Gabby stared at her, shaking her head. “Annie. You need to dig yourself out of this place that you are in. You’re alive. You know I love you. I’d do anything for you, anything in the world to help you, but I don’t know what to say anymore.”
“You want me to move on.” This wasn’t the first time Annie had heard that.
Let go.
Pretend.
It sounded good in theory, but if she let go, then what and who was she going to hold on to? Her family had died. No one seemed to get that. She had no one left except her aunt and cousin, and they had their own lives and interests. While they genuinely cared, they weren’t her parents.
When she didn’t respond, Gabby tried again. “That’s not a bad idea, you know.”
“What?” she asked quizzically.
“What your counselor said about finding a happy place,” her cousin said. “Someplace you can go to mentally, or even physically, that makes you happy.”
Annie frowned. “A happy place,” she whispered. It wasn’t the dance floor, she thought. Perhaps at one time, but no longer.
“Disneyland?” Gabby asked flippantly. “We both went there when we were ten. Well, you were ten, I was nine.”
“No.” Annie shook her head. The trip had been fun, but it wasn’t what came to mind when she thought of a happy place. In fact, she’d completely forgotten about that trip.
“Well, think about it. What were the things you did with your family, the places you went where you were happy?” Gabby asked, clearly wanting to be helpful.
Annie’s mind was blank.
“What about when you graduated from college? You were happy that day, right?”
“Right.” She understood what Gabby was trying to do, but at this point Annie was afraid that she was beyond help. It was far too easy to slip back into the darkness that filled her heart. That lack of light, of joy, had become almost comfortable. That space seemed to be where she belonged now.
“What about when Bella was born?”
Bella. Immediate tears filled Annie’s eyes. That precious baby had to die in such a horrible way.
“Okay, mentioning Bella wasn’t a great idea,” Gabby conceded, immediately regretful.
Annie smeared the moisture across her cheeks.
Her cousin tried again. “What’s one of your favorite memories?”
“From when?”
“From your life. Your first kiss, your first crush, anything you remember that stirs you.”
Despite how she was feeling, a weak smile grew across Annie’s face. “My first kiss happened when I was twelve.”
“Who was it?”
“His name was Adam, and we met at the beach.” Every August, her family had rented a cottage by the sea, and they spent seven glorious days there. They were the happiest days of the year, the happiest of her childhood.
“Tell me about him.”
“Adam.” She hadn’t thought about him in years, and she didn’t remember his last name. “He was Mike’s friend.”
“And you kissed.”
Annie nodded. “We were running along the beach, flying kites and laughing so hard we could barely remain on our feet. Mike had to go back to the cottage for something and it was just Adam and me. We plopped down on the sand, exhausted, and held on to the kite strings while we waited for Mike to return. Then, without warning, Adam asked me a question, and when I turned to answer him he kissed me.” It was more like bumping his mouth against hers from what she remembered, but it’d been her first kiss and one she would remember. Her heart had swooned.
“And?” Gabby pried.
“And nothing. It was my first kiss. I think it might have been his, too, because he turned beet red afterward.”
“Did he kiss you again?”
“No. I suspect that kiss was a big disappointment to him, because he never tried it again, at least not with me. Neither one of us spoke about it again, either.” Caught up in the memories of that summer, Annie let her mind drift to other summers and the times she’d spent with her family in that cottage across from the beach. It was one week out of the year when Mike and Annie barely squabbled, the lone week of every year when her entire family was free of all worries and responsibilities.
After Gabby and Annie parted ways, she returned to the Seattle apartment she’d rented, yet the conversation with her cousin lingered in her mind. She’d always loved the beach. The sound of the waves roaring onto the sand, leaving a foam trail…the feel of wet sand between her toes, laughing with her brother, exploring tide pools with her father, and roasting marshmallows next to her mom over a driftwood campfire. She could almost smell the scent of the burning fire as she replayed those scenes in her mind.
They were at the beach every summer for years until Mike graduated from high school and took a summer job. They hadn’t returned as a family after that. Annie had briefly gone back by herself to the same beach town during her junior year of college when she’d broken up with her boyfriend.
To be more accurate, Davis was the one who’d broken up with her.
Annie had been crushed, truly devastated. He’d been her first love, her first everything, and she’d assumed they’d always be together. She’d thought that they would marry after they graduated from college and live happily ever after. It’d come as a complete shock when Davis casually announced that he didn’t think their relationship was working.
Not working? Since when? Annie had been oblivious and totally content, taken aback by Davis’s declaration.
She’d wept buckets over the breakup. It didn’t help that within only one week, she’d learned he was dating someone else. At the time, it made no sense that he could move on so quickly. She refused to believe that he had been cheating on her, but then she’d been forced to face the ugly truth, as it was the only possible explanation. Looking back, she was humiliated by the way she’d pleaded with him to reconsider, to work on their relationship. She’d been willing to do whatever it took to be the woman he wanted her to be. How foolish she’d been. How blind. Davis had taught her valuable things about herself, lessons that she had learned well and had taken to heart. She wasn’t nearly as trusting any longer, nor was she naïve. She hadn’t given her heart away since then, although she’d casually dated…at least until the tragedy happened.
