Me & Milo the Great

By Michelle Schlicher

My name is Holiday Sanchez. I carry a heavy burden.

But I'm not the only one.

There are others who know what it feels like to remember. Maybe they are the answer. Maybe we can help each other. Maybe I'll finally get past it.

Maybe it just takes time—and a little bit of magic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michelle Schlicher
• Release date: Sep 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9780998574011

Michelle Schlicher

MICHELLE SCHLICHER is the author of the novels THE BLUE JAY, GRACIE'S SONG and COME THIS WAY. She lives outside of Des Moines with her family. You can follow her on Instagram @michelleschlicher.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Acknowledgements

About the Author

ME & MILO THE GREAT

by

MICHELLE SCHLICHER

Published by Michelle Schlicher

Copyright © Michelle Schlicher, 2017

Cover Design by Hanna Piepel

Ebook Formatting by Guido Henkel

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

For anyone who ever needed a little bit of magic

Then

Chapter 1

I didn’t call him my father.

Even when he still lived in our house, slept in the room next to mine, ate at the same kitchen table. It wasn’t something I planned. It just happened. I can’t tell you why. I was too young. Maybe he told me not to call him Dad. Maybe he didn’t think of himself as one so he didn’t want me thinking of him like that. Maybe he didn’t want that closeness to me. I don’t know.

People always thought that was strange. I guess to someone on the outside, it would be.

But I just called him what everyone else did. It was normal for them and normal for me.

Stan.

My mother would say, Stan, would you take Holiday to the store with you? I’d follow Stan to the car. He wouldn’t speak to me. He was a man of few words. Most of the time he wouldn’t even look at me.

There aren’t enough words to explain what it’s like to be in the presence of someone who doesn’t acknowledge you. There were times I’d try to catch his eye and find something familiar, something good in his face. There were times I wondered how my mother even came to know him. She never spoke of it.

From the time I was little, I would make up conversations with him in my head when we were together. In my head I’d say, Stan, I learned how to ride my bike. And (again in my head), he’d say back, Great job, Holiday! I knew you could do it. Or he’d say, Holiday, what do you think of going for ice cream today? (We never got ice cream in the real world.) And I’d laugh and grab his hand, and we’d walk to the corner of York and Taber, talking about the weather, the neighborhood, and my schoolwork, and then we’d order sundaes and eat them on the patio together. This is what would play in my head while I sat next to him in the car in silence, staring straight ahead, running my fingernail in the crack between the car door and the glass window.

It sounds crazy, right—having made-up conversations with your own father? I know that’s what you’re thinking. Why didn’t you just talk to him, if that’s what you wanted to do? Well, it’s not that simple.

And maybe I’m crazy. Did that cross your mind? That I’m stretching the truth, bending it to my benefit? Maybe I made up the animosity between us. Maybe Stan wasn’t so bad. Even if you believe I might be a bit irrational, a bit unhinged, nothing I will say or do is as crazy as what he did. That was crazy. And horrific. And makes me want to curl up in a fetal position when I think of it.

Yes, Stan was crazy. But that wasn’t all.

You see, Stan was evil. He harbored demons within him. We both knew it, Mom and me, but it wasn’t easy to escape.

Do you know what it’s like to have a man like that raise you? I don’t know you. Maybe you do.

Here’s the thing. I do know what it’s like. I know it very well.

But here’s what I don’t know, and I wish I did: Can someone come out the other side of it?

I have to believe that I can.

As a child, I don’t remember him. He wasn’t a fixture in my life. He was there, I suppose, but everything I remember that is worth remembering is her—my mother, a beautiful woman with flawless skin that I didn’t inherit, a tenacious personality that I did, and a love for me that I never questioned. Her presence in my memories is like the changing seasons, different from memory to memory, year to year, but also constant and reliable.

Yes, that is what I remember most: the way she was always there.

My mother—her name was Rita—was different from other mothers. She kept to herself. She didn’t arrange playdates with friends. She and Stan didn’t invite other couples over for dinner. She didn’t speak to our neighbors if she passed them on the sidewalk and she would swat my hand back down if I tried to wave at them. But she was like other mothers in the ways that mattered. She was fiercely protective. I don’t remember a time I wasn’t by her side. I felt loved. I felt the warmth of a mother’s hug. I felt what a daughter should feel as a child.

But I felt other things, too. These feelings were dark and unearthly. They were feelings I didn’t understand at the tender age of two, three, even four. They were feelings I started to understand later, but didn’t completely comprehend in any sensible way.

