“He what?” she screeches. “He just vanished? Again? Oh, I will kill this man. Is that where you’re going?”
My eye catches on a branch of red maple leaves fluttering in the wind, the first blush of fall. So that’s it—summer is over, and Will is gone.
I shake my head. “I’m going to the house. I need to speak with him. You go back to the dance, enjoy yourself.”
Whitney looks over her shoulder at the lodge. Cam is waiting on the front steps. “Are you sure? Cam can pick me up tomorrow. I have a lot of Will trash talk in the tank. I can go all night.”
“No. Really, Whit. I want to be alone, okay?”
“Okay,” she says with obvious reluctance. “But if you change your mind about needing company, let me know.”
I call Will as soon as I get back to the house, pacing the kitchen floor. I get his voicemail for the nineteenth time. But I won’t let him ignore me. I call again. And again. My anger rises with every ring. My mom got an eighteen-word note when she was abandoned by Eric. I want more.
Finally, Will picks up.
“Fern.” He says my name on a frustrated sigh, and it’s like being doused in ice water.
“You left,” is all I manage.
There’s a muffled sound on the other end of the line, and I hear Will apologize to someone. Then the line crackles with the sound of wind whipping into the microphone.
“This isn’t a good time,” he says to me, voice as sterile as an unopened bandage.
“What do you mean?” I cry.
“I really can’t talk about this right now,” Will says. “I’ve got to get back.”
“No,” I say. “I’ve been worried all day, wondering where you went and whether you’re all right. You need to tell me what the hell is going on. You checked out? What’s happening? Where are you?”
Will lets out another sigh. “I’m at the hospital, Fern.” It sounds like a chastisement. “Sofia is sick.”
My stomach seizes with a mix of fear and relief. I knew something was wrong. I immediately switch into problem-solving mode. “Which hospital? How is she? I’ll drive down and meet you.” If I pack now, I can be in the city before midnight. I’ll call Jamie once I’m on the road. Does the car need gas? “Can I bring you anything?” I ask, opening the fridge. Will won’t have eaten. I could pack up the leftover quiche he made for dinner two nights ago.
“Fern, no.”
I stop moving.
“Don’t come down here.”
“What? Why?” I say, confused. “I can help.”
“I don’t want your help. I’m sorry, but you and I . . . It was a mistake. We were a mistake. It’s my fault. I should have known that from the beginning.” He sounds vacant. It’s like there’s a stranger talking to me on the other end of the line, not the person who held me in his arms last night, whispering soothing words into my ear.
“I don’t believe you,” I tell him, my voice breaking.
I think of the Patti Smith album and the card he gave me. You do know me. And I know you, too. I look behind me at the stove, remembering him preparing the quiche in my mom’s apron.
“Will, I love you.”
There is nothing but silence on the other end of the phone.
I think of swimming together one evening last week. It was so hot, we didn’t bother toweling off after. We sat at the edge of the family dock, dripping, our feet in the water. Will pressed his lips to my shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve been happier than I am right now,” he’d said.
“And I think you love me, too,” I say now, my heart thrashing wildly in my chest.
“Fern, I can’t,” he says, and for a second, he sounds like Will again. But then his voice goes hard. “It’s time we both stopped living in a fantasy and move on with our lives.”
I begin to argue, but he’s hung up.
I hold the fridge door open, staring at the plate of leftover quiche, unable to comprehend what just happened. I told Will I love him, and he didn’t say it back. I told him I love him, and he ended things. I slam the fridge closed. I am not crying.
My hands shake as I fill a glass with water. I take a sip, but my throat is so tight, I can barely force the liquid down. I stand at the sink, looking out the window at Will’s cabin, rage turning my blood hot. I think of Will’s tailored suits and pristine white shirts hanging in an orderly row in the closet.
I bring the matches with me.
Please be unlocked, I wish as I climb the steps to Cabin 20. I’m wearing the red dress and no shoes, and if someone sees me, they’ll think I’m mad.
I’m not mad.
I’m furious.
When I twist the doorknob, it obeys, and I charge inside and head straight for the bedroom. I throw open the closet and Will’s clothing stares back at me. I grab as many jackets and shirts and slacks as I can, tamping down on the desire to press my nose into the fabric and get a hit of Will. I carry the load into the living room, and my foot slips on something. When I twist to see what’s gotten in my way, I freeze.
Sheets of paper lie on the floor and a large sketchbook sits on the coffee table, a pencil tucked into its rings. I don’t register when the clothes fall from my arms, only that I’m picking one of the pages off the floor, staring down at a drawing of me floating in water, arms outstretched, eyes closed. There’s a smudge over my nose, like it’s been erased at least once. There are three other drawings on the floor, unfinished variations of the same image.
I take the sketchbook off the table and flip the cover open. Will mentioned that he’d begun drawing again, but I had no idea he’d done so much. It feels wrong, like I’m reading his diary. But I was about to set flame to thousands of dollars of suiting. What’s one more bad deed?
I flip past sketches of scraggly trees on rocky shorelines, of a canoe pulled onto a beach, of the Roses playing cards. Of me. In one of the illustrations, my hair is short, the way it was when we first met. I lean against a graffiti-covered wall, my face tilted up to the sky. I press my hand against the sharp pain in my chest. When I turn the page, a shiver runs through my body.
No, no, no, I think as I study the drawing.
The bag beside me on the dock. The hat on my head.
“No.” I say it out loud, as if I can make it true. But the more I stare at the page, the more I know.
I sag onto the pile of clothing, the book in my hand, and when the tears fall down my cheek, I don’t hold them back. I stay there until a breeze blows through the back door, carrying with it the far-off sound of the band playing “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life.”
26
Now
My apartment is almost empty. Over the past few days, I’ve packed everything into bubble wrap and newspaper, replaying my time in Toronto. My university years, my first shift at Two Sugars, and all the long walks, bad dates, and sloppy nights out along the way. It’s just me, the movers, a tray of dark roasts, and about a dozen boxes left now. It’s strange seeing my little home this way, stripped of all the trimmings that made it mine.
I’ve lived here for five years, longer than anywhere other than the resort. I remember how excited I was when I found it, how spacious the one-bedroom layout seemed, how grown up the stainless-steel kitchen appliances made me feel. It’s the main floor of a skinny semidetached, and as I look at it now, it feels cramped despite the missing furniture. The view out the kitchen window is of a solid brick wall. There’s no outdoor space. Even though I could smell my neighbor’s cooking and hear his nocturnal activities and dog’s claws clacking above me, this place felt like my own. It felt like me.