After Davis broke her heart, the one place Annie found comfort had been the beach at Oceanside. It wasn’t where she had intended to go when she got in her car. She’d started driving with no destination in mind, weeping and emotional, convinced she would never fall in love again and that all was lost.
Somehow, Annie had ended up at the beach that day. For hours afterward, she reclined on a log that had drifted onto the shore. With tears clouding her vision, she stared at the open expanse of the ocean and cried until no more tears were left in her to shed.
The lull of the ocean had eventually calmed her. She breathed in the scent of the salt and sea, and peace began to steal over her. Perhaps it was the rhythm of the waves, slapping against the shore. Or the cries of the seagulls circling overhead, drifting on the wind. Children raced past her and teens zipped by on motor scooters. Those hours had soothed her as nothing else had.
She’d sat until dark, leaning against that log. As night descended, she stared up at the sky, startled by the vast array of stars, so many that they were impossible to count. As a kid, she didn’t ever remember there being such a multitude of stars.
Eventually, she’d drifted off to sleep and woke a couple hours later, chilled. She went back to her car and drove home in the middle of the night. From that point forward, she put Davis and their broken relationship behind her. She’d decided against medical school, and became a physician assistant instead.
The sea had worked its magic.
Annie straightened, as a sudden realization came to her. Perhaps the sea could do the sa
me thing again.
Perhaps she could find peace by the ocean. Losing her family was different from breaking up with Davis, though. She knew that it would take more than the lull of the waves to soothe her now. Still, the cottage by the sea was the one place she could remember where she’d been completely happy. She didn’t know if she would ever find that sense of peace again, but Annie was determined to try.
CHAPTER 3
The following morning, Annie packed an overnight bag, and with a sense of purpose she hadn’t felt since that fateful Thanksgiving Day, she walked to her car. On the off-chance that Gabby or her aunt would worry about her being gone, she sent her cousin a text.
Heading to my happy place.
It didn’t take long for her to get a response.
And where would that be?
The ocean.
The drive took about three hours in light traffic. Annie arrived and parked on the beach. Climbing out of her vehicle, she wrapped her arms around her torso and filled her lungs with the fresh salt air. It didn’t take long before a sense of calm settled over her. At first she didn’t recognize what it was.
Calm felt strange.
Different.
Unfamiliar.
Closing her eyes, she inhaled tranquility, holding her breath until her lungs cried out for relief. Slowly, she exhaled and listened to the steady pounding of the surf that synchronized with her pulse. Her stomach growled and she realized she hadn’t eaten all day. Over the last sixteen months, Annie had lost weight, her appetite gone.
Her cell pinged with a text message. It was her aunt Sherry. Gabby must have told her what she’d done.
You okay?
Yup. Staying the night in Oceanside.
Her aunt worried too much.
Walking back toward her car, Annie saw a large dog racing toward her with a stick in its mouth. Seeing him, she bent down on one knee and the dog dropped the stick onto the sand at her feet. She petted his head and he looked up at her with his bright brown eyes, making her grin. The mutt looked like he’d waited all day for just this moment.
“I bet you want me to throw this stick, don’t you?” she asked him.
The dog’s eyes filled with adoration.
Annie’s smile broadened. She grabbed ahold of the stick and stood, preparing to toss it, when she noticed a man standing off in the distance. He was tall. Taller than anyone she knew, close to seven feet, from what she could tell. He wore a jacket, jeans, and work boots. His hair appeared to be dark, but he was too far away to see his features. What she did notice was the way he intently stared at her, his head cocked at an angle, trying to figure out who she was and where she belonged.
He made no move toward her, and she had to assume the dog belonged to him. She threw the stick back in the direction of the man. Eagerly, the dog chased after it, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth as he eagerly tore down the beach, kicking up sand.
As she suspected, the canine returned to the man in the distance.
They continued to stare at each other across the expanse of beach for several moments until Annie grew uncomfortable, turned away, and walked back to her car.
Instead of looking for a restaurant, she found a little coffeehouse named Bean There, and ordered a latte. A teenager behind the counter took her order and smiled shyly at her. Her nametag read BRITT.
Taking the latte with her, Annie strolled down the street, looking in the shop windows. The store that made saltwater taffy was still in business, she noticed. She remembered that Mike would dig out the licorice pieces, stuffing two or three into his mouth until black liquid drooled out the sides and down his chin. He’d taken great pleasure in grossing out his sister, she recalled. She missed her brother dreadfully and forced herself to walk away from the candy store.
The kite shop was still in business, too, she saw. The space was larger than she remembered, with even more elaborate kites. The young man behind the counter glanced up and smiled as she strolled past. Annie smiled back as she recalled the fun times she’d had with her family assembling and flying the kites.
