Page 48 of Something About September

“I’m happy here,” he said.

Why can’t I be? she wondered, watching him. It would be easy, wouldn’t it, to open her mouth and say, I’m staying. I’ll find a way.

But they had moved so fast. It didn’t make sense to throw away everything she had, make sudden promises for someone she had only been dating for a week. You didn’t just make decisions like this in the heat of the moment because of what your heart was telling you to do. It didn’t make sense. Even if it meant she had to stop something that felt better than anything else in her memory. Even if the idea of never touching him, never kissing him again, caused the ache in her heart to bloom into something Rebecca felt moving through her body like a creeping vine, constricting all joy. It would hurt less eventually, though.

“Becca,” he said in a low voice, looking away. “I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Cort. You’re doing what you know is right for you, for your son.”

“And you’re doing what you know is right for you. We’re being very adult here,” he said with a sad smile.

“Isn’t that the truth?”

“And since we’re adults, we can obviously handle…still being friends, right? It won’t be easy at first, but it’s tough to avoid a person in a small town.”

Now her heart felt like it was truly breaking. “You won’t work on the diner anymore?”

“Of course I’ll work on the diner. I would never let you down like that, or Lenore.”

“We’ll just have to be grown-ups about it,” Rebecca said.

Another sad smile. “Exactly.”

“I can do that, Cort. Of course.” She bit her lip. “And…this may be totally out of line, but I hope you’ll still bring Pip by sometimes. Maybe after you explain that we’re just…” But it was too hard for her to say it. She couldn’t. And as she watched him, his expression shuttered even more than it already had.

“Of course I will. I know he’d really like that.”

“I would, too.”

“Great.”

She looked up at him for a moment, wishing for just one last kiss, but she didn’t think she could handle that. “I’ll walk you out,” was all she said.

At the door, he turned to her. He looked like he wanted to tell her something, to say something that might change things, and she felt so much hope it was painful.

But then he just shook his head, looked away from her out into the golden light of the autumn afternoon.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said. And he walked away.

Chapter 31

It had been a while since Rebecca had woken up to the crushing reality of grief, but it happened again on Monday morning. For one blissful moment upon waking, yesterday’s conversation with Cort didn’t exist. And then it did, all of it, arriving with the dull, painful thud of a cupboard or drawer closing on her fingers.

She lay still and listened: the small apartment settling, the faint tick of the hallway clock. She had to get up, or she’d wallow in bed all day. She pulled on jeans and a soft lavender wool sweater, jammed her feet into boots, and took the back stairs down through the diner. The air in the empty room, even after all these years, held cinnamon and coffee like memory—and now held sawdust and cedar, too. Somehow, the faintest hint of Cort’s shampoo, his subtle aftershave.

Outside, the September morning was glorious, as September mornings so often were—and this one had no right to be. The sky was a sharp, clear blue, the sun already bright. Every red leaf looked lit from within. Without fully choosing her path, Rebecca was on the road to the orchard. It was the only place she could think to go, the only place she truly wanted to be. Sabrina would make her a latte and put something warm and sweet into her hands and say, Okay, start at the beginning. We will sort this out. Even if the situation was unsortable.

The walk did nothing to steady her. Rows of maples lifted their torch-bright crowns; the air tasted like apples and woodsmoke. And all of it, all of it, reminded her of Cort. What they had suddenly found with each other—and then, just as suddenly, lost. At the edge of the Calloways’ property, the wind carried laughter from the hay maze, and then it was gone and she wondered if she had imagined it or if somehow it was ghost laughter, echoes from the past.

She walked on, crossed the gravel toward the barn apartment, and knocked.

No answer. She tried again, a little harder. “Sabrina?” she called, already seeing the living room in her mind: the braided rug, the cookbook shelves, Rusty’s oval of sun on the floor, and the comfort she would surely find in her best friend’s home. But there was no answer.

“Rebecca?” a voice called from the lane.

Marion Calloway approached with a basket of corn husks on one arm, an apple-red scarf knotted at her throat. “I thought I heard knocking over here.” She glanced at the door and then back to Rebecca, taking her in, in a way Rebecca knew meant she could hide nothing. “Honey,” she said.

“I’m okay,” Rebecca began, then shook her head. Her wobbling lip betrayed her before she could stop it. “Is Sabrina—?”