Melissa: A Hathaway House Heartwarming Romance by Dale Mayer (good book club books txt) 📕

At that, Shane remembered Keith. “I keep forgetting that,” he said. “Between Keith and Iain, you’re having quite the relationships here, aren’t you?”

“And I love it,” Robin said. “It makes me feel very connected to everybody.”

“And I think that’s what I’m missing,” Melissa said quietly, as she sat at Shane’s side.

Shane looked at her. “What? What is it you’re missing?”

“That connection,” she said, “that sense of belonging. It’s been missing a long, long time in my world.”

Robin leaned on the desk and studied her for a long moment. “You know it’s not from the outside, right? It’s from the inside.”

Chapter 8

Melissa looked at her. “That sense of belonging?”

“I had a similar thing with a rough childhood,” she said. “Some … family issues. But I found that, for me—and I mean, obviously I can only speak for myself—but having a sense of connection to myself, the acceptance of who I was, where I was, what I was doing, made a big difference. And, coming from that point, I could then reach outward with the same sense of acceptance, and I found that people were there for me more than I thought. I had assumed they weren’t there for me because I couldn’t really see it, I couldn’t see myself.”

Shane piped up, “Wow, that’s a really good insight. I’m not sure too many people will have had that experience and come out with the same wisdom.”

“No,” Robin said. “It’s been a really good thing to have my brother Keith here,” she said, “because it’s helped us to work through a few of our own family issues. I love him dearly, but we needed to talk about things.” She shrugged. “We didn’t have an easy time growing up. Keith had the worst time of it,” she said. “This time, it’s helping us pull together. And, of course, Iain is a huge help in that way too.”

Shane nodded. “Iain has done a phenomenal job here,” he said warmly. “And the two of you are great together.”

She smiled. “Thank you. And you’re right. We worked really hard to be where we’re at. It’s just so wonderful to have found each other.”

“Is there a trick to that self-acceptance?” Melissa asked, Robin’s words kept going over and over in her head. “Because it feels like something is very momentous in that, in what you just said.”

“Well, if there is,” Robin said, “give yourself some quiet time to just think it over, to see what pops up. Don’t work on it. It’s not homework. It’s not something that you have to do. Allow yourself to ponder those issues and to see what comes up.”

Melissa nodded. “That seems to be one of the tricks,” she said. “You know how there’s always that feeling that you’re supposed to be doing more, that you’re supposed to be trying harder, that you should have all the answers? Instead I feel like I have no answers.”

“And instead it’s more about accepting that this is where you’re at, that this is what you’re doing, and that the truth will find its way toward you.”

“Exactly,” Shane said. “And we don’t want to get esoteric about it all, but, at the same time, it’s an inner knowing, it’s finding out who you are, who’ll show up every day for the job, and what a job you’ll put in,” he said gently.

Melissa smiled. “You always have such great words of wisdom. Is it something to do with being here?”

Robin said, “You know what? Sometimes I wonder. I’ve become very empathetic, much more intuitive being here, with the relationships, with the people all around me. Everybody is so very caring, and you can see when and where there’s a problem. We may not always know how to handle it, but you know enough to back away and to let some people find their way on their own. Like I said, there’s a lot of good things to being here.” Just then the buzzer on her desk rang. She smiled and said, “I have to get back to work.”

“Wait. Before you go,” Shane said, “we were just taking a moment and showing her some of the animals around here. Do you have anybody that needs a cuddle?”

“Oh, do we ever,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” With that, Robin disappeared into the back.

Melissa looked up at Shane. “I find the conversations around here so very unique,” she said.

“That’s because we’re all involved in healing,” he said, his tone more serious than she’d heard it before. “And, when you think about it, that’s so much of what our world is. It’s all about healing. It’s all about what’s the next step for everybody. And that healing rubs off on those of us who work here too. It’s not like we’re completely immune to it or that we don’t have any work to do on ourselves. It’s just we don’t think we do because we’re not in that world. And then, when we are in this world,” he said, “it just … it sneaks up on you, and it makes you realize that you have this issue or that issue, and you need to work on it. Growth happens exponentially when it’s around another person who’s growing.”

“And I like that idea,” she said. “I was thinking before I got here that I was a huge mess, but maybe I’m not all that bad off.”

“Oh my,” he said, “you’re not bad off at all. And you’re doing a wonderful job. You need to give yourself credit for that.”

“Am I?”

He stopped and looked at her, then nodded very seriously. “Absolutely,” he said. “You are doing a great job. You just need to realize that the inside growth is not something that anybody else can measure. Only you can.”

And, with that, Robin returned. In her arms was a huge cat. Melissa looked at her and laughed. “Well, I’d say it’s a cat because it has the look of a cat, but it’s a monster