Chapter 35

July 2023

After the fight he had with Wes, weeks go by where I don't see Fred.

He's not at the window when I practice in the morning. He doesn't come to cocktails.

I don't ask, but I know that Wes hasn't seen him either, because I'd be able to tell if he had. Eventually, from a side comment that Charlotte drops, I learn that Fred's left town for the moment, maybe for good.

I don't know how I feel about that, but I try not to let it occupy my thoughts. Instead, I spend time with Wes, tentative time, rebuilding time, and I put the finishing touches on the house for the estate sale.

I read the rest of my mother's diary, and there are no big revelations. I feel like I know her better, but my mother needs to be packed away too, as much as it hurts to do it.

Wes's bruises have faded and my thoughts of Fred fades with them. Wes and I aren't quite what we were—I don't know if we ever can be—but we're better. We don't fight, we remember good times, we plan for more. And this is what I always wanted with him. For him to be present like he was in the beginning, for us to be on the same page. I know that what happened to us happens to a lot of couples when they stop taking time, when they stop paying attention, when they take the other person for granted. So we try not to do that anymore, and the more we do it, the more possible it seems, like a muscle that hurts the first day you flex it, and then never again.

And now it's August, our last week here.

The estate sale is Friday, and afterward we'll sign the transfer papers for the money, and then Wes and I will go back to the city. Everything is cataloged and tucked away. Every room is packed up. There's just my mother's room to clear out, the one thing I could never get to.

But today we're going to, come what may—all three of us together.

Charlotte, Sophie, and I stand in front of the doorway like it's the wardrobe to Narnia.

"What do you think is in there?" Sophie says.

"Charlotte?"

"What? I haven't been inside."

"Not in all the years?"

"I'd tell the cleaners to go in twice a year to keep the dust down—that's it."

"It feels like she might be in there," I say.

"Yeah."

"We can't put it off anymore."

"You're right." Charlotte pushes on the door handle. It opens easily, my mother's scent rushing out.

"Oh fuck," Charlotte says, and that sets us laughing.

We step into the room. It's the same as I remember it, and also different. Some things—like the couch she used to lie on to read, to reflect, to snuggle—are smaller than I remember. The windows feel larger, the sunlight brighter. But mostly, it feels like a part of me that I was missing, and I'm not sure why I put it off for so long.

"This is weird," Sophie says.

"So weird."

"I guess we put everything in boxes?"

"That's what I've been doing, yes."

"Okay, okay. No need to be bitchy about it, Saint Olivia."

I ignore the comment and walk to the bookshelves. The library downstairs was full of books, but this is where she kept her favorites. Her copies of Anne of Green Gables and Ballet Shoes and The Secret Garden. She read them to us when we were children, us curled up around her, as she transported us away to the magical worlds within. Each of us had our favorite. I loved spunky Anne. Sophie loved The Secret Garden. Charlotte was drawn to The Borrowers, liking the miniature world created therein.

I take the books off the shelf, one by one, and flip through the pages carefully. I can hear my sisters remarking on this find or that, but I mostly tune them out. With each book my heart swells in anticipation, but then it crashes back to earth again. The pages are blank, there's no card to me hidden within. The truth of it sinks in. The card I received from her on my twenty-first birthday is the last.

"I can't believe Lucy chose him over Fred," Sophie says, the first words of theirs that register in an hour.

"What?" I say, turning around. They're huddled by the window, a box at their feet. They've cleared one shelf, while I've done ten.

"Lucy. She's dating that guy, the winery guy."

"James?"

"Right," Charlotte says.

"She is?"

"Yeah, she stayed there for, like, weeks after the accident, and I guess proximity or whatever. She told Colin this morning."

"Lucy and James are together."

Sophie's annoyed. "That's what I said."

"What's it to you?" Charlotte asks. "Good for her."

"I thought she was good with Fred," Sophie says, pouting. "He must be heartbroken."

"Potato, poh-tah-to," Charlotte says. "They're both super-rich."

