We have the restaurant send over fish and chips and coleslaw, and we eat in our underwear on the living room sofa watching Frasier reruns. As we’re finishing dinner, a crack of thunder rattles the windows. I dart out to the deck to save Mom’s diary, putting it back on my nightstand. We get dressed and sit on the front porch, sheltered from the storm, watching lightning branch across the black sky.
Will and I head up to bed. Being with him feels as impossible and inevitable as his leaving. But I don’t want to think about that part right now. I curl into him when it’s over, pleasantly noodle-limbed, following the lines of his tree tattoo with my finger, writing Fern over his heart after he dozes off.
It’s the first night since we started sharing a bed that I haven’t been able to fall asleep. I flick on the lamp, and when Will doesn’t move, I reach for the diary and flip to the final entry.
September 8, 1990
Two sleeps until Europe!
I’m going. A couple of days after I’d told Mom and Dad the news, Peter came over with more prenatal pamphlets to help me convince them it was okay to travel. I think they’ve finally stopped freaking out, or they’re doing a better job hiding it. I’m almost out of the first trimester, and hopefully the vomiting will stop any day now.
I’m excited for the trip. I’m looking forward to being a twenty-two-year-old with no responsibilities for a little longer. I’m going for six weeks. Italy, France, and England.
Peter has volunteered to drive me to the airport. He hasn’t mentioned what he wanted to tell me the day I announced I was pregnant. I’m not sure he ever will. But I’ve started hoping he does. I can’t imagine a life without Peter. I think that means something. Something we’ve been moving toward since the day I gave him a tour of the resort five years ago.
Liz was shocked when I told her the news and a little upset about the change in plans, but she’s decided to travel on her own for the full year.
I’ll admit I’m somewhat jealous, but whenever I’m feeling down these days, I rub my belly and talk to my baby girl. I’m certain she’s a girl. I call her my sweet little pea. I tell her how much I love her. I tell her I’ll love her enough for ten dads. And I tell her stories about all the people who will make up her big, wonderful family here. About her grandparents. And the Roses. And Peter. I tell her how she’ll never feel alone when she’s at home. I tell her I can’t wait to meet her, but that I don’t need to meet her to know I will never love another person as much as I love my daughter.
I put the diary down on the bed beside me. I do my best to sob quietly, but when I take a shuddering breath, Will stirs.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “What’s wrong?”
But speaking is impossible when I’m crying this hard.
“Shh. It’s all right,” he mumbles, still half-asleep.
I shake my head.
“It was just a dream.”
“No,” I croak. “It was real. My mom.”
It’s all I need to say. He kisses my cheeks and wipes the tears, then turns me so my back is snug to his front. He brings his leg over mine, tucking me closer. I grip the arm that’s banded around my chest. “She loved me. So much.”
“Of course she did,” he whispers into my neck, pressing a kiss there. “She was your mom.”
“But she didn’t know,” I say, shaking with more tears.
He holds me until I stop. “Didn’t know what, Fern?”
I take a deep breath. “She didn’t know that I loved her, too.”
Will hugs me tight. “She knew,” he says. He kisses my shoulder.
I nod, but I can’t help feeling that if I’d been a better daughter, she would have told me about Peter. If she knew how much I loved her, she would have confided in me about the resort’s struggles.
“Fern, can I tell you something?” Will says, his lips against my skin.
I roll over to face him.
“I told your mom I met you,” he says.
“What?”
“I told her how we met. I told her how much you loved it here, and that I had to see it myself.”
“You did?”
“I did. We spoke on the phone shortly before the accident.” He brushes my hair off my forehead. “She said I had no idea how happy that made her.”
His words wrap around me like a down-filled duvet. I love you, I almost say. But then I remember the red dress and dancing with Will. We have tomorrow. We can have more than this summer. It’s the last thing I think before I fall asleep.
When I wake up, Will is gone.
24
June 14, Nine Years Ago
I got to the docks early. I told Mom I was meeting a friend, but I’d been deliberately vague on every other detail. It was my first trip home since Christmas, and she was suspicious. I’d graduated from university a year earlier, and my friend circle was small—more of a triangle, really. Whitney and Cam were up north, and Ayla was my good friend in the city. Aside from my coworkers at Two Sugars, I wasn’t close to anyone else.
It had been twelve months since I’d seen Will. After he’d left my apartment, I spent the morning in bed, staring at the spot where he’d lain the night before, his words on repeat in my head.
It’s still your life.
It wasn’t exactly new information, but it felt like I was seeing myself in a different light. Will’s light. His conviction that I needed to be honest with Mom and his own passion for art cast one thousand watts on how passive I’d been about my future. I was letting life happen to me.
I had repeated his words to myself in the bathroom mirror later that afternoon. It was Sunday, and when it was time for my call with Mom, I held the list Will had written, staring at the four items on the plan. I explained to Mom that I had something to tell her, that I wasn’t sure how to say it, but I didn’t want to work at the resort that summer. Or any summer. Or ever.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re coming home in a week. The Roses are throwing a party. I have you booked on the front desk through July. I was going to show you how to do the scheduling. I ordered you a new uniform.” She spoke quickly without pausing for air. “I got the good coffee beans and bought a fancy grinder I still can’t figure out. I was going to surprise you on your first morning back. You always say my coffee is too weak.” I heard her suck in a breath. When she started speaking again, her voice trembled. “I was looking forward to our mornings at the lake. I thought this was going to be me and you, pea.”
I closed my eyes. I apologized and said I was grateful for everything she’d done for me. I told her I didn’t want her life. I wanted a life of my own, whatever that was.
She went quiet for a few moments, then she said, “Okay, Fern.” Her tone was flat. “You go figure your life out, but I’m not going to pay for it.”
I started saying that I didn’t have any savings, but the line had gone dead.
Shaking, I put my phone down. I hated hurting Mom. But I was also buzzing with adrenaline. I had done it. I wasn’t going home in a week. I wasn’t going to work at Brookbanks.
I could hardly believe it. I had to call my boss and beg for more shifts. I had to tell Jamie and Whitney. But the person I most wanted to talk to was Will. Only I couldn’t.
Not once did I contact Will, although the first time I got high after he left, alone in my apartment, I typed “Will Baxter” into a Google search bar. I found an article in the Vancouver Sun about a student art exhibit that featured a photo of Will looking just as I’d remembered. I dug up his private Facebook page—the profile pic was a cartoon self-portrait—but I didn’t friend him. I searched for Roommates, hoping his comic had a digital trail, but came up empty.
I spent twelve months desperate for his company, his wide smile, his explosive laugh. His certainty. I imagined what our day would have been like if we’d both been single. I imagined the night going very differently. I imagined pressing my lips to his scar.