“You didn’t tell me about Sawyer,” she said, taking the celery stalk out of the drink and biting into it.
“Sawyer isn’t happening in my life. He already happened. A long time ago.”
Julia set the glass back on the tray. “Am I really your best friend?”
“Of course you are.”
“But you used to laugh at me in high school.”
Surprised, Stella sat down heavily on the chair opposite Julia. “High school was a long time ago. Are you saying you can’t be my best friend now because of what happened back then?”
“No,” Julia said, being honest with herself for the first time in a long time. Her friendships in Baltimore had never felt like this. Her friends there had accepted her for who they thought she was. Stella accepted her for who she really was. This place defined her. It always had. Stella knew that. “I think you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“That’s more like it,” Stella said. “Now, tell me everything.”
THE FIRST thing Sawyer said when Julia opened the door a few hours later was, “Let’s get this out of the way. There’s nothing going on between me and Holly.”
Julia leaned against the doorjamb. It was so nice to see him, but there was so much that needed to be said. “The two of you look good together. You match. Have you ever considered getting back together?”
“I don’t want to match. Holly is selling me her part of the house we own together here. She’s getting remarried in a couple of weeks. She’s pregnant. I completely forgot that she was coming to town this weekend.”
“That was my fault. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Do it again.” He tried to step into her apartment, but she froze, her hand on the doorknob. He stepped back. “You don’t want me to come in?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just … I’ve always treated this place as temporary. There’s not much to it.” After all this time, she couldn’t believe she was still embarrassed.
“I don’t care what your apartment looks like.”
“Automatic response. Sorry.” She opened the door wider.
He stepped inside with a deep breath and a satisfied smile. He put his hands on his hips and looked like he’d conquered the New World. “I’ve wanted up here ever since you’ve been back. And it’s not what you’re thinking. On Thursdays when I have pizza with Stella, that incredible smell from whatever you happen to be baking … it never fails to make me heady.”
“Could you see it?” Julia asked.
“I can always see it. It’s on you now, sparkling in your hair.” He pointed to her hand. “You have some in the cuff of your sleeve, too.”
Julia turned the cuff inside out and, sure enough, flour and sugar from that morning sprinkled out. “That’s amazing.”
“Are you going to give me a tour?” Sawyer asked.
“We can do it from here.” She pointed to each door. “Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room.” She led him to the tiny living room and invited him to take a seat. She remained standing, too nervous to sit. “Stella’s mother gave me that love seat. I have a nice couch of my own in storage up in Baltimore.”
“Do you think you’ll bring it down?”
“I don’t know.”
He sat back, obviously making a concerted effort not to push the subject. “Did you actually get into a fight with Beverly at your restaurant this morning?”
That made Julia suddenly laugh. “Did Stella tell you, or did word travel that fast?”
“Both. What happened?”
“I had a few things to get off my chest. So did she, apparently.”
“I heard that you said you weren’t selling the restaurant,” he said carefully.
“What can I say? I’m as surprised as you are.”
“What about your two-year plan?” He hesitated. “Does this mean you’re staying?”
She didn’t answer right away. “You know that big thing I wanted to tell you? I’m going to tell you now. Then I’m going to leave you alone to let you think about it, okay?”
A guarded look came to his face. “Alone, as in leaving and never coming back?”
“Alone, as in leaving this apartment for a walk,” she said. “Then, who knows?”
“Okay,” he said. “Lay it on me.”
“Stay right there.” She went to her bedroom and reached under her bed, feeling around until she found the old algebra textbook she had hidden there. She opened the book and looked at the two photos she had of her baby. Sawyer’s baby. She’d put the photos in this book when she was at Collier, and could never think of anywhere else to store them. She set the book on her bed and took the photos to the living room. She felt jumpy, and her skin was alive with a thousand prickles.
He looked up at her as she entered. Before she could talk herself out of it, she held the photos out to him and he took them.
She watched as he looked at them, confused at first, then alert. He met her eyes with a short, quick jerk of his head.
“She was born on May fifth,” she said. “Six pounds, six ounces. She looked nothing like me and everything like you. Blond hair and blue eyes. A couple from Washington, D.C., adopted her.”
“I have a daughter?”
She nodded, then left before he could ask any more questions.
HEAT RADIATED from the metal bleachers in blurry, undulating light. Julia’s spot when she was a teenager was where the top bleacher butted against the enclosed media box, forming a pocket of concrete shade.
She hadn’t been here since she was sixteen. It felt different, but eerily the same. From here, she could see down onto the fifty-yard line where it had all happened, where her life had changed. The lumbering brick school building on the far side of the field was quiet, but the windows were open, indicating that teachers were in their classrooms, getting ready for the new school year. The cafeteria was on the ground floor and faced the field. She thought of what Sawyer had said about how he used to watch her on the bleachers at lunch.
