Lovely Hues | Fillie AU

Chapter Thirty

So much happened in the week that followed Louisa getting her voice back that Millie felt like she was losing track of time. It felt like a whirlwind.

First, she spent hours each day talking to Louisa who finally had a whole lot to say. They laughed and cried and talked about the past year and everything that had happened. Louisa told her mother that she hadn't planned on not talking for so long, but that it didn't really feel like her decision at all. The way Millie understood it, the shock of seeing Noah die initiated the silence, but as time went on, Louisa felt like she just couldn't speak. She said that every time she tried to, her stomach would twist and turn and her chest would feel so heavy it hurt, so eventually she just stopped trying.

It wasn't until Finn showed up that she felt like she might be able to talk again. She said that when she was painting, that she felt the most free. She had never told anyone, but sometimes while painting she would sing to herself, very softly under breath and anytime she thought someone was close, she would stop, but she had started to feel much more herself, and her natural love of singing came through in those moments.

"I kept wanting to tell Mr. Finn that I liked him being around, but everytime, I felt like I might be sick, so I didn't say anything and then he left. . ."

Millie fought back the urge to tell Louisa that Finn wasn't worth being sad about, but since she herself still felt the sting of sadness when he came to mind, she couldn't very well tell her daughter that. Instead she said, "Some people come into our lives for little bits of time and others stay around a while longer. It's hard to tell, sometimes, who those people will be, but it was nice to know Mr. Finn while we did, wasn't it?"

Louisa nodded, "It's silly," she chuckled, "but I sort of thought you and he might marry one day."

Millie huffed a bitter laugh, "You know what, love? I sort of did too."

And then Louisa, with scrunched eyebrows and confused eyes said, "Why did he leave?"

Before this moment, Millie had thought about how she might explain it to her daughter. Her sons weren't old enough to question it, though she could tell that they were aware something had changed in their little spheres of existence, but she never, in a million years thought that she'd actually be asked by her daughter to explain it all. Yet, here she was.

"Darling," she started, then paused because she was going to tell her that Finn was the type of person who came and left and didn't care, but in that moment, she knew it wasn't true. Her anger at him had dulled and now she was seeing that maybe he wasn't the drifter she had let herself believe he was. After all, he was going to come back through at some point. Both he and Caleb had gone, and if Millie knew anything, she knew that Caleb McLaughlin couldn't stay away from his farm for as long as Finn said he might be gone. Plus, Finn had left his bike here.

Shouldn't that have been enough for her to know that he wasn't going away forever? Or even for a long time? The dramatics that surrounded his departure were starting to fade and the realities were starting to come into full color.

If they came back soon, would she still want to go to London? Would he go with her? Her stomach lurched at that thought. She hadn't talked to Louisa yet about her plans to uproot them all. What would she say? Would she be okay? East Plains is all she's ever known.

Shaking away her multiple strings of thought, she continued, "Darling, he left to. . .to do something that is very important to him."

"And will he be back?" she asked.

Millie didn't know what possessed her to say this, but she said, "You know what, Lou? I think he will." She looked to the ground. Did she just give her daughter false hope? Something inside her told her she didn't. That it was true.