Chapter 45. Their Approval

Harlyn

The celebration has been going amazing; I watch Wayne standing with the pups and Samuel walking towards my mother. I sit.

"Darling." She moves and hugs me. "He seems like such an amazing man." Her words make me smile.

"He is; I'm grateful to have him." That I am.

"He and the pups have changed you. The girl you were has basically disappeared. You walk with your head up, no longer at your feet," she says while smiling.

"Mother, you know we all love you, right?" I ask, and she nods. "Then don't do this again; imagine how I would have felt if Father refused to let me return and you had died." I hate how close that reality came.

"Samuel needed you. Lucy needed you."

"So much that you were willing to die?" Is she crazy? I stare at her, fighting back the tears.

"He missed you. We all did." Sighing, she looks around the room. "Maybe