We ride to the airport mostly in silence. We don’t talk about Landon or Norway or our very different lives or what could’ve been. Seems we laid that to rest before we left his house. On the outside, at least. On the inside, I know it’s an entirely different feeling. My heart hurts. My stomach is twisted in knots. Tears burn the backs of my eyes constantly. And the more I think about leaving him, about never seeing him again and going back to my stressful, unfulfilling life in San Diego, the more I want to suck it up, strap a pack to my back, and jump into the sky just to be with him.
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do: letting him go. But there’s something much darker looming in my heart and it grows tremendously the closer we get to the airport.
A part of me knows deep down that he’s going to die in Norway. It’s just a feeling. Maybe I’m just being fearful and paranoid, but I can’t shake the terrible feeling.
He’s going to die …
“Sienna?”
I snap back into the moment.
He’s standing in front of me with my elbows in his hands, that beautiful smile and those warm hazel eyes looking in at me, breaking my heart into a thousand pieces.
“I’m glad I met you,” he says and his lips move against my forehead.
“Me too.” It’s all I can say—I feel like if I try to say too much at one time I’ll burst into tears.
“Remember what you promised me back on that beach,” he says, smiling.
I nod slowly and smile back at him.
“My photography,” I say. “I promise.”
I fall into his arms and he squeezes me tight. Then he pulls away and kisses me lightly on the lips.
As I walk away from him through the small crowds of people in the terminal, I want to look back not only because I feel his eyes on me, but because I’m not ready to let go. Because I’ll never be ready to let go. And as I slip around the corner and out of his sight, in an instant I feel his gaze disappear. Tears stream down my cheeks all the way onto the plane. And when it takes off, I look out the window, not with fear but with a broken heart.
THIRTY-TWO
Sienna
Your father is really upset, Sienna,” my mom tells me as she comes into the living room with an envelope in her hand three days later.
She sits in her recliner and places the envelope, tattered at the top indicating it’s already been opened, down on the end table between us. With my legs drawn up on the sofa, I glance over at her casually, my eyes skirting the envelope.
“I know he is, but he’ll get over it.”
“You know how your father is,” she says, “and I can’t say that I disagree with him. You should’ve come to us first.”
“I did,” I tell her. “A few times actually, Mom, and you both always shoot me down when I try to help.”
“Because our bills are our responsibility,” she says. “How do you think it makes us feel, Sienna? We worked so hard to give you a good life, saved up every extra penny we earned to put you through college. We didn’t spend our lives working so hard just so you can spend your savings to pay our bills—we don’t want you to struggle like we did.”
I glance over.
“I appreciate everything you and Dad did for me, but if you want to know the truth, you gave up too much.”
Her brown eyes slant with confusion behind her thin golden glasses.
I sigh heavily and turn around more on the sofa to face her fully, dropping my feet on the floor.
“Mom, you and Dad never saw each other. My childhood was nights with Mom and days with Dad. The only time I ever remember seeing you two together was on a holiday every now and then.” I lean forward on the sofa, interlocking my fingers and dropping my hands between my knees, my elbows propped on the tops of my legs. “I love you both for giving up pretty much everything for me—I couldn’t ask for better parents—but you and Dad missed so much of each other. Even now, when you don’t have to support me anymore, you still struggle to pay your bills, and when I talk to either of you on the phone, or in person, you sound … tired. I’m gone and you still never see each other.”
I stand up and begin to gesture my hands as the gravity of their situation hits me harder.
“How often do you and Dad go out on that boat?” She starts to answer, but I cut her off because it wasn’t so much a question as it was the beginning of me making a point. “Once, twice a year, maybe?” I say, pacing the carpeted floor. “Uncle Stevie talked Daddy into buying that boat. Took you five years to pay it off and he hardly ever uses it—talk Daddy into selling the boat, Mom.”
“But he likes to go out on the water, Sienna,” she says from the recliner. “When we do get a chance to use it, what will we do when we don’t have it anymore?”
“Rent one for a day,” I tell her without flinching. “You could sell that boat and pay off the car at least, and then that once or twice a year he wants to go out on the water, rent a boat for a day—if it’s not something you do every day, you don’t need it.”
She shakes her head with uncertainty, already knowing that getting my dad to agree to sell the boat will take a lot of convincing.
I’m no expert, but it doesn’t take much to see that my parents need financial counseling. When they finally got on their feet and paid off their house after years of struggling, they thought, Hey, now that we’ve paid off the house, we can take out a loan for another vehicle so we don’t have to share one between us. Then later they went on to say, Hey, since we only have one large payment to make every month, why don’t we take out a loan to get that boat we’ve always wanted? And so they did. And then my dad’s health started failing and the hospital bills began to mount, and then, because they had no other choice, they refinanced the house to pay them. And now they’re stuck with more large payments every month and they’ve driven themselves right back into financial despair.
I take a seat on the sofa again, looking right at my mother with all of my adamant attention.
“I want you and Dad to be happy for once,” I say. “I want you to go on a vacation somewhere—and I don’t mean Texas. I mean somewhere you’ve never been, somewhere beautiful. And I want you to spend what life you have left enjoying it. Doing things you love. And spending time together. Because you deserve it more than anyone I know.”
