She couldn’t have been older than five. I tried not to notice the way she buried her face in the same coat I did, or the lopsided pigtails that were undoubtedly an Andrew Wade signature. As another crowd passed and parted around me, I sucked in a ragged breath and swallowed the bile.
“It’s good to see you, Margot,” he said, completely ignoring my question. The salt-and-pepper scruff on his jaw made my heart twist.
“What are you doing here?” I repeated.
“We’re here for Fallfest,” he replied, and for some reason, it felt like his words poured molten lava into my chest.“Not here for you,”he might as well have said. “Didn’t Ruth tell you I was coming?”
How many rugs could be pulled from beneath my feet in the span of five minutes? At least there was an explanation for my mom’s attempt at a conversation. Even if a heads-up of more than a few hours would’ve been nice.
“Yes,” I lied. “Fallfest is nine days away. You’re a little early, no?”
Andrew swallowed. “I wanted to show—” I watched with open distaste as he scanned Main Street. “Are you free for acoffee, Margot? Maybe you could join us for some apple cider doughnuts?” He jerked his chin toward the bakery.
I wanted to say that doughnuts had never sounded less appealing. Or that, if he hadn’t vanished from my life ten years ago, he’d know I wasn’t much for sweets anymore. But that little girl kept blinking up at me, dark eyes glimmering with shy curiosity.
Now was not the time to throw my father in front of a moving vehicle.
“I hate apple cider,” I said instead, staring at him as my implication registered. “And I have better things to do.”
I wanted to kick myself as I strode away and caught the girl’s flinch in my peripheral vision. Maybe it hadn’t been my mostgentlealternative. I wasn’t going to stick around for the aftermath, though—watching him pretend to be a father for five minutes was more than I could stomach.
Georgie caught up to me at the bottom of Main Street, as I slumped against the wall facing Seaglass Beach outside of Captain’s. The sky had darkened, and a gust whipped from the ocean and nipped at my skin. It felt strangely poetic.
“Are you okay?” she started, then shook her head. “Sorry. Stupid question. Of course you’re notokay.”
I hugged my arms around my middle. Where was my coat? Oh, right—on the back of a chair in the Morning Bell, where I’d left it after seeing the Ghost of Christmases Missed.
“I might throw up,” I mumbled.
“You never throw up.”
“Gee, what an astute observation.”
Georgie smacked her forehead. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what to say in this scenario.”
“You mean you’ve never seen your best friend’s dad make a sudden reappearance after ten years?” I looked at her flatly. “If there’s a manual somewhere, feel free to loan it to me.”
She leaned beside me and we fell into a silence as my heart rate steadily slowed and the wind cooled my boiling blood.
Without the anger, a deep, inescapable ache was all that remained. It had been my companion for so long, as elusive and organic as my own shadow. I’d practically forgotten it was there.
Because the world didn’t stop spinning when my father left. It tilted a fraction off axis—like the temperature shifted a degree or the days were an hour shorter—but I never stopped to take stock of my new reality. The sun still scratched the inky horizon in the morning and dragged below the rooftops every night.
No, his leaving didn’t create some earth-shattering catastrophe or unfillable hole. It only revealed to me, at a too-young age, that he’d never been much of a father to start. And maybe that was the most devastating part.
There was a scrape of a boot against cobblestone before Rhett appeared. He froze, gaze drifting from me to Georgie, and his mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.
“I sense I’ve interrupted something,” he started.
I waved my hand. “It’s nothing.”
Georgie frowned and nudged my shoulder with her own. “You don’t have to say that, you know.”
I groaned internally. She only recently stepped down as the queen of plastering on a smile and pretending as if her insides weren’t on fire. Now, she felt it was her job to rehabilitate me from this part of myself she saw as a problem.
I reallywasfine, though. Just because I’d opened up to her once about my total failure in life didn’t mean I needed to do it constantly.
“Did you need Georgie for something?” I asked Rhett, ignoring the daggers she shot.