"Lucy's not like that. That's not what she cares about."

Charlotte shrugs. "Everyone cares about money."

"Okay, that's true, but she's not a gold digger."

"What's Fred saying about this?" I ask, trying to keep my voice casual.

"Who knows? He's probably pissed, though. James is his friend. And he's totally into her."

I think back to that night when we all stayed there after the accident. Was there any hint that James was on the make other than his slight interest in me? My impression was that he was still heartbroken about the loss of his fiancée, but what did I know?

"Fred will get over it," I say.

"How do you know?" Sophie says, her hands on her hips. "Maybe he's devastated."

"Because he's a man."

"That's ridiculous."

"Men always get over heartbreak faster than women."

"Just because Wes—"

I put up a hand. "Okay, forget it. But I know Fred. He'll be fine."

"Don't be so sure," Sophie says. "Now are we finishing this or what?"

Several hours later, the shelves are almost bare and boxed, and all that's left is the furniture. We log it, and Charlotte and Sophie leave me to finish up.

The estate sale is on Friday morning. Once we know the proceeds, then we'll disburse the money to the charity being set up to honor Mom, and then we can all move on. We decided to make it a music scholarship for young, disadvantaged girls. Hopefully, the sale will raise enough money to make a meaningful impact.

I run my hands along the empty shelves collecting dust. What will happen to our family, without this common ground? I've gotten closer to Sophie and Charlotte this summer. I need to do a better job of keeping in touch. I don't need to hide away from here, or the memories that it holds. I don't need to pretend that I don't love it. The sound of the ocean, the smell of the trees, the endless view. Wes and I should buy a place, I decide. I'll talk to him about it in a couple of weeks, once we're settled back in New York.

I smile to myself, and I'm about to leave the room when I see something poking out from one of the bookshelves. I get closer. There's a book wedged behind it. I pull the shelf out, and free the book. It's my mother's copy of Persuasion, old, the pages brittle. I flip the pages slowly so I don't break them. It's full of my mother's annotations and underlining. And then, near the middle of the book, her favorite passage is highlighted in a red box—the one about there "never being twohearts so open"—and there are two pieces of paper folded over and wedged in between.

I open them carefully with my hand shaking. The edges are rough—the missing pages from her diary. The date at the top is from a few weeks before she died.

My dearest Olivia,

I've been trying all day to write your eighteenth birthday card and failing. I'm not sure why, only I see so much of myself in you. All your goals and plans—I had those too. But then they flew away like a bird headed south for winter, only they never came back again when the weather turned.

I'm not making sense. My head hurts and I'm tired, and my thoughts are full of him.

Sam.

I've never told you about him, have I? The handsome sailor who came into town on shore leave the summer I was seventeen. Oh, how he looked in his uniform! I'm sorry to say that I always did have a weakness for a good-looking man. And Sam was extraordinary. Tall, dark, striking. Talking to him made me feel so … it's hard to describe. Nervous, happy, scared. When I worked up the courage to talk to him, he seemed to be made for me, like something out of a novel, our hearts so open to each other, like no one else had ever felt what we did.

Maybe I was naive, but I believed his promises. He was going to save me from my father, sail me away into the ocean blue. I wanted that so much. I wanted him. I hope you feel that wanting someday, Olivia, though not with the consequences I suffered. I'll never forget his face when I told him I was pregnant, like a rat trapped by a light that turned on suddenly in the night. I knew right then that he wasn't going to save me.

I met your father a few weeks later—do you understand? Another good-looking man, but with a gentle heart. By then, I knew the difference. I could trust his promises. Even when I lost the baby, he didn't break them. We ran away, and for a long time, I was happy. But fleeing from something isn't a foundationto build a life on. I wouldn't trade you or your sisters for anything, but for myself, I wish I'd made a different choice. To live on my own for a while, to chase my ambitions, not to let them drain away in a swirl of parties and surfaces and what was easy.

I've had a good life, Olivia. Better than most.

But oh I want more for you.