When I was three, my mother sang to me as I fell asleep every night. She sat at the foot of my bed, adjusting the covers around me. Lay by me, I’d say, patting the space beside me.

It’s late, she’d whisper.

Puh-leeeeeese?

Alright. She never said no. Just a few minutes.

Will you sing?

And she would. She sang songs from her favorite movies and Christmas songs in the summer. I fell asleep that way every night, with her voice lulling me into peaceful slumber. She wasn’t a great singer, but I didn’t care. Her voice comforted me. It wrapped itself around me like a warm blanket. By the time I fell asleep, tiredness had gotten the best of her too and she stayed with me all night, falling into a deep sleep nestled beside me in my twin bed.

The other thing I remember is our weekly trips to the local bookstore. This was, above any other place, my mother’s favorite place. It was a small space, but the town had rallied behind it. There were comfy chairs to sit on and small ones for me, where I turned pages of book after book for hours. She let me read each book the way I saw it from the pictures, never interjecting to correct me. I didn’t need the words on the page. I made it all up in my head as I studied each image. The world of books opened me up.

My mother always bought me one once I was done reading. I would pick my favorite from that day, and we would walk up to the counter to pay. My mother knew the store owner since we came in every week. They would talk for just as long as it took to ring up our purchase while I wandered away to look at the coffee mugs, the book bags, and the coloring books on display.

That little bookstore was our haven. We spent so much time there, I got to know the store owner as well. Her name was Sally, and she loved books. She’d show us the new releases in the children’s section and point out her favorites. She always welcomed us with a smile. My heart broke a little every time we left. There was no place like it, and there has been no place like it since.

My mother created that for me… for us. A magical place where nothing bad touched us, where our happiness was wrapped up in telling stories and sitting together in a small shop full of books.

And that was the way of things for me. On one hand, I had the love of my steadfast mother. On the other, I had the willful neglect of Stan. My childhood was a time of great love and great confusion. It circled around me like a cyclone. I weaved in and out of the storm, breathing in my mother’s love, resting in the eye of it, until I found myself swept back in with the force of the strongest wind.

Now

Chapter 2

It’s Tuesday. I like Tuesdays. On Tuesdays, I have a mission.

But first, I need to finish my work.

My feet are on the table and I’m tapping my pen on the notepad I’m holding, taking notes as a client relays changes for the homepage of their business website. I nod even though they can’t see me, and at the end I tell them when I’ll have the work done.

It shouldn’t take long. A few days, maybe. The design elements will take the most time.

The faster you can give me feedback, the quicker this will go, I say. What I don’t say is that it will go fast because all I do is my design work. What I don’t say is that I hardly leave my apartment.

Once I hang up the phone, I already have a fairly good idea of what direction I’ll take. Logo ideas swirl in my head. I look over the notes I jotted down during the call. My mind is building the mockups before I have even opened a new file. This is the fun part for me, when my ideas come together on the screen and I tweak them from the original image in my mind.

I work for a few hours until my phone rings and forces me from my chair. There are times I have sat at the desk after a client phone call and stayed there until the first drafts are complete. That’s what I had planned to do today.

The phone is sitting on the kitchen counter, hidden under a paper towel I had used to wipe down the top of the oven. I walk over and stare at the screen. It’s Alice. Who else would it be?

Holiday, how are you, sweetie?

Fine, I mumble into the phone. Just working. I sit down on the stool beside the counter. It’s wooden and hard beneath me, and I fidget as I talk, trying to get comfortable.

I know this week is a hard one for you, she says. Do you think it’d be okay to stop by?

Actually, I’m really on a roll with this project I’m working on—logo designs. My eyes dart around the small apartment. My glass of water is sitting on the opposite counter and my cat, Spook, is about to stick his paw in it. I wad up the paper towel next to me and throw it at him. He isn’t deterred.

Oh, she says, disappointed. My aunt is a natural caregiver. She needs to be able to know she’s helped me.

I’m so glad you called, though, I say, trying to sound more cheerful. Your voice brightened my day.

That seemed to work. I can almost hear her smile through the phone. Well, Chad and I will stop by sometime this weekend. I’ll bring a paella or something.

I wonder if that means I’ll actually have to eat paella. I’m not really a fan. Oh, you don’t have to do that.

It’s no problem! We haven’t been to visit in so long, and Chad has an appointment near your place on Saturday. It’s the perfect excuse to stop in.

Spook’s nose is in my water. I make a face. As much as I enjoy his companionship, sharing my water with someone who enjoys sticking their whole face in it is not my favorite. I try to think of something else to say to Alice. My mind is blank.

