Tuesday Tales: From the Word SIMPLE

Welcome to another Tuesday Tales. I’m continuing with my holiday romance, Forever in my Heart.

“This is what I get for polishing off that second bottle of wine all by myself,” she groaned.

This wasn’t her first hangover and probably wouldn’t be her last, but never had she felt so off-kilter, so strange, with unprecedented pain in her head and an emptiness inside her unlike anything she’d ever experienced—well not since Cassie and Luke. She wouldn’t go there.

“Spanish reds are off my list,” she mumbled, reaching for the shampoo, surprised to find the outside of her head as painful as the inside. “And here I am talking to myself again.”

As a young child, her mother had opted not to discourage her self-talk, often joining in the conversations with Callie’s imaginary friend.

It wasn’t until she was sixteen, that her mother, dying of cancer, had dropped a bombshell on her, and had told her about Timberton, her family there, and Cassandra, her twin. The only man she’d known as a father had been Stan Mitchell, the man who’d married her mother. He’d been in the process of adopting her, when the RCMP constable had been killed in the line of duty. So she’d remained a Hayworth, her mother a Mitchell, never knowing about the Knowles family until that day.

As Mom had explained it, she’d only been a year old, and at the time, they’d felt a clean break was best. Each keeping one child had been a simple solution to the problem. The reason Mom had never discouraged her self-talk had been because she’d wondered if Callie, as she’d called her, had been talking to Cassie, her twin. Her mother had never forgotten the twin she’d left behind and carried the guilt of forcing them apart. Her dying wish had been to beg Callie to find her sister.

After Mom had died, she’d taken the information the lawyer had given her, along with Cassandra’s share of the inheritance, and had gone to Timberton. It had felt like home. Under the watchful eye of her paternal grandmother and more tears than she’d shed in her lifetime, she and Cassie had been reunited. That had been ten years ago. They’d sworn never let anything or anyone separate them again, But six years ago, Cassandra had destroyed the tenuous bond they’d formed, leaving Callie broken, unable to commit to anyone, a failing that had been quite evident last night.

That’s it. Stay safe and don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales