“Careful. It’s a long way down.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder, holds me tight against him. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You just don’t want to have to climb down to get me.” I laugh, but my heart is beating fast at the near-miss. I glance over the edge at the dark trees far below, the jagged rocks.
“That’s true.” He nuzzles the hair at my temple.
I nestle into his warmth, remembering that long-ago day when Andrew pretended to throw me into a hole at his job site.
We stand in silence for a few minutes, taking in the view. His hand is warm around mine. I think about the rest of our day with pleasure. We’ll linger in front of a fire and read our books, stopping once in a while to share something that made us laugh, then we’ll make dinner together, drink wine, and watch a movie. The idea feels cozy and warm and perfect.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” I say.
“Maybe we can.”
I look at him. “What do you mean?”
“After Sophie goes to school we could move out to the lake. You could find work around here, go back to school. Whatever you want.”
I’m pleased and surprised by the suggestion. I hadn’t realized he was thinking about our future already. “What will you be doing while I work?” I tease. “Fishing every day?”
“Writing my book and then selling it for a million bucks, of course.”
“I like the sounds of that.” I cock my head. “You getting serious about me, Doctor? I thought I was just a fling.”
He laughs. “I wouldn’t have brought you up here if I wasn’t serious about you, but you just moved to your new place. You needed time. I didn’t want to scare you off by getting too serious and moaning about how much I missed you and Sophie at my house.”
I smile at him, feeling a swell of affection. Of course he understood exactly what I needed back then—and what I need to hear now. He’s Marcus.
He cups the side of my face, his thumb caressing my face. “So? Do you need more convincing?” For a moment I wonder if he’s going to tell me he loves me. We haven’t said the words yet, but I’ve been so close so many times. Then Angus nudges Marcus’s hip with his nose and he looks down with a laugh and pats his head. I glare at Angus. Thanks a lot, buddy.
I watch Marcus for a moment, his natural easy way, his handsome smile. Could I move to the lake and let go of my house and business and everything? Do I really want to start over? I look out at the mountains, breathe in the sweet air. Marcus is right. This place is special.
“Yes,” I say. “Let’s do it.”
“Really?”
“I’m already in love with you. I might as well jump in with both feet.”
He’s staring at me in a stunned sort of silence, and now my face is hot and I wish I could take back the words. What was I thinking? I watch him mutely. The seconds tick past until it feels like we’ve been standing there forever. He still hasn’t said it back. He’s just looking at me.
“Well, we should probably head back,” I say, and begin to walk away.
“Lindsey, come here.” He grabs my hand, pulls me around. “I love you too—but I have to admit it scared the hell out of me at first. I tried to fight it for a long time.”
I lean my body against his chest. “You tried to fight it? Really? Tell me more.”
“You’re not going to stop until you get every last detail, huh?”
I rub my cold nose against his collarbone. “I’ll torture it out of you.”
He laughs. “Okay. True confession time. When I walked into that first meeting and saw you sitting under those fluorescent lights, your hair glowing like you were some sort of Swedish goddess, I thought, Wow, she is one beautiful woman, I better stay away from her. She’ll break my heart. It didn’t matter how kind, or loving, and funny, you were, I wasn’t going to risk getting hurt again, but I lost the battle.” He smiles. “Is that all right? Think you can handle me?”
I give him a cheeky grin. “I’ll give it a shot.”
He presses his mouth against mine. The rain is hitting hard now, trickling down our faces and over our lips, but we don’t stop. I’m going to kiss this man for the rest of my life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
SOPHIE
Mom’s hair is plastered onto her head and her eyelashes are all spiky, but she’s laughing as she pulls off her boots and says, “Don’t believe Marcus if he tells you he’s taking you on a short hike. I feel like we climbed Mount Everest.” Marcus is also laughing as he helps her take off her wet coat. She pretends to shake her hair like a dog and he jumps back.
“Hey! Stop that or I’ll leave you outside with Angus!”
I’m glad someone is having a nice time. I spent all morning scrolling through my saved text messages on my phone, thinking about Jared.
“Can you grab some towels, Sophie?” Mom says.
“There are some old ones under the sink for Angus,” Marcus says.
I find the towels in the washroom and bring them out. They’re both sitting on the hearth now, so close that their shoulders are touching. I towel off Angus and he trots into the house.
Mom and Marcus are holding hands. Jared always holds my hands when we drive. Sometimes he blows on my fingers when they’re cold. I touch my phone in my pocket, wish I could pull it out and read his texts again, but Mom will wonder what I’m doing. I glance at her and catch her looking at Marcus. She’s got this silly sort of smile on her face.
“What’s up?” I say. “You’re acting weird.”
“Nothing. I’m just happy we’re all here together. I love this place.”
“Yeah, it’s nice. It would be fun to come every summer.”
Mom flicks another glance at Marcus and he squeezes her hand. She looks back at me. “We were just talking about maybe moving to the lake next year.”
“Oh.” I’m looking at them and they’re looking at me, and I swear even Angus is looking at me like he’s waiting for me to say something really profound. I can see the tiny lines around Mom’s eyes, and I’m wondering when she got those and it feels like maybe it just happened in the last couple of months, and it seems as though every one of those lines is pointing to the hopeful excited expression in her eyes, saying, See how happy I am! Please be happy for me!
