“But that’s just the thing,” Georgia countered. “You didn’t ruin Amy’s life. Is she unable to use her legs because of an accident that was your fault? Yes! But her life is not ruined. Far from it. I’ve watched her interviews. She’s amazing. She’s not wallowing in self-pity. She’s living a full, vibrant, meaningful life while you’ve exiled yourself to this fishy little cabin. That accident ruined only one life, and it wasn’t Amy’s.” She stared him in the eye defiantly, aching at the sight of him. What a waste of a brilliant, beautiful man, she thought, looking at him. It broke her heart.
Cole met her gaze, his own expressionless. The kettle started whistling, and he took it off the heat and turned off the flame. “That’s not true,” he said flatly. “This isn’t an exile.”
“Oh, really?” Georgia challenged. “You have a PhD from Berkeley. You won a major international award for ecological innovation, the very area you’ve always dreamed of making a difference in, ever since you were a kid. You were this close to becoming Captain Planet.” She pinched her fingers so they were a scant inch apart. “You were poised to make a huge difference in the world, and yet now you’re hiding out here, working on a shellfish farm raising oysters, convinced this is somehow whatyou deserve, some penance. You’re pretending to be someone you’re not, and you’re letting your life go by, wasting it by not spending it on the things that are so important to you. If you don’t think this is an exile, you’re lying to everyone, most of all yourself.”
Cole was stirring heaping spoonfuls of coffee grounds and boiling water into a French press with controlled ferocity. At her last words, he went very still. “You don’t understand,” he said tightly. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Life always is,” Georgia agreed, her tone softening. Her heart hurt for him, for how trapped he felt, for the wounds that he couldn’t let heal. “You have to forgive yourself. It was a mistake, Cole. A mistake with terrible consequences for someone you loved. But instead of accepting it and trying to turn it for good somehow like Amy has, you’ve hidden away and let yourself be trapped by this terrible load of guilt. You could use your skills and talents in so many amazing ways, but you’re wasting everything because you’re afraid you haven’t paid enough penance. You said you wanted to make the world a better place. You could be doing so much more than raking clams in orange overalls, but your guilt won’t let you move on. You can’t bear to live again because you feel you don’t deserve it.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Cole said, his tone taut.
“I never said it was easy,” Georgia argued. “It’s not easy to let that guilt go, to forgive yourself and let yourself start to live again, to let yourself love again. But there’s a big difference between easy and right. And I don’t think you’re doing either.”
“I think you’ve said enough,” Cole said stiffly. His face was impassive, but she could tell he was angry.
“Fine,” Georgia retorted. This entire conversation felt like talking to a brick wall. Cole was unmovable. “You can’t hide from the truth forever,” she warned him. “It will find you, evenhere. What did you tell me? The island doesn’t like secrets. It’s only a matter of time until you’re going to have to face yours.” She set the bowl she was holding down on the table, hard. “Enjoy your pudding.”
And then she turned on her heel and walked out the door, slamming it behind her, leaving Cole and his kisses and his guilt and secrets behind her.
•••
“Georgia. Georgia, wait!”
Georgia looked up as the taxi driver loaded her two big suitcases into the back of the cab. Star was hurrying down the walkway, Pollen at her heels.
Georgia hesitated. “Give me a minute,” she told the driver.
She reluctantly went through the gate in the white picket fence, under the arbor of climbing roses that were already a riot of orangey yellow blooms so early in the season. How had it only been a few weeks since she first walked through this gate? So much had happened since then. She was leaving changed, brimful with what these weeks had brought, the good and the bad, the bitter and the sweet. Mother and daughter looked at each other in silence.
“Georgia, I never meant to hurt you,” Star said. She looked distressed. “I know it doesn’t make it better, but I’m so sorry. I just need you to know that before you leave.”
Georgia nodded, not trusting herself to speak. In her chest was a ball of grief and hurt and anxiety that was making it hard to draw a breath. She felt torn about leaving the island, but staying felt impossible. Her dreams were in Paris, and right now the island held a complex tangle of sorrow and secrets and contradictions. Behind her she heard the taxi driver clear his throatimpatiently. She glanced at the taxi. She had to go or she’d miss the ferry.