She’d been there for at least an hour, wondering how much time he needed with this, or if all the time in the world wouldn’t be enough, when something suddenly caught her eye and, on the left side of the field, she saw Sawyer walking toward her.
He stopped at the base of the bleachers and looked up at her. The photos were in his hand. It was hard to tell his expression. Was he mad? Would this change everything all over again? The protective part of her steeled herself for that possibility, even though she knew she wasn’t as easily hurt as she’d been when she was sixteen. She had a lot fewer expectations than she did then. She had a very long list of Things She Would Never Have, and Sawyer had always been on that list, along with her daughter, long fingers, and the ability to turn back time.
He started up the bleachers toward her. The first step he took, he was sixteen, blond and cherubic, the wish every girl in school made when she blew out candles on her birthday cake. With every step he took, he got older, the cherubic cheeks giving way to sharper cheekbones, his skin growing more golden, his hair a darker blond. By the time he reached her, he was the Sawyer of today, of this morning … of last night.
Without a word, he sat beside her.
“How did you know I would be here?” she asked, because even she didn’t know she’d be here until she’d walked by and saw the school.
“Just a hunch.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “Ask.”
“I don’t have to ask the big question. I know why you didn’t tell me.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Do you know where she is now? What she’s doing?” He looked at the photos. “Her name?”
“No.” She tugged on the cuffs of her sleeves. “The papers are sealed. I can’t find her unless she wants to find me. You said you followed the scent home when your mother baked, so I have it in my head—in my heart—that if I just keep baking, she’ll find me. That this will bring her home.” Julia looked down, then across the field. Anywhere but him. “I think she has your
sweet sense. I couldn’t eat enough cake to satisfy her when I was pregnant.”
“That’s what my mother said when she was pregnant with me.”
“I wanted to keep her so badly,” she said. “For a long time, I was angry at everyone for not helping me make that happen. It took a while to realize that it was just misplaced guilt, because I wasn’t well enough to care for her on my own.”
He was the one to look away this time. “Saying I’m sorry doesn’t feel like enough. I feel like I owe you so much more. I owe you for her.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I have a daughter.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” she said. “She was a gift.”
“Your hair is still pink in this photo.” He lifted the one of her holding the baby in the hospital. “When did you stop dyeing it?”
“When I went up to school. I cut it all off shortly after that photo was taken.”
“When did you start with the pink streak?” Julia nervously tucked it behind her ear. “In college. My friends in Baltimore think I do it to be edgy. But I do it because it reminds me of what I can get through … of what I have gotten through. It reminds me not to give up.”
There was a long silence. A maintenance man on a riding lawn mower drove onto the football field and started taking wide loops around it. Julia and Sawyer watched him. “Are you going to stay?” Sawyer finally asked.
How did she answer that? He was being very calm. She had no idea how he really felt. “I spent so much time telling myself that this wasn’t home that I started to believe it,” she said carefully. “Belonging has always been tough for me.”
“I can be your home,” he said quietly. “Belong to me.” She stared at him, stunned by his whispered grand gesture, until he turned to her. When he saw the tears in her eyes, he reached for her. She held on to him and cried, cried for so long her throat ached, cried until the football field was all mown and the air smelled of cut grass, and bugs swarmed the track.
To think, after all this time, after all the searching and all the waiting, after all the regret and the time she’d spent away, she came back to find that happiness was right where she’d left it.
On a football field in Mullaby, North Carolina.
Waiting for her.
Chapter 15
Emily stuffed her hands in her shorts pockets as she walked down the sidewalk that night. There were no cars out, but she kept listening for them, stepping into the darkness in between each streetlight and pausing, waiting for some indication that Win had invited the whole town to this, like her mother had done.
Since coming to Mullaby, Emily had discovered that her disbelief could be suspended further than she ever thought it could, and there was a small part of her that wondered, what if it was true? If giants exist, if wallpaper can change on its own … why couldn’t Win do … what he said he could do? If it was real, that meant this wasn’t about revenge. This wasn’t about what her mother had done. The closer she got the more she wanted it to be true.
When she reached Main Street, she stopped on the sidewalk by the park. No one was there. Gray-green moonlight illuminated the area, and the shadows from the trees in the back looked like brittle witches’ fingers reaching across the grass toward her. She took a step into the park, then made herself walk to the bandstand.
She stood a few feet away from the main staircase and stared up at it, all the way up to the crescent moon weather-vane, then she turned back to the street, to see if Win was coming from that direction.
“You came. I didn’t think you would.”
His voice startled her, coming out of nowhere. “Where are you?” she called into the park, her eyes darting around, the shadows playing tricks on her.
“Behind you.” She spun back to the bandstand. Her hands had started shaking, so she curled them into fists, her fingernails biting into her palms. Looking closely, she could finally make out a figure in a dark pool at the back of the stage.
She felt her heart sink.