I don’t know why, but suddenly I am thinking of my dad’s face when he used to talk about Mom, how it was different for him. He wasn’t excited, it was like something deeper, like he needed her to breathe. Now my eyes are blurry and I quickly make my lips move into a smile.
“That’s cool,” I say. “I’m only home a few more months anyway. Then it will just be weekends.” I smile at Marcus. “Don’t let her clean my room.”
I’ll have to travel over to the island now. I might not get to see Mom as much, but I can’t be selfish and tell her any of that. I have to happy for her. Maybe they’ll even get married.
I glance at her hand, try to imagine what kind of ring Marcus would buy her. Something big, probably. I liked the simple set she wore when she was married to my dad. When we cuddled, I would roll it around on her finger, playing with it, and sometimes she’d slide it onto my finger, and I’d pretend we were married. She’d tucked that ring away and said I could have it one day. When is one day? When I get married? Will I want it? I think about my dad, shopping for her, and how she was only nineteen. How did she know she wanted to marry him? How come she didn’t know what was going to happen? I think about Jared. Done. Done. Done.
“We won’t make any changes for a while,” Marcus says. “We want you to be comfortable with everything. We know this has been a tough year.”
A tough year. Is that how he describes it? He has a kind expression and he looks concerned like he wants to make sure I’m okay. If they get married, he’ll be my stepfather. He’ll be at every Christmas dinner, every holiday. He’ll come to my graduation.
Not my father. It will never be my father.
And then I want to talk to Jared so bad I can taste my want,
like this bitter aching thing in my mouth. I want to spit it out, but it’s too late, I’ve already swallowed it.
They’re waiting for me to say something. “This is big news. Should we do a toast?” I get up and head into the kitchen. “Let’s have some wine.” I have my hand on the bottle.
Mom is following behind me. “Whoa,” she says.
“I’m almost nineteen. Come on. Let me celebrate with you.”
“You just turned eighteen a couple months ago.” But she’s hesitating and I can see that she wants to do it, wants to do anything that will prove to her that I’m really okay with this.
“Maybe just this once.” She reaches up to grab the glasses from the cupboard.
* * *
They’ve gone to bed. I’m sitting in my room, looking out the window. Angus is with me. He doesn’t sleep with them as much anymore. I guess he knows three is a crowd.
I can hear the low hum of their voices traveling through the walls, or maybe it’s through the vent. I wonder what they’re talking about. Maybe they are making plans, talking about how much they love each other. I wonder if Mom even thinks about my dad anymore.
Marcus is nice. He treats Mom well. He doesn’t get drunk, he doesn’t hurt her—and he doesn’t make her cry. So why do I feel angry at him? I dig deep through my thoughts, try to isolate the feeling, but it keeps scampering back into the corner, hiding from me.
Then I put my finger on it. There’d been a sneaky little part of my heart that hoped my father and mother would get back together again. All those times I told my father that he needed to let go and accept that she had moved on, it was really me who needed to move on.
I take a sip of wine. After Mom and Marcus went to bed, I snuck back out and grabbed the last of the bottle. She won’t remember. I was the one who kept filling their glasses.
Now I feel warm and hot and sleepy drunk, but it’s not cheering me up. I pick up my phone, scroll through my messages, read Jared’s messages again and again.
* * *
Hours later, I wake with Angus’s head on the pillow next to me. He yawns noisily and blasts me with a waft of doggie breath. I roll over, wait for the spins to settle down. The clock says three in the morning. The empty wine bottle is sitting on my night table.
I pick up my phone and squint at the screen. I have a vague memory of texting someone, but that can’t be right. I don’t have cell service. Then I see what I wrote Jared.
Okay. Maybe I am scared. Because I love you too much. You might leave me like my dad, and then I would die twice. I thought this would be easier. But it’s not. I miss you.
Oh, shit. Thank God that didn’t go through. I stare at the blue bubble. All I would have to do is drive where we have service and it would fly off my phone and land on his. But I don’t want that. Those were just my drunk words. They don’t mean anything. I have plans. I’m going to be single and focus on finishing school, then move to the city and meet new people.
My fingers hover over my phone, then I open up my photos. Jared and me, selfies on the beach, in his bed, making crazy faces, kissing. I stare at his face, his dark eyes. I think about how he always seemed to know when I was upset, and how he’d find new places to take me, how he’d drag me outside for walks when I didn’t feel like doing anything.
He was right. He’d just been trying to help me. It’s not his fault I stopped drawing. He used to even tell me to bring my sketchpad with me. I stopped hanging out with Delaney because we just didn’t have as much to talk about anymore and having sex with Jared was more fun. That wasn’t his fault. I made all those choices. I look at Angus. “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”
He wiggles closer, licks and snuffles at my face until I have to push him away. At least he still loves me. I sneak out to the living room, pull open the fridge, and search for the bottles of water Mom brought. I drop one as I take it out and it rolls across the floor. Angus pounces after it nosily and I shush him. Too late, I hear footsteps behind me, then Marcus’s voice.