Star clasped her hands together in front of her anxiously. “I can’t make up for all the years you waited and wondered about me. I had no idea you were even thinking about me.” She looked at Georgia, her eyes shining with tears. “Your daddy and I made choices that hurt each other and hurt you. I’m so sorry, and if I could fix it, I would. But life doesn’t work like that. We don’t get a do-over. All I can do is try to make it right going forward. You were always the most precious thing in the world to me, I want you to know that. I made so many mistakes, but never once did I stop loving you.”
Georgia nodded again. If she opened her mouth she would burst into tears. Star straightened and looked Georgia firmly in the eye. “Georgia May, I want you to know that you do not have to prove anything to anyone. You are enough, just by being you. When I held you in my arms for the first time, I imagined who you might become, but you are more and better than I ever could have dreamed. You are strong and courageous and so beautiful. You are gifted beyond what you understand yet. And wherever you go, you will make the world a better place.” She spoke with quiet confidence. It almost felt like a benediction, a blessing. “You may not believe me and you may not be able to forgive me, but I want you to know that no matter where you go or what you do, I am so proud of you. I love you, Georgia May Jackson. You are a gift to me and to the world.” Star’s voice broke on the last word, and she swiped at her eyes with the woolly sleeve of her cardigan.
Georgia blinked fast. She had waited so long to hear those words. She’d been waiting her whole life. She closed her eyes against the prickle of tears, balling her fists. Suddenly, she wasfive years old, standing at the window every night hoping to see the headlights of her mother’s old brown Eldorado come bouncing down the drive. She was turning ten, vowing to move to Paris and cook like Julia, to make her mother proud. She was seventeen, pinning her own hair up for the junior/senior prom and imagining that her mother stood behind her, helping her with each curl. She was thirty-three, reading the email from Star, realizing that her mother was indeed alive and allowing that tiny spark of hope to ignite once more in her chest. For a moment, she was tempted to stay, to turn away from Paris and run into Star’s embrace. But the truth of the matter was complicated. Star loved her. But Star was leaving her again.
“I have to go,” she said at last, her words thick with emotion. It was better this way, that she be the one leaving this time. Paris was waiting. Her dreams were waiting. If she stayed here, it would just be to face another agonizing goodbye. She couldn’t do it again.
Star nodded, not quite able to mask her disappointment. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Georgia May,” she said quietly. “I wish all the best in the world for you.”
Georgia reached out and scratched Pollen’s knobby head. “Goodbye, Mama,” she said. And then she got in the taxi and drove away.
35
Paris welcomed Georgiawith open arms. On her way to Phoebe’s apartment from the airport, she watched as the streets of her beloved City of Light slid by the taxi window. The sight filled her with nostalgia and relief. She was back where she belonged.
“Georgia! Come on up, babe!” Phoebe’s voice rang over the intercom onto the street when Georgia alighted from the taxi and pressed the buzzer for Phoebe’s apartment. A moment later, the door to the building clicked open. When Georgia stepped out of the elevator on Phoebe’s floor with her two big suitcases bumping behind her, Phoebe flung open her apartment door. She was dressed in an outrageously pink silk dressing gown trimmed in ethereal marabou feathers. She looked like a starlet from the 1930s. A sort of Jean Harlow vibe.
“You look awful,” Phoebe announced, pouncing on Georgia. “Come inside. I’ll make you a coffee.”
Georgia had told Phoebe nothing except that she was coming back to Paris. She wanted to share everything face-to-face. There was a lot to catch up on.
“I don’t go into work for another hour, so we’ve got loads of time,” Phoebe said, sliding an espresso in front of Georgia at her tiny kitchen table for two and handing her a grease-stained paper bag from the boulangerie.
“You are a saint,” Georgia said fervently, opening the bag. The smell of fresh, buttery pain au chocolat wafted out temptingly.Her stomach rumbled. The plane food had been predictable—miniscule and mediocre, and all she wanted was to sink her teeth into this pastry and then nestle into Phoebe’s marginally comfortable futon for a nice long nap. Now that she could taste sweet again, a French pastry was exactly what she needed. She still couldn’t taste salty, so everything she ate seemed a little bland, but she was relieved to have four of the five flavors back. Hopefully, salty would return before the competition.
