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My arms pull her closer and I stroke her hair as she cries for a bit.
“A few days before I found Steven cheating on me, I had another miscarriage,” she says then chokes on a sob.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I say and pull her even closer to me.
“You’re the only one I’ve told aside from my mom.”
“Not even Natalie?” I ask, thinking about all the pain she’s had to carry and hating Steven a little more.
She shakes her head. “I told mom before she died.”
“So this all just happened?” It’s almost too much grief.
“A little over six months ago, I was on a book tour and I collapsed and went to the ER. Two days later I was home early and found Steven with his assistant and discovered my mom had moved to hospice without telling me. When I say it all at once, it makes my stomach hurt. She died a few weeks later and the divorce was final a few months after that.”
I sit her up, find a clean pair of sweats and a top for her and pull them on. I get myself a pair of shorts I’d left here. Slowly, I lead her to the living room and sit on the couch, pulling her to my lap. “Can I ask about the letters?”
“Sure, the F is for Fiona, G for Gail, and J for Jellybean, which is about the size of the baby I lost. It’s silly, but I like seeing them all together there near my heart.”
“I’m so glad you’re here, and that I can witness your strength and healing powers.”
She smiles at me and rests her head on my chest. “Nat forced me out of my house to get therapy. I was a zombie living in a lonely house drowning in grief. It really helped and I was able to get through a lot of the logistics of a parent dying and divorcing your spouse of 12 years. The day Steven asked if we could sell the house, I got an email from the agency that rents this place asking if we would be taking rentals for next summer. Mom had signed the deed over to me years ago but I rarely came here. Something felt so right about coming here though. Even though the memories from that summer were difficult to think about, I knew it would be a good distraction and a peaceful place to figure out what to do next.”
“You came here to heal and then almost immediately you had to deal with me, an unpleasant memory,” I say, stroking her hair.
She shakes her head. “No, nothing about time spent here is unpleasant. Reliving that time and thinking about how happy and safe I feel with you made things easier. You being here makes everything better.”
“I feel the same. The time I spent before you got here was productive but I still felt adrift. You being here anchors me to this place, and to my life. You mean so much to me, Hatchet,” I want to tell her that I love her but it feels like the wrong time. I don’t think I ever stopped being in love with her.
Her hands cup my face and she pulls me in for a kiss. It feels like home, like I’m supposed to always be kissing her.
“How did we get here?” she asks pressing her forehead to mine. “This is all so surreal. Finding you here was so bittersweet at first. Like, life was just messing with me again. I think I was so angry because I didn’t want to add to the hurt I was drowning in and I knew you could add to it.”
I thread my hands through her hair. “I will do my best never to hurt you again. I promise, Mollie.”
Nodding she kisses me again and I lose myself in her a little more.
“What time is it?” she asks. “I feel like it’s the middle of the night but it can’t be.”
We look to the windows and although she’s right, it’s not even noon yet, it’s very dark outside. There are thunderstorm clouds looming and it’s been raining all morning. “It’s almost 12 and there’s a whopper of a storm coming.”
She hops up. “Let’s go look on the roof deck before the lightning starts.”
“It’s pouring out there,” I say and she rolls her eyes at me, skipping into her room. When she returns, she’s wearing a swimsuit and holding a towel.
“Come on, you little chicken,” she teases me, reaching for my hand which I surrender to her immediately.
“Chicken?” I ask. I throw her up over my shoulder and carry her up the stairs and then out onto the stairs that lead up to the roof. To say it’s raining feels like an understatement because it feels like a waterfall. We are instantly soaked through and I admire Mollie’s bathing suit idea.
The minute I place her on her feet, the sky lights up from over the ocean and we see several streaks of lightning across the sky. It’s beautiful but we are exposed up here and I’m not in the mood to get struck so I pull her back down the stairs and into the house, stepping on the towel she dropped before we went out.
We are laughing and both are drenched to the bone. “That was a rush,” she says and then shivers from the cold.
“Yes, Hatchet, you nut, now let’s go warm you up in my favorite shower again.”
Her smile is a little bit evil and I love it. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“Do you think you’ll stay here?” Mollie asks after we’ve made more shower memories and are now having some sandwiches for lunch. We are eating on the couch and watching TV, hoping the power doesn’t go out, but on this island, it’s usually inevitable in a big storm like this one.