My mom smirks. “What life we have left together?” she says in jest. “What are you tryin’ to say?” She chuckles and adjusts her glasses on the bridge of her nose.
“Mom, that’s not what I mean.” I smile at her, shaking my head, and then bring the importance of the moment back. “This money-is-the-most-important mind-set is an illusion, a scam. Half the stuff you work so hard to pay for, you don’t need as much as you and Dad need each other—in the end, having each other is all that matters and will be all that ever mattered.” Luke’s words, in a roundabout way, coming out of my mouth.
I pick up the envelope from the end table and retrieve the folded invoice from inside. It’s for one of two of my dad’s hospital bills I paid off with part of my savings. If Dad is upset about that, he’ll really be upset when he finds out I also paid his car payment for next month.
But it is what it is.
“Do you want to talk about it?” my mom asks suddenly, and I know right away she’s not on the financial subject anymore.
I barely look up from the invoice to see her; her long auburn hair, which is just like mine, is pinned behind her head by a black hair clamp; her small hands are folded down on her lap, glistening with the lotion she smoothed on them recently. Freckles are splashed across the tops of her fingers and hands and wrists—she’s where I inherited mine from.
I don’t answer. I look back down at the invoice, now only using it as a distraction.
“Sienna,” she says gently, “you haven’t been yourself since you got back from Hawaii; why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”
The room gets really quiet for a long time; all I can hear is the clock ticking on the wall above the sofa and
the occasional bird chirping outside the screened window by the front door.
I didn’t tell my mom too much about Luke when I was in Hawaii. I’ve always been able to tell her anything, but when it comes to guys, I tend to be vague. I never knew why until now: I’ve never really been serious about a guy before like I was with Luke, and unless a guy is important to me, I guess there’s little reason to involve my mom.
Finally I look into her eyes and say with a heavy heart, “You know that guy I met that I told you about?”
She nods slowly.
I pause, steady my breath, and say, “I wish I’d never left Hawaii.”
And then, unable to hold it together any longer, somehow hoping my mom can make it all better, I break down in front of her. And I’m not your mom, who’s probably the first person you want to cling to when you’re afraid because she’s your mom. No matter how old we get, when we get scared, we can become ten years old again just like that—he snapped his fingers—when Mama walks through the door. Luke’s spot-on words turn over in my mind as sobs roll through my body.
“Oh, Sienna, what is it?”
And through a thousand tears, I tell her everything, from the moment I met Luke on that beach, to the last time I saw him and the last words I said to him, and everything in between.
I hardly noticed when she left the recliner and sat down next to me on the sofa, wrapping me up in her arms.
“I shouldn’t have left,” I say with a tear-filled voice. “I should’ve tried to make him stay, begged him not to go to Norway—I should’ve been there for him and tried to help him cope with Landon’s death.”
“No, baby, no,” I hear her whisper; she tightens her arms around me. “You did the right thing; as hard as it is to accept, to believe, you did the only thing you could do.”
I lift my head from her chest and wipe my tears, but more fall in behind them.
“Look at me,” my mom says as she raises my chin with her thin fingers. “You were right, Sienna: Making peace with his brother’s death was something he needed to do on his own. Sure, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being there for him and helping him cope, but it sounds to me like he was going about it the wrong way—you said he still wanted to go to Norway even after you expressed your feelings about it?”
I nod, confirming.
“Well, from what you told me,” she goes on, “you tried to make him understand how deeply you felt about it or how much it scared you, but he just didn’t quite understand—or want to believe it. And he sounds like an intelligent young man, so the only thing that would make him not see that is being blinded by the guilt he feels for his brother, his unwavering need to do whatever he thinks it will take to make it right.”
She hugs me and adds, “He wants you in his life—that much is clear to me—but forgiveness for the guilt he feels is the most important thing in the world to him right now, and nothing you or anyone else can do or say to him is going to change that.”
I stare at my hands in my lap, letting my mother’s words sink in. Because she’s right, and as much as I harbor my own guilt for leaving, I know she is.
We sit together for a long time in the silence. I feel like maybe she wants to say so much more to me, but in a way, like I needed to let Luke figure things out on his own, she’s doing the same for me in this moment.
Finally I feel her hand on my knee, patting it gently, and then she says with a smile in her voice, “I’ll make a deal with you.”
I look up into her smiling brown eyes.
“If you promise me that you’ll stop spending your hard-earned money on us, I’ll talk your dad into selling the boat and I’ll take your advice and start making some changes so that we can spend more time together.”
A little smile manages to break through my sadness.
“That sounds like a deal,” I say. “But you have to promise me that you’ll go on a vacation by next summer”—I shake my finger at her—“and going to Oregon to see Aunt Jana doesn’t count.”
She nods. “I promise.”
Then she takes me into a hug.
“I just want you to be happy, Sienna,” she says, pulling away. Then she tilts her auburn head to one side and adds thoughtfully, “I think you may be onto something—I don’t regret working hard to give you a decent life, but I do miss your father; maybe now’s the time to change that.”
