If I think of your shaved head, even now, I will cry.
I am so sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me—so many times, but mainly when you were alone in that awful unwed mothers’ home and I only went to see you one time. I don’t know what I was thinking, and it actually doesn’t matter. I let you down when you needed me most. I can’t fix that, but I can tell you I know it was wrong, and I am so sorry. I hope I can make it up to you someday.
I’m most sorry for keeping the letter, and for all the ramifications of that. There is no possible way to make up for it, but I want you to know that I’m going to spend my life trying if you’ll let me.
I don’t know if our friendship is broken completely. If you feel like you can’t be friends with me anymore, I will understand. This is all on me. I will never blame you for one second.
But if you think you can eventually forgive me, I will be down at the Starfish Sisters at 10 am on Tuesday the 12th, no matter what the weather. If you want to work on this, meet me there.
No matter what happens, Suze, know that I love you. You’re one of the best people I know, loving and supportive and good. So much like Amma. She would be so proud of you. I’m proud of you.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Your sister,
Phoebe
Chapter Thirty
Suze
Predictably, it’s raining on the morning of the twelfth, but I don my wet-weather gear like the true Oregonian I am and head down the steps to the beach. I can see Phoebe down by the rocks, wearing red boots and a hooded rain jacket. She’s peering into the tide pools, and as I come down, I see her stick a finger into the water. I know her touch is gentle. She’s only moving something around, not bothering nature.
I thought long and hard about her letter. I didn’t rush. I talked to Beryl in my mind, and Joel in real life, and we all came to the same conclusion—that Phoebe needs me. I also need her. My life would be so much thinner without her.
As I approach, she straightens. “Hi,” she says.
“Hi. Anything interesting?”
“Yeah.” Her face lights up. “A purple sea star. He’s big.”
I bend in to look, feeling water splatter against my hood. The sea star truly is enormous, a foot across and chunky. “Wow.”
We stand at the same moment. She waits, and I’m grateful, because I need to choose my words. “Phoebe,” I say, hands in my pockets. “I was so mad at you over the letter you hid that I didn’t trust myself to have a conversation, but I’ve worked through it now. It was a terrible thing you did.”
She bows her head. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
“It was wrong of me to hide my relationship with Joel, too, and I’m sorry for that.”
“I was complicit. I never admitted it to myself, but I did know you two were in love. It was so obvious sometimes.”
I incline my head. “It was? What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure.” She looks toward the top of the sea stacks, back to me. “Like you moved in tandem, as if you knew what the other person would do. It started at the beginning.”
I nod. Close my eyes and think of all that was lost and all that came about because it was lost. “I wouldn’t have had my career if I’d kept my baby. I would have had another life, maybe even a really good one, but I wouldn’t be the me I am now, and that would be a loss, too.”
“It would be,” she agrees.
“I really don’t want to live in a world without you, Phoebe.”
“Really?”
I look at her, open my arms. “You are my person. You always have been.”
She flings herself into my hug, and it’s a tight, tight embrace. I feel the years, the months, the days, the hours rush through us, Phoebe at twelve and twenty and forty-five, myself at the same ages. I see us eating, and laughing, and shopping for our birthdays, and writing letters and notes and diaries. I see fights and making up and cooking some more.
“I love you,” I say.
“I love you more,” she says.
“You’re right,” I say, and we both laugh.
“It’s freezing out here,” she says at last.
“Want some tea? I have some fresh oolong.”
“Absolutely.”
NOW
F*CKING PERFECT
Chapter Thirty-One
Suze
A light snow is falling beyond the windows of the bedroom I’ve taken over as my office. A desk, built to match the Wright-era furnishings in the house, is tucked under a wide window overlooking the same view as the kitchen and the bedroom, endless ocean and rocks, and I had an open grid built just outside so that my seagull can join me while I work—he and his many friends. I don’t feed them, but they’re curious and like to watch me work anyway.
After the dearth of good scripts through the fall, I decided to form a production company of my own, teaming with four other industry women to find scripts centered on women over fifty. Once we started looking for original material, there was a lot of it—and we’re also optioning several books. I am writing a script, too. I don’t know if it’s anything at all yet, but it feels good to stretch my creative muscles in a new way.
The man who attacked me was an LNB wannabe. He’s awaiting trial, and I have no doubt he’ll serve some time. I am still on the LNB lists and that won’t go away, but Joel has installed major security features around the house, including cameras and motion sensors and an alarm system worthy of museums. It’s what we can do. Living can be dangerous, but I refuse to hide from it.
Joel comes to the door. “You ready?”
“Yes.” I add three words to the sentence, save, and shut down the program. Joel waits. He doesn’t live with me, but things are easy, and sexy, and good, and I suspect it won’t be long until he does. We’d be fools to turn our backs on such a dramatic second chance. He looks particularly good in a red shirt and jeans, his hair shiny and pulled away from his face. “You’re looking fine.”
He smooths a hand down his shirtfront. “Good?”
“Very.”
We drive to Astoria, a beautiful small town at the mouth of the Columbia River. Neither of us speaks much, and it’s okay—we’re both reliving memories and dreaming of the future. It’s a soft winter day, sometimes snowing a little higher up, sometimes drizzling below. The idea had been to go to a park, but it’s too cold and instead we’re meeting at a shopping mall.
I take a breath. Joel takes my hand and squeezes it. My heart is pounding, but with anticipation. “Let’s do it,” he says.
We walk to the food court and stand by a window, looking around anxiously.
A woman who has been sitting at a table stands. She has the darkest black hair, cut in a short, modern style that frames a face that could have been molded from Joel’s. She’s taller than average, and lanky, as we both are. She waves tentatively, and takes the hands of two children, about eight and nine.
“She’s so beautiful,” I breathe, and Joel squeezes my fingers. We move toward her.
“Veronica?” I ask as we reach her.
Her eyes are filled with tears that suddenly spill down her father’s face. “When you said Suze, I didn’t know you’d be Suze Ogden. You’re famous,” she says. “I hope you didn’t think—”
“Never,” I breathe, and, impulsively, lean in to hug her, tears streaming down my face, too. I smell her hair—she smells of apples, and I can feel the tiny weight of her baby self in my arms and all the years in between, both there and not there. A piece of me I didn’t even know was missing falls into place.
After a long moment, I let her go, and pull Joel in. “Is it all right if I hug you, too?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says, and he takes her into his embrace, his eyes closed. I think of him burning down the church, of the letter he wrote that never was delivered. I think of her face when she was so tiny and at least I had that.
After a moment, he releases her and clears his throat. “It’s good to meet you.”
“Yes.” She, too, is emotional, and we are strangers but not strangers and it’s both intensely beautiful and awkward. “These are my children, Alexa and Renee.”