I spent twelve months thinking about what it would be like to see him again. I’d take him out on the canoe. We’d paddle up the lake to the quiet strip of sandy shoreline and sit with our toes in the water, and we’d talk. We would talk for hours.
There was so much I wanted to tell Will—how I had stayed in my apartment in Toronto and how I was broke but much happier than I had been when we met. I wanted to tell him I was working full-time at Two Sugars and that people loved his mural. I smiled whenever I saw the tiny fern on the plane’s rudder. I wanted to tell him about the inkling of an idea I had to open my own coffee shop one day. I wanted to tell him I’d gone to High Park to see the cherry blossoms in the spring. I wanted to tell him I was single.
I decided not to go to Banff with Jamie. I convinced myself it was because I couldn’t afford the airfare and didn’t want to give up my apartment. It was a Tuesday in early July when he broke up with me. I had just gotten home from a double shift when my buzzer rang. I knew why he’d come as soon as I saw him. We sat on the front steps of the building, and Jamie told me that loving me felt like holding water. “I’m trying to hang on too tight, Fernie,” he said. “I think we both need to face the next adventure on our own.” I knew he was doing what I should have already, but I ached for weeks.
Whitney said she understood why I didn’t want to come home, but then she asked why I hadn’t mentioned anything while she was visiting, and I could tell I’d hurt her, too.
Ayla, my closest friend in Toronto, was doing an internship in Calgary until September, and I wasn’t tight enough with the Two Sugars crowd for more than the occasional after-work drink. I was lonely.
Countless times, I stared up at the crack in my ceiling wondering if I’d made a huge mistake by not going home. There were even more times I almost sent Will a Facebook request. I wanted so badly to talk to him. I had feelings for him, I could admit that. But above all, I needed his friendship.
June fourteenth was one of those glorious afternoons where lake and sky form blue parentheses around the green hillside of the opposite shore. The resort beach was crowded with families, the water dotted with canoes and kayaks and paddleboards. It wasn’t as hot as the day Will and I had spent together, but there was the same feeling in the air—the thrumming excitement of a summer just begun.
The pair of teenage boys working in the outfitting hut clearly had yet to experience the wrath of Margaret Brookbanks, because the docks were covered in pine needles. I ducked inside, said a quick hello, and grabbed a broom to keep myself busy.
I was surprised when Will was late. He struck me as having a responsible streak—the way he’d checked in on his sister, his idea for a one-year plan, even his insistence we not stay in touch. I was certain he’d be there. I squinted up at the lodge, and when I saw no sign of him, I sat down at the end of the dock. I’d dressed to take him out in a canoe—a pair of cotton shorts and a green bathing suit I’d bought because the color reminded me of the trees in Emily Carr’s paintings. I’d packed a straw bag with supplies—a couple of sandwiches, two bottles of lemon San Pellegrino I’d brought with me from Toronto, a tube of sunscreen, and a bucket hat for Will.
I waited until I started to worry my own nose might peel, and I put the hat on.
I waited until the sun had sunk low in the sky.
I waited for Will Baxter for hours.
And then, finally, I felt the prick of being watched. I looked over my shoulder and found a pair of gray eyes identical to my own. The disappointment hit me in one swift blow.
Mom made her way across the dock.
“Want to tell me about him?” she asked as she slipped off her gold sandals and sat down beside me, her perfume tickling my nose. She was dressed for the evening in a turquoise shift and chunky gold jewelry.
I didn’t reply.
There was no denying an unease had descended between us after I told her I wasn’t coming home.
She and Peter had come for convocation and taken me to dinner after the ceremony, but the evening ended with Mom and me fighting. I hadn’t visited her at the resort until the end of summer. When I’d woken up late my first morning home, I’d been confused. Mom hadn’t roused me to go to the lake with our coffees—she’d already left for the lodge. She hadn’t woken me the next day, either.
Christmas had been a minor disaster. She talked a lot about a whole lot of nothing, but she could barely meet my eyes. Sometimes I caught her studying me like I was a stranger, like she was rewiring her entire idea of who I was.
She was snippy with Peter and worked Christmas Day, which had always been a sacred day off. Peter and I cooked Christmas dinner together. We had the new Haim album up loud, and I was rage-peeling potatoes, fuming about how Mom hadn’t once asked about the coffee shop. Peter told me I had to be patient—that she needed more time to adjust to my decision.
“All she cares about is this place,” I complained. It felt like my lifelong hypothesis had been proven. Now that I wasn’t going to be a part of Brookbanks, Mom had zero time for me, and she’d never had much to begin with.
Peter handed me another Yukon Gold. “When your mom was your age, it was her dream to take over the resort from your grandparents. She’s thrown everything she has at making it a success, showing she could do it on her own,” he said. “But for the last four years, Fern, all she’s been dreaming about is working next to you.”
I’d stared at the potato in my hand, stunned. I’d promised Peter I’d give her some slack, but when she’d shown up late for turkey, I’d cut my trip short and hadn’t returned until now.
Mom and I sat beside each other on the dock, watching two tweens attempt to steer a paddleboat. She took the hat off my head.
“You could start with his name,” she said.
I considered denying that I was meeting a guy, telling Mom my friend’s name was Beth or Jane, but a tear tumbled down my cheek. I swiped it away with the heel of my hand.
“His name is Will.”
She absorbed this for a moment. “And he was going to meet you all the way up here, at home?” Her voice was laced with skepticism.
“He was supposed to.”
“Is it serious between the two of you?”
“I thought it could be.” I rubbed my cheek again. “I made him a mix CD.”
I’d spent hours perfecting it. I’d wanted it to be summery and meaningful but not in an I’m totally in love with you way. I didn’t know if he was still with Fred or someone else or if he felt the same way I did. I included some of the songs we’d listened to at the coffee shop and some that reminded me of the day we spent together and others that reminded me of him. The only theme, really, was Will.
Music may have been the language Peter and I shared, but Mom knew what making a CD for someone meant to me. She placed a pink-manicured hand on my thigh and gave my leg a little jostle. “It’s his loss then, Fern,” she said firmly.
“Maybe,” I said, tilting my chin to the sky to fend off another swell of tears.
Mom pressed her palms to my cheeks, turning my face so she could look me in the eyes.
“No, pea,” she said, unblinking. “It’s his loss. He has no idea what he’s missing.”
I took an unsteady breath. “You think so?”
She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me against her chest, the same way she did when I was little.
“Oh, honey,” she said into my hair. “I know.”
25
Now
There’s no note. No text message. No voicemail. There’s nothing to explain Will’s absence.
At first I think he must have had an early meeting and didn’t want to wake me, but when I pull on a pair of sweats and walk over to Cabin 20 in the drizzle, there’s no light on inside. I don’t want to knock in case he’s on a call, so I creep around to the front deck to peer inside the kitchen, but the curtains are drawn.