Author Spotlight: Julee Balko

Peter used to say there are four sides to every heart.

The love of your past that made you who you are today.
The love that broke you.
The love that made you believe in love.
The love that settles in your bones and grows old with you.

But Peter was dead.

Nicola put her hand on her chest. Where does that leave me now?

“Mom, do you know where my pencil case is?” Daisy’s panicked voice interrupted Nicola’s thoughts.

She walked downstairs, grabbed the case from the couch, and handed it to Daisy. Nicola knew not to help. Her daughter had an order in which she put everything into her bag. An order only Daisy could get right.

Failure kept Nicola quiet. She looked at the clock. 8:03. The bus would be there in seven minutes. But she knew words other moms used freely, like “hurry” or “you don’t want to be late,” would send Daisy into an emotional spiral that would, in fact, make them much later.

Once Daisy finished packing, they walked to the school bus stop. Nicola did not hug her goodbye. Daisy hated hugs. Instead, she waved to the bus driver as her child boarded the bus. Daisy kept her eyes down until she reached the fourth seat. It was always the fourth seat.

It was only after Daisy got on the bus that Nicola heard a violin. As she walked down the path strewn with pine needles to her rented cottage, she glanced up. A shirtless man was playing the violin on the back porch of the small yellow house next door. She hadn’t seen anyone in the old house since the nice grad school couple moved out last spring. His dark hair looked wet from a shower, and his eyes were closed as he played.

Nicola didn’t know whether to say hi and disrupt him, or just keep walking. She started to wave, but his eyes were still closed, so she stuffed her hand awkwardly into  her pocket. Her eyes kept traveling from his bare, tanned shoulders to his tight stomach. It had been two years since she’d seen a man’s naked torso. She needed more coffee. Coffee never did her wrong.

Stepping into her small kitchen, Nicola grabbed her favorite green mug with the nice, thick handle. She wondered if the violin player had a nice, thick… The phone rang, and her mind instantly went from lewd to Louise, her mother.

“Don’t be worried,” her mother said, which had the opposite effect on Nicola.

“Everything okay, Mom? You don’t normally call this early.”

“There was an incident with your father. But it’s all under control now.” Nicola’s hand shook as she sat down with her coffee. “What happened?”

“Well, it actually happened last week, and I found him perfectly safe down the street at the neighbor’s house weeding their garden.”

“Dad wandered last week, and you’re just calling me now?”

“I’m calling because your dad needs better care than I can give him. I visited the new senior living center they’re building called Lakeside. They have an option where I can live there too. If I let them know before they’re done building, we even get a discount.”

“Wow. So you’re moving?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Her mother sounded agitated.

“What are you saying then, Mom? How can I help?” Why did talking with her mother always feel like verbal warfare?

“I’m saying I have an amazing offer for you. We won’t sell the house if you want it.”

“What? Me?”

“Yes. I know you think it’s fine to do life all alone out there in North Carolina. But like I told you when you moved there, it’d be better if you were here in Virginia with us.”

Nicola paused to gather her thoughts and untangle the yarn ball of feelings.

“Mom, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you thinking of me and Daisy. But we’ve only been here a year. I don’t know about moving Daisy again. I really like my job here, and the closest vet to you is forty-five minutes away. Plus, they work mostly with farm animals, which isn’t what I do. All the same reasons we didn’t move back to Virginia a year ago apply.”

What Nicola didn’t say was that ever since she was fifteen, she’d dreamed of getting far away from that town and her father. It seemed like cruel karma that the man who tried to control her every move now had dementia and didn’t remember half of what he had done to her. Her mother’s memory, however, seemed to gloss over that past as well.

“But now, you wouldn’t have to live with us. It’d be your house.” Her mother raised her voice an octave. “Jared, the manager at Lakehouse, said if we tell him soon, we can even pick out the kitchen.”

Nicola knew the excitement in her mother’s voice wasn’t real. There was no way she was excited about picking out kitchen tiles when it meant her husband’s mind was failing.

“How soon is soon?” she asked as she paced.

“The building should be ready to open in six months, so we’d need to sign a contract before that. I’d put the house on the market this summer. Unless, of course, you want to make it yours and Daisy’s beautiful home forever.”

I appreciate that so much, Mom. I do. But don’t you need the money from the house to pay for your new living situation? I remember when we talked about memory care before. It was so expensive.”

“Oh, we’ll figure out a way.” Her mother sounded confident, but Nicola knew better than to count on that.

“Promise me you’ll consider it,” she added, her voice laced with love. But Nicola also knew that when Peter first died, there were many reasons she never thought about moving back to be near her parents. The truth was that they had a better relationship from afar.

“I promise.”

Nicola hung up the phone and downed her coffee as if it were a shot of something stronger. Moving back. Moving on. Moving forward. Too much thinking about moving lately, and yet she felt very stuck.

An old wooden sign hung in her mother’s living room. “Home is where the heart is.” But where is home when your heart is in a million pieces?

Nicola put her wavy brown mess of hair in a ponytail and stared at Peter’s empty chair. She imagined them having coffee together before work. Would they walk Daisy to the bus? But if he were still alive, she wouldn’t be here—renting a cottage in the middle of North Carolina. She’d still be in Maryland. And she certainly wouldn’t be considering moving back to her childhood home in Virginia. The very home she spent her whole life running away from. Could Daisy even handle another move? Could Nicola?

If Daisy hadn’t clogged the toilet the night Henry called and offered her this cottage, she might not have broken down and said yes. But somehow, standing in  overflowing sewage and watching a dirty toilet river run onto the carpet made it obvious Nicola’s life had become total shit. Yes, she was relieved when Henry offered her the chance to rent the cottage. A chance to live somewhere less expensive. A chance for a broken toilet not to break her. A chance to never again drive down the road that killed her husband.

Here in this small town of about 9,000 people, Nicola could slide through the day. In this town, the houses were old, and so were the trees. No large trees had been butchered to make way for manicured lawns and new housing. The locals were mostly older, too, with a few young families scattered about. The next generation of townspeople, who would add a better coffee shop to the town square, was just getting started. Nicola was grateful that everyone always gave a friendly wave, but didn’t ask too much. There was no sea of sad looks to wade through. Well, except for the one person whose eyes also held grief. Henry.

He was probably the biggest reason Nicola wasn’t jumping at the chance to move back home. But she wasn’t ready to admit that to herself or anyone. Because Henry was her dead husband’s best friend.