I stare at Peter, holding a piece of cheese.
“I fell in love with Maggie the first day I met her.” His eyes gleam. “She gave me a tour of the resort, talking a mile a minute, and I thought I’d never be lonely if she was around. And I wasn’t.”
“Mom never told me,” I whisper.
“Maggie’d say she was private; I’d say she was secretive. She wasn’t always like that.” Peter smiles a little. “I waited a long time for my chance with her. After you were born, I told her how I felt. But she wouldn’t let me take her on a date until you got older.”
“When?” I gasp. My head is spinning.
“Once you and Whitney became friends, going for sleepovers and running around here together. I think she felt like she could relax a little.”
That was so long ago. I was ten.
“I wanted to get married—she knew that. I thought she was ready, but then you”—he pauses, choosing his words—“hit a rough patch as a teenager, and she blamed herself. She said there was no way she could be a good wife when she couldn’t manage to be a good mother. I know you think she picked this place over you time and time again, and maybe she could have worked a little less, but running the resort was the one thing she felt she was doing well.”
I stare down at the plate of food, guilt turning the bread in my throat leaden. Peter and my mom as a couple? The worst part is that I can picture it. How perfect they would have been together.
I start to apologize, but Peter shakes his head. “It wasn’t about you, Fern, not really. It was more complicated than that. We argued a lot over the years, but we always found our way back to each other.”
A memory. Dinner with Mom and Peter in Toronto. Feeling tired from hauling boxes and assembling Ikea furniture. Hugging Mom good night. It’s hard to say goodbye this time. Walking down the sidewalk and turning around for one last wave. Peter’s arm around Mom. Mom looking up at him, smiling.
“Do you remember when you and Mom helped me move into my first apartment?”
Peter’s smile parts his lips. “That place barely fit the three of us in it at once. Maggie made me hang your mirror three times before it was perfectly centered over the dresser.”
“You and Mom stayed at a hotel for the night.”
“Stayed a couple more after we got you settled. We didn’t tell you that.”
I can’t believe I didn’t suspect anything. “When she died, were you together then?”
“As together as we ever were.” Peter sees the shock on my face and pats my shoulder. “Our relationship wasn’t traditional. We were best friends, and sometimes we were . . . partners. I always wanted more than Maggie could give, but I figure I’m lucky I got as much of her as I did.”
It might be the saddest, sweetest thing I’ve heard.
Before I go, Peter packs me two paper bags of leftover bread.
“When do you think you’ll start playing music again?” I ask as I’m leaving.
He looks over at the old broken tape deck by his workstation. “Once I’m ready for a day when your mother doesn’t walk through that door and tell me to turn it down.”
“I’ll make a playlist for then,” I tell him. “Something Mom would really hate.”
* * *
—
When I make it back to the house late that evening, my heart is heavy. But then I see Will at the stove, wearing a white shirt and Mom’s apron. I love Will in my kitchen, wearing that apron. I love how he never says a word about how much I’m working. I love that when he served me sourdough toast this morning, he kissed my nose and said, Not as good as you made it. I told him it’s best when it’s stale and cooked in a pan during a blackout.
Will smiles at me over his shoulder when he realizes I’m watching. “It’s just a stir-fry. Hope that’s okay.”
“Perfect,” I say, moving next to him. He spears a sugar snap pea from the pan and feeds it to me.
“I promise I’ll cook for you one day,” I say as I chew.
“Yeah? Aside from that dinner with Whitney and Cam, it’s been a long time since somebody made a meal for me. Annabel knows how to boil water, put a frozen pizza in the oven, and use the microwave—that’s about it.”
This is one of the few times Will has volunteered information about his sister. I know she’s a makeup artist and works on some of the bigger productions that shoot in Toronto. I know she can’t cook. But Will has us sealed in a bubble—keeping his vacation separate from his homelife.
“What about Jessica—she didn’t wine and dine you?” We haven’t talked about Will’s ex, and I’m not sure if she’s allowed in the bubble.
“She knew her way around a menu.”
I stay quiet, and after a moment, Will goes on.
“We didn’t exactly leave things on the best of terms,” he says, looking into the pan. “She said I wasted her time and that I’m incapable of commitment. She felt I was too involved with Sofia.”
“And you think . . . ?”
“She wasn’t wrong. I knew early on it wouldn’t work out long-term.”
“Because . . .” I prompt when he doesn’t elaborate.
Will exhales. “It made her uncomfortable—even them living with me was strange to her. But in truth, my niece and my sister are a big barrier to a relationship.”
“For who—you or your girlfriends?”
“Both, I guess. Between home and work, there hasn’t been a lot of room for other people.”
I feel like Will is waving an enormous red flag in front of my face. “Is this your way of telling me that you don’t do relationships?” I try to say this casually.
“It’s my way of telling you that I don’t do them well. Jessica wasn’t the first woman I’ve disappointed. I’m not the greatest boyfriend. Jessica wanted more of me than I had to share.”
“More of you?” I scoff, my heart pounding. “Who’d want that?”
Will pins me with his dark eyes. “Not you, huh? Hiatus and all that.”
I think about telling him the truth—that I’ll take as much as he can give—but then I remember Peter saying almost the exact same thing about my mom. He spent decades with someone who couldn’t give herself to him fully. I always loved when Mom said I was like Peter, but in this way, I can’t be.
“Sorry you had to wait so late to eat,” I say instead. It’s almost nine.
“I don’t mind. I usually eat early with the girls.” He gives me a quick grin while he plates the food. “I feel very sophisticated right now.”
“You look very sophisticated.”
He glances down at the apron. “You love it.”
“It’s weird how much I love it,” I say.
But the words in my head say something different. The words in my head say, It’s weird how much I love you. Surely those words have it wrong.
20
June 15, Ten Years Ago
Will and I sat on the end of my bed in my apartment, facing each other. It was almost three a.m. “I mentioned I went through a rebellious phase in high school,” I said, and Will nodded. “It was bad. It started after I found these old diaries of my mom’s—one was written the summer she got pregnant with me.”
I tilted my head to the ceiling, the back of my nose tingling. It was stupid that this still upset me so much.