Page 33 of Something About September

“Fine with me,” Rebecca said, “but at least let me feed you. Sabrina gave me a potpie earlier today, and it’s too much for just me.”

“Sounds good,” he said. “But don’t go to too much trouble.”

When the pie was warm, Rebecca brought slices of it downstairs on plates, paired with a simple green salad.

Cort put his tools away for the day and came to stand at the counter. “So, I was thinking about the floors,” he said. “It might look better to replace all the boards, not just some of them. I have extras that match the ones I’m using in here, from a job I did a few months ago. They’re sitting in my storage garage. What do you think about replacing the entire floor, sprucing the place up even more? And before you hesitate, I can’t charge you for the boards. They were going to go to waste. It won’t cost you extra.”

“I don’t want to take advantage of you,” Rebecca said.

“You’re not—you’re taking great care of me. Look, you’re even feeding me.” He lifted his fork, took a bite. “This is great,” he said, leaning against the counter as he took a second bite. “Almost exactly the way your grannie used to make it.” He winked, and Rebecca laughed.

“Only Sabrina’s cooking could come close. Lenore was quite proud of her potpie recipe, do you remember? I wouldn’t even attempt it. Too many steps. But I managed to make her applesauce cake the other day—even though that’s just throwing a few ingredients together. I don’t know how she always managed to make everything so delicious, day in, day out.”

“Remember the turkey sandwich special she always had around Thanksgiving?”

“So good,” Rebecca agreed. “An entire turkey dinner on a ciabatta bun.”

“I swear, I almost liked it better than my dad’s famous Thanksgiving turkey with all the trimmings. But never tell him that.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

He gave her another one of those searching looks. “How are you feeling about everything?” he asked.

“Better,” she said. “That trip to the lookout did clear my head. And I’m glad I went to see Sabrina—but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.” She put down her fork. “And I can’t stop thinking about it, this urge to keep it bottled up inside me. Grannie Lenore and I never talked about who my father might be. But there was a reason for that: I always thought if I started pressing too hard about finding out who my father was, she might start to think she wasn’t enough for me. And I never wanted that.”

“It can’t have been easy for you, carrying that burden both of having lost your mother and knowing that your grandmother lost her child.” He closed his granite-colored eyes for the briefest moment, but she saw the pain that had flashed across them. She understood he was thinking about how it would feel to lose Pip. “I couldn’t imagine,” he said softly, then opened his eyes and shook his head, as if to snap himself out of it. “Lenore was protective of you, definitely. I remember the way she’d put a stop to it, if gossip in the diner ever turned to the topic of your mom.”

“Sometimes I wonder if—and I’m not blaming her at all—but I wonder if she went too far in trying to protect me. There’s just so much I don’t know.”

“I think about that all the time, with Pip—how far is too far when it comes to trying to protect him from hurt. He gets teased a bit at school, for not being sporty, for being more into reading and art and drama, and the few times I’ve tried to step in, it’s almost always made things worse for him.”

“And yet, it’s also good for a kid to know there’s an adult on their side. Looking out for them. Protecting them. I know I always felt that way, with Lenore. But she’s not here to protect me now, and I find myself still looking around for that buffer.” She smiled but knew it was a sad smile. “Growing up and leaving people behind is hard, isn’t it?”

His smile in return was bittersweet, too. She paused. “Did you ever have someone like that in your life?”

“Do you remember my brother, Brae?”

“Of course. He was a senior when we started high school, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I looked up to him so much. But things got a little rough, around my parents’ divorce. It was no one’s fault, really. But I think Brae was angry. Started butting heads with my dad. My dad’s great, but he’s stubborn—and so is Brae. He was never going to take over the family business and I knew it, but it still kind of broke my heart when he left town. He went out west. He works with Parks Canada now as a wildfire specialist. He’s out in Kootenay this year and we just chatted last night—we try to talk every week. He won’t be back until Christmas, but he’s doing great. Loves it out there.” He paused. “I miss him, though. I really do. He struggled for a bit, just trying to figure out who he was and who he wanted to be, I guess. Getting himself sorted seemed to need to involve getting as far away from here as possible.”

“When meanwhile, if there’s anything I know for sure, it’s that being here is good,” Rebecca said, the words slipping out before she could think about them too much, her heart racing now not because of proximity to Cort but because she had admitted a truth to him she had never said aloud. And, despite her nerves, she found there were more words that wanted to come out. “I thought I had to run away, too. To outrun the ghost of the mother I never really had. To live a big enough life that I wouldn’t feel that absence anymore. But it turns out that wherever you go, you take yourself with you, you know? I can’t outrun something I’m carrying inside.”

Cort held her gaze for a long moment. “Do you ever think about staying?”

She felt caught by the intensity of his eyes, and it was a familiar feeling. The room felt warm, her pulse felt skittish. It unsettled her, how after all this time, being around Cort Adams still felt as natural as breathing—and as dangerous as skydiving. The truth was, she had thought about staying. She was slipping into a rhythm here, one she’d almost forgotten but hadn’t ever really lost. But she couldn’t stay in Bramley Hollow, so what was the point in admitting the thought had crossed her mind? She just shook her head, and as she did, his cell phone rang.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s Pip, I have to…

“Hey, buddy, what’s up?” She watched as his brow furrowed with concern. “No, I hadn’t checked the weather. I had no idea. Okay, I’m heading home right now. I’ll get the blankets and tarps. Yes, and the heater. I’ll call you later with an update.”

He hung up and turned to her. “We’re having a giant pumpkin emergency,” he said.

“Ah yes, you mentioned your giant pumpkin the other day, and how high-maintenance they are to grow.”

He nodded. “Exactly. And I didn’t realize it, but the temperature is dropping fast tonight. Pip keeps a closer eye on the weather than I do. By the time the sun goes down, there might even be some frost. Which is a disaster for a giant pumpkin, not to mention the hot peppers that are still out there.”

“What can you do to protect them?”