“You’re not glowing.” she said, and it was an accusation, like he’d forgotten her birthday or stepped on her toe and didn’t say he was sorry. It hurt, and she felt stupid for letting it. There wasn’t anything supernatural to this. It was simple, and simple was good. Easier to understand. That was why she’d shown up tonight, after all. To let him play his trick on her. To try to right some wrongs.
She saw him rise, his white suit standing out against the shadows. He walked to the steps and slowly descended. He stopped on the grass, a few feet away from her. She met his eyes defiantly. Give it to me, she thought. I can take it.
It took a moment for her to realize that Win looked nervous, unsure. That’s when it happened. Like blowing on embers, a light began to grow around him. It looked like he was backlit, but of course there was no light source around him. It was as if radiant heat was emanating from his skin, surrounding him in waving white light. He looked like a dream of daylight in the middle of night. His light was almost alive, undulating, reaching out. It was utterly, terrifyingly beautiful.
He stood there and let her stare at him. His shoulders seemed to relax a little when he realized she wasn’t going to run away. But it wasn’t because she didn’t want to. She simply couldn’t. Her muscles felt frozen.
He took one step toward her, then another. She could see the light as it began to stretch toward her. Then she felt it, those ribbons of warmth. It was usually comforting, that feeling, but it was a decidedly different experience to actually see what was happening.
“Stop,” she said, her voice thin and breathless. She was finally able to take a few steps backward by leaning back, as if to fall, and her legs instinctively moved to keep her upright. “Just stop.”
He stopped immediately as she stumbled away. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Was she all right? No, she wasn’t all right! She turned her back on him and put her hands on her knees. She couldn’t get enough air.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Emily.”
“How are you doing that?” she demanded. “Make it stop!”
“I can’t. But I can get out of the moonlight. Come over to the steps. Sit down.”
“Don’t,” she said, looking over her shoulder and seeing that he was making another move toward her. “Just do what you have to do to make it go away.”
He took the steps two at a time and retreated into the shadows of the stage. She gratefully tripped to the steps to sit. She put her head down and tried to concentrate on something random. The word lethologica describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
She eventually lifted her head as the spots faded from her eyes. She felt chilled from her cold sweat.
“I didn’t mean to make you panic,” Win said from behind her. “I’m sorry.”
It helped not having to turn around to look at him yet. “Are there people here watching? Are we being filmed? Is that what this is all about?”
“This isn’t a trick,” he said, an ocean of heartache in those words. “It’s who I am.”
She took a deep breath and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. If this was real … then she understood why the town was so shocked when her mother brought Win’s uncle out at night.
Strange and wondrous things, indeed.
“How do you feel?” he asked. “Can I get you something?”
“No, just stay there.” She finally stood and faced the bandstand again. “Everyone here knows?”
“Everyone who was there that night,” he said from the darkness. “My family made sure no one has seen it since.”
“But they know that you’re the light in the woods?”
“Yes. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, but plenty of my ancestors did it before me.”
“Why did you want me to see it?”
He hesitated, as if he wasn’t entirely sure now. She suddenly felt horrible, like she’d let him down. Her mother had raised her better than this. She’d raised her to accept and respect, to help an
d to never be afraid to get involved. All her life had been leading up to this, and she’d failed. She’d failed Win. She’d failed her mother.
She was still in the history loop. She was scared now, scared for herself, scared for Win, knowing how this had turned out last time.
“I’ve never known how to step up to people and say, ‘This is me. Accept me for who I am,’” Win finally said. “I knew from the moment I met you, I was meant to show you. I thought you were meant to help.”
“How?” she asked immediately. “How can I help you? I don’t understand.”
“You can tell me that, now that you’ve seen this, your feelings are no different than they are in the daytime. That’s all.”
She squared her shoulders and backed farther into the open park. “Come down here, Win.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He walked back down and his skin started burning again. He looked ready to bolt back up the steps if necessary. She held her ground, even though her stomach was leaping.
When he finally made it to her, she reached out and took his hand in hers right away, to steady herself as much as him. She was surprised that his hand was simply warm, as warm as it always was, not scorching hot. “Does it hurt?” she asked.
“No.”
She swallowed. She was trembling. Could he feel it? “I think it’s beautiful. I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
He stood there, glowing like the sun, and stared at her like she was the unbelievable one. He angled closer to her, and the closer he came, the more the glowing seemed to stretch out to her. It felt like walking into sunshine from the shade. His light surrounded them both, jumping around as if saying, Together, together, now! She saw him tilt his head slightly.
He’s going to kiss me, she suddenly thought. She knew it in a way she couldn’t explain. Like how you know a certain day is going to be good the moment you wake up. She’d thought about this a lot, more than she cared to admit, but somehow she’d never imagined it quite like this. It was nothing like she’d expected. And yet … it was strangely perfect.