We’ll be there around 3:00, she says. After the appointment.

That sounds great.

We hang up a few minutes later. I walk over, pick up my glass and pour it out into the sink. I should get the cat off the counter, teach him not to get into my things. I read online that you can squirt them with water from a spray bottle to keep them off the counters. I also read that cats like to be up high, so they will always be trying to climb on things.

I’m not a cat person. I didn’t want a cat. He found me once when I ventured onto my patio. He ran through the complex’s community garden, right into my arms, his black outline barely visible in the dark.

He must have sensed something about me. For me, it wasn’t love at first sight. He’d been scrawny then. He’d needed food, and I didn’t have any. He’d needed to go to the vet. At the time, the thought of taking him made me physically sick, though the thought of trying to find out where he came from was even more daunting.

In the end, I’d asked Alice to take him. I’d tried to get her to take him home, too, but he hadn’t allowed her to pet him like he let me, and Alice said he’d obviously made up his mind about where he wanted to live. I didn’t really think it was up to him, but Alice said it wouldn’t hurt to have a roommate. It was the closest she’d get to saying what she really thought about my living situation, about my life situation.

I guess it all worked out for the best. Spook and I get along quite nicely, aside from the whole water glass issue.

Hey, buddy, I whisper, scratching the top of his head. He leans into my hand, nuzzling it with his nose. Alice is coming this weekend. What do you think of that?

His eyes grow wide for a moment before he leaps off the counter and sashays down the hallway to the bedroom.

I feel the same way, I say under my breath.

There’s no reason for me to dislike Alice. I don’t dislike her. In fact, it’s got nothing to do with her.

It’s me.

It’s always me.

Alice is wonderful. Anyone would be lucky to have her looking out for them. I am so lucky. But what I feel can’t be helped. It’s so deep within me. Not even Alice’s caring disposition can change it.

I look at the clock and realize it’s almost time for me to go. I find my shoes and tie the laces slowly, biding time.

Spook is sitting on the back of my cream leather sofa. I guess it’s more his sofa than mine, though. I usually sit on the uncomfortable stool in my kitchen.

My hand finds the tuft of fur behind his neck and I pet him softly. See you later, buddy.

Glancing outside, I notice the sky beginning to darken to a soft gray. The tree branch outside my living room window knocks gently on the glass so I rummage around in the entryway closet and find my black umbrella. It’s large, too big for my purse, so I carry it in my hand. I look back once more at Spook, whose eyes have closed, now disinterested in me.

As I make my way outside, my hair falls forward. I don’t brush it out of the way. Alice is always telling me not to hide my face, but it’s comforting. I’ll pull it back behind my ear for her. I’d do anything she asked of me. But right now, I let it fall and I don’t move it.

When I look up at the sky, I hear thunder. I could turn around, go back inside. I don’t have to go out. Spook and I could nestle together on my soft down comforter and take a nap. But I don’t turn back. It’s too late for a nap, anyway.

I look down at my feet, exposed in the cheap pair of flip flops I bought last fall. The single piece of material holding the shoe together is about to snap. If I step too quickly, it will. I should go to the store and buy something new. I make a mental note to find something online later. My body hesitates. I keep staring down at my feet. Why won’t they move? I take this walk every week. It’s no big deal. It shouldn’t be, anyway. But I always tell myself that and nothing changes.

Outside my building there are two extra-large planters full of new spring flowers. They look too cheerful against the gray sky, the cement building. I study them, finally lifting my eyes from the ground. No one else is around as I stare at the colorful petals. I reach out and pluck the smallest of them and thread the stem through my fingers. The flower sticks out between my ring finger and my pinkie. It looks as though it belongs there.

I hate venturing out of my building. I have the urge to throw on a hoodie and hide my face underneath it even though it is spring—and a warm spring at that. No one is staring at me, but it feels like I will be found out at any moment. That hasn’t been my experience in quite a few years, but the pain of the previous run-ins is enough to keep me hidden away in Apartment 308.

It starts to rain, so I use the umbrella as my shield. It’s more practical than a hoodie, anyway.

I walk three blocks east and four blocks north. The rain is light, but the sky has grown much darker. I almost regret this short walk until I make it to the park. I see Jane and Truman Wheatley already on their weekly stroll around the greenspace. That means it must be Tuesday. On Tuesdays, the elderly couple walk together and today is no different, even with the rain.

I stop when I see them, as if in a trance. She calls him Tru. I know this because she yelled it once when he stopped walking to tie his shoe and she’d continued, unknowing, until she realized she was talking to no one and, embarrassed, shouted his name to distract herself.

