near his home.

“Welcome home, dearie,” she said. “Now get in there and bang out some babies.”

I received a call from the owner of Mackie’s Designs.

“We want you back, Allie,” Belinda Carls, the chic owner, said in her soft Texan drawl.

“Annalise is gone. We checked out your claims and you were right as rain on a desert. Shane, Jeremy, and David said they were bee-bopping on the mattress with her, and they appreciated the promotions, but that’s wrong as a skunk’s scent and it’s not how we work, not how Mother would have wanted it.

Did you know Annalise threw her Manolo Blahniks at people who made her mad?

I just found out that many of her employees have had nervous breakdowns and plumb lost their minds.

She was fired quick as a wink. How would you like to be president of Mackie’s Designs? ”

I thought about it for a long . . . two seconds.

“No, thank you.” I could not imagine wearing four-inch heels again, and I don’t need to hide myself or my past behind couture or high-end fashions anymore.

“No?” Belinda was astonished, baffled. “What do you mean no, sugar ? I’ve told you the salary, the benefits. This is a Texas-sized opportunity for you, Allie, and that’s no bull . . .”

“Sorry, Belinda. I’m going to bake pies.”

“Pies, dear?”

“Yep. Pies. Most especially, apple pies. My mother’s favorite. I’ll send you one.”