The ice-cream stand was in the same place, and it had always done a robust business. Every night of their vacation her dad would take the family down for ice-cream cones. Annie had chosen a different flavor every night, determined to try each one. She never achieved her goal because she loved the caramel-pecan flavor the best and couldn’t resist ordering it along with the scoop of another flavor.
Behind the stand was a large stone wall entirely covered by a huge mural. The focus of the mural was the oceanfront, with waves so real-looking, it felt as if they would come crashing down on her at any second. Multicolored kites flew overhead in a blue sky covered with popcorn-shaped clouds. The scene was so inviting that Annie had a hard time looking away. Whoever had done the painting was wildly talented. As she studied the mural, Annie saw a teenage girl on it with a single auburn braid lying over her shoulder. It was the same shade as her own and the style was the way she’d once worn her hair at that age. Strangely, it was like looking at a picture of herself. She stared at that carefree girl for a long time.
Annie searched but couldn’t find the artist’s name. She’d like to see if it was someone she’d once met during her summers here. After a minute or two she turned away, wondering if the mural was some sort of sign, some indication that Oceanside was where she was meant to be, that given the chance, she might find solace and peace in this small town. Her chest swelled with a small glimmer of hope.
As she continued to walk, she came to the street that was most familiar to her: the street with the cottage her family had once rented. Without thinking, she turned and headed in that direction.
Ten minutes later, her steps paused and her pulse quickened. The cottage was still there. It was much smaller than she remembered. At one time, it might have even been a garage, a part of the main house behind it, which was a large two-story structure with a wide central porch and shutters. The exterior paint had faded on both the cottage and the main house, and the small porch on the cottage slouched unevenly with the toll the years had taken on it.
Cottage by the sea.
The one place where she’d spent the happiest days of her life with her family. She had found her way back. She had found her happy place.
CHAPTER 4
As Annie made the return drive to Seattle, she felt the grief gradually seep back in and surround her soul. Her speed decreased until car horns blasted her as they sped past, and she realized she was driving forty miles an hour on a road where the speed limit was sixty. She could feel herself becoming surrounded by the darkness again. The closer she came to her apartment, the more difficult it became to breathe.
Annie had spent the night in a motel in Oceanside, and for the first time since the accident, the very first time in sixteen months, she’d slept straight through until morning. When she woke, she was shocked to find it was daylight. Nightmares had continually plagued her, but she woke rested, in stark contrast to nearly every other night since the disaster.
Because it was raining, she had quickly loaded up the car, checked out, and returned to Seattle. That was when she figured it out. As she neared the city, she could distinctly feel her heart grow heavy as the sadness slipped back into place. It wasn’t her imagination. She’d only been half kidding that she’d found her happy place when she texted Gabby, but the joke was on her. She knew where she belonged now.
Once back in Seattle, Annie was restless and at loose ends. She hadn’t worked as a PA since the tragedy. She couldn’t, not with all the demands on her time, the legal issues, and the counseling sessions. Agitated, she paced the small living room, unsure of what was wrong. All she could think about was the beach, and the need—no, the urgency—to return there, if for no other reason than to escape the dark cloud that hung over her head.
The mural she’d seen of the girl who re
sembled her had to be a sign. It started to make perfect sense: Oceanside was more than a place to visit; this was where she needed to be. After all these months of not working, she felt the first stirrings of desire to get back to work, back to the career she’d once loved.
Logging on to her computer, she looked at available jobs in the area, scrolling down the list. She nearly gasped aloud when she saw a posting in Oceanside’s only medical clinic. They were looking to hire a PA.
This couldn’t be a coincidence. This job listing had God’s fingerprints all over it. This was her fate, as much a miracle as the parting of the Red Sea. First the girl in the mural who looked identical to her as a teenager, and now this—an opening for a physician assistant in Oceanside. To Annie, it felt like this move was meant to be.
She completed the application form and submitted it via email, attaching certifications for both Washington state and California. It came as no surprise that she didn’t have long to wait for a response. Within twenty-four hours, she had an interview scheduled.
Twice within one week, she packed an overnight bag and drove to Oceanside. As she neared the ocean, she felt the weight lifting from her shoulders and light descending upon her. That single ray of sunshine was narrow and small, but she could feel it, as tiny as it was. She supposed what she felt was something like a reprieve, someone or something giving her a break from all the dark, with a tiny bit of hope that she could pull herself through that hole and back into the light.
Annie drove directly to the medical clinic without stopping for a meal or a bathroom break. The interview was scheduled for right after lunch with the only doctor at the clinic. Not having held a job for sixteen months now, Annie should have been more nervous than she was. Before she’d arrived, she had decided not to mention the tragedy, desperately wanting to put it behind her and move forward. Once people found out about her connection to the mudslide, the inevitable sympathy followed, the knowing looks and the quiet whispers. These were all things Annie had hoped to avoid. She desperately needed a fresh start, away from it all.