My smile slowly gets brighter.
She pats me on the leg once more and gets up from the sofa, taking the hospital invoice from my hand.
“But no more of this,” she says with an air of demand as she tosses it on the coffee table. “Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
I leave that afternoon feeling a little better than I felt when I went over there, not wanting to be alone in my apartment and needing the comfort I knew I could get from my mom. And although nothing can lessen the fear and despair I feel in my heart knowing Luke will be in Norway soon, I at least feel better about my decision to leave him, because I know it was the right decision.
Cassandra knocks lightly on my office door before pushing it the rest of the way open and letting herself inside. My boss is dressed in a black pencil skirt and a crimson silk blouse; her breasts are pushed up to show cleavage where the top two buttons have been left undone. A thin silver necklace with an infinity pendant dips between them. Long, dark hair sits like a wave of chocolate behind her shoulders and down her back.
She steps up to my hardly ever used desk and places an itinerary printout and a brand-spankin’-new credit card in front of me.
“The Bahamas,” she announces with a proud smile and an air of tamed excitement. “You leave next Friday.”
But I don’t share her enthusiasm.
Glancing down at the itinerary, I think about the plans I already had for next weekend, the off days I put in for nearly two months ago so that I can go with my mother to visit her sister in Oregon.
“But …” I start to say, pause and look at the paper again, then back up at my bright-eyed boss who—hopefully—must’ve simply forgotten. “I’m supposed to be off next weekend,” I say carefully.
Cassandra waves a manicured hand in front of her and purses her lips. “Oh, I know, Sienna,” she says as if what she’s about to say next will make it all OK, “but I think the commission you’ll make from this job will easily change your mind.”
I set the itinerary on my desk and just listen to her talk—because it’s all I can do at this point.
“You’ll never guess who the client is,” she says, gesturing her hands. “Trent Devonshire”—my eyes pop open a little more, hearing that I’m supposed to be planning an event for a big-time soap opera actor—“and you’ll be pleased to know that it’s the best kind of job: Money is no object.”
Normally that might make me excited about planning an event because then I could go wild with ideas. But this time I’m not the least bit excited. And I’m not as enthused as Cassandra probably expected me to be that my client is the Trent Devonshire. He would be my first celebrity client.
“Cassandra, I’m sorry, but I really can’t work next weekend.” Her smile is beginning to fade, just a little, but enough that I know she’s not pleased.
“Oh, Sienna,” she says, tilting her perfectly made-up face to one side to appear thoughtful. “You’re my best,” she goes on, turning on the charm, “and I already told Mr. Devonshire that I was going to send him my best”—she points at me with a ring-covered index finger—“that being you. So what do you say? Can you take this weekend off instead, or perhaps the weekend after next? I really need you on this one.”
I sigh and slowly stand up from my desk, shaking my head.
“I really can’t,” I explain politely, and with disappointment for having to tell her no. “My mom and I have been planning this trip to see my aunt for a few months. They’re expecting us next weekend. I made sure to put in for the time off far enough in advance.” And you signed off on it and agreed to it, I want to remind her, but I d
on’t.
Her red-painted smile fades more noticeably now and she crosses her thin, tanned arms underneath her uplifted breasts.
“It’s a huge commission,” she stresses. “Not to mention, one of the jobs that will help further your career here at Harrington Planners. Sometimes you just have to set aside your family plans for the sake of what’s important.”
I say nothing, but instead sit back down and look at the contents of my desk, seeing none of it really. Cassandra isn’t going to relent on this one. I know her well enough to realize that.
I sigh and slowly look up at her tall height standing in front of my desk, and I nod. “OK,” I say. “I’ll change my plans with my mother—I won’t let you down.” I swallow a lump down my throat, one made up of disappointment and regret and even a little anger.
“Perfect,” she says with delight and a bright white smile. She turns on her six-inch black heels and goes toward the door. Then she stops before stepping out into the hall and says to me with long red nails curled around the doorframe, “You’re going to go places in this business, Sienna. You’re everything an exceptional employee should be, and I’m glad to have you—oh, and you’ll be pleased to know that you’ll have a new assistant starting tomorrow.”
“Great, thanks,” I tell her with a forced smile, and she saunters away, the sound of her expensive heels tapping against the floor as she makes her way down the hall.
I let out another sigh, longer and filled with more emotion than before, slumping against my chair. My mom is smiling back at me from a pretty silver frame next to my flat-screen monitor. She’s going to be so disappointed.
Looking away from her photo, I prop my elbows on the desk and rest my head in my hands dejectedly. And I think of Luke—I always think of Luke, even though I try so hard to forget him. I’ve never forgotten the things I learned just being around him, just by knowing him. I thought that maybe once I came back home, the dream I lived when I was there with him in Hawaii would fade as time passed. I thought I’d simply go back to living my life the way I’ve always lived it, that I was too comfortable in my ways to risk changing any part of the life I’ve grown to trust. But nothing has faded. Nothing has been forgotten. And in my heart I know it never will.