“Thought I heard you coming down the stairs. You okay?”
“Yeah, just can’t sleep.” I open the water and guzzle half of it without stopping to breathe. I feel as though I’ve just woken up with a mouthful of sand.
“Hungover, huh?” He’s leaning on the counter, wearing a white robe like he’s at the spa. His hair is all messed up. I’m not going to think about how it might have gotten like that.
“I’m just not used to wine.” As if I’m used to so many other things.
“You know, if something is bothering you, you can tell me. We can keep it between us.”
He has that understanding therapist expression on his face again. The one that makes him look like he wants to sit down with a pad of paper and talk about all my deepest fears. I’m surprised he’d keep anything from my mom. Maybe he’s just saying that so I’ll trust him.
“I’m okay.”
“You sure? Seeing your mom move on in a new relationship must be hard. Especially when your father just died. It would be natural for you to feel some anger.”
Jesus. I thought shrinks were supposed to be sensitive. I feel the room spin a little again. I take a breath. It’s just the wine. I fiddle with the lid on my bottle. “It’s not that. It’s Jared.”
He cocks his head. “I wondered why he canceled last-minute.”
“I broke up with him, but I think I made a mistake.”
“Is it too late to fix?”
“I don’t know. He’s on the island too, but I’m not sure if he wants to see me.”
“Well, maybe the time apart will be a good thing. We’re only here for the week. You can talk when we get back to town. Like they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Yeah, maybe. What’s a week, right?”
“Exactly.” He looks relieved, like he thinks he’s just scored some big parenting win and now everything is cool and he can tell Mom how we bonded over my broken heart in the kitchen.
We say our good-nights and I go back to bed with Angus and my bottle of water. Good thing Marcus isn’t a shrink anymore, because he’s really not all that smart about teenagers.
There’s no way I’m waiting for a week.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
LINDSEY
I wake abruptly as though someone reached over and shook me. I blink in the dim room, unfamiliar shapes coming into focus. Right. We’re at the lake house. Marcus is breathing softly beside me. It’s eight in the morning, according to the clock, which projects the time onto the ceiling. What was I dreaming about? I think back. Snow-covered roads, a sense of urgency. The night I ran away from Andrew? It’s been a long time since I dreamt about that. It must be some sort of subconscious anxiety about moving in with Marcus, which is silly. This time I’m doing it right.
I let my eyes drift closed, imagine living at the lake with him, our love growing stronger as we build a life together. We’ll redecorate the house, get to know the neighbors and the community. Maybe I’ll take some evening classes in town. I can do homework while he writes at a desk in front of a window. We’ll take breaks and talk. I see Marcus smile, his hand reaching for me. But then there’s a knock on the door. Corporal Parker is standing there.
We know about the pills, Lindsey.
Now I see Marcus’s face change from confusion to horror and finally to anger. What did you do? Why did you lie to me? And then I know it’s over. It’s all over.
I open my eyes. Why did I have that thought? Marcus wouldn’t judge me for what I did that night. But now I can’t stop thinking about how I watched those pills fall into Andrew’s glass of whiskey, how I swirled the spoon around and around until they dissolved.
I glance over at Marcus, the shadowed outline of his shoulder. Should I tell him? How do I explain that I drugged my ex-husband? Would it change his feelings for me? Jenny would probably tell me to keep it to myself. There’s no reason he needs to know.
I leave Marcus to sleep and go into the living room. The fire has gone out, le
aving the air chilly. I wrap one of the throw blankets around me like a shawl, then hunt through the cupboards for the coffee beans and brew a pot, gazing out the window at the lake while I wait for it to finish. I can’t help but wonder if Marcus’s ex-wife ever stood like this. When I walk over to the fridge for milk, I’m surprised to see a note from Sophie stuck under a magnet.
Went into town. Borrowed Marcus’s car. Sorry, didn’t want to wake you. Back soon. XO
What the hell is she thinking? The roads will be a mess and she’s not used to driving a big SUV. I imagine her hitting potholes and sliding on the loose gravel. I reach for my phone to tell her to come back, then I remember we don’t have cell service. I check the landline. It’s dead. Of course. That’s probably why she went into town. She wanted to call Jared or Delaney.
I hear footsteps behind me and spin around. Marcus is wearing jeans and a T-shirt, his hair rumpled and his face shadowed after two days with no shaving. He gives me a sleepy smile.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He wraps his arm around my waist. “You’re worth getting out of bed for.” He notices the note in my hand. “What’s that?”
“Sophie took your car and went into town.”
He steps back, raises his eyebrows. “I found her in the kitchen last night getting water and we talked about Jared—they broke up. I suggested she wait to talk to him, but she must have decided to take matters into her own hands. I forgot about the impulsiveness of teenagers.”
I’m startled to hear that Sophie and Jared broke up. Why hadn’t she said anything? Obviously that’s why she’s been moping around. I’m glad she confided in Marcus, but am hurt that she kept it from me. “I can’t believe she just ran off. I’ll speak to her when she gets back.”
“She might not be long.” He looks out the window. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the roads are still blocked with trees.”