A few minutes pass. The rain ceases. Slowly, Jane and Tru make their way into the park. I can’t help but smile. Their presence calms me. Tru is holding an umbrella between them. I watch them walking, in step with one another. They look happy today. This is not always the case.

They make their way along the path, closing the distance between us. When they pass by, Jane’s eyes meet mine. For a moment I feel my heart stop beating, but she smiles and turns away. Tru gives me a nod, which he usually does. I wonder if they realize how many weeks we have engaged in this little ritual. After they pass, Jane puts her hand over Tru’s on the umbrella. It is a small gesture, but a sweet one. It makes me want to cry.

The next day I wake up early. I jolt out of sleep as I do every year on this day. My hands are shaking. I should get something to stop the shaking, the anxiety, but I don’t want to talk to anyone about it. I’ve been through it before, and it’s the talking that brings about the dreams, and the dreams are too real and too awful.

I make a cup of coffee, which makes things worse, and my hands shake a little more than before.

It’s been a year since I’ve gone where I’m going today. My emotions boil under the surface of my skin, trying to escape. I take a sip from my cup and swallow down the dark liquid. Again, it does nothing to subdue the restlessness inside me.

I feed Spook his breakfast and run a hand through my hair, which is getting long. I’m in need of a trim. Usually, I cut it myself. I don’t like the small talk at hair salons. Who am I kidding? I don’t like the small talk anywhere. I wonder if I lived in another time, where video tutorials weren’t available and online grocery shopping didn’t exist, would I survive? I suppose I would have had to force myself into the world more.

Today is sunny, and when I leave my apartment, I think to myself that a rainstorm would have been more fitting for a day like this. But I must accept the cheery disposition of the day and make my way to my destination.

I walk because I walk everywhere. There is no other way for me to go. I don’t own a car. That would require me to have the oil changed, to one day, when they’ve had enough, have the brakes replaced. It would mean I would have to engage with the people who do that work face to face, and that’s something that can take days for me to work up to.

While Aunt Alice is coming in three days, I find myself walking near her office today, to get to a place I hate, but feel obligated to visit. Walking near the dental office where Aunt Alice works, I’ll have to be careful not to be seen as I make my way to the station. I won’t stop to say hello. She would love that, but then I’d have to tell her why I’m there and she knows what today is. She’ll tell me it’s not a healthy thing to do. She doesn’t like me dwelling, which is understandable. Alice wants me to be happy, and really, anyone who’s ever been through anything painful will tell you, you can’t dwell on it. It’ll drive you crazy.

It will take me an hour and a half to walk the six miles to the station. I’ve walked it four times before.

I pass a few people as I walk. I even, inadvertently, meet one girl’s eyes as we

Reviews for Me & Milo the Great

[staciele · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't sure what to expect from Iowa author Michelle Schlicher's newest book. The synopsis doesn't tell the reader much about the story and you go in a little blind. But, since I had read one of Schlicher's previous books GRACIE'S SONG, I was confident I would like it.Going into this story blind is just what you need to do. Let the story evolve for you through the way Holiday tells her story. As you flip back in forth from the past to the present you get an idea of the person Holiday Sanchez is and that she is deeply hurting. But, you don't know why. I want the story to open up for you the way it did for me. It was emotionally draining at times to read and yet hopeful, sad and yet, joyful. The circumstances of the story are unique and one I've never read before. The author handles Holiday's emotions so delicately that rather than pity her, you feel the emotions right along with her. The descriptions of Holiday's anxiety and panic attacks offer the reader a very realistic portrait of those who suffer from this often-times debilitating disorder. But, watching Holiday emerge from her pain and loneliness brought out some strong emotions in me while reading.Milo is a wonderful character and brings an interesting twist to the story that made the pages much less dreary. His patience with Holiday, his humor, and tenderness are just what she needs. As their relationship grows and she begins to trust him, I couldn't stop rooting for them.I truly don't want to say any more about the story or its characters and risk exposing any special parts of this novel (and there were many). Instead, I want you to know this story of a young woman healing after a tragic past will uplift you. Will you need tissues close by? Yes, but the emotions are the good kind and will leave your heart feeling full. It will also remind you to look for those small moments of magic in your life.Favorite Quotes: "I am far too gone, folded into myself like a chrysalis. If only I could wake up as something new, something more beautiful, something less broken.""My newfound courage comes and goes. But the want, the need, is now embedded deep inside me. I want to be braver. I want to live larger. I want to see all that I 've failed to see, to do all that I've failed to do."