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God, those terms—even though just in my own thoughts—sounded so…businesslike.
But maybe that was only because I’d begun attempting to switch gears where Blakely was concerned about ten minutes ago.
Hadn’t most of my life been planned and strategized? Of course I wanted to love my wife, but why couldn’t I set my intentions on someone who would meld seamlessly into the life stretched out before me?
“You’ve given me a lot to think about,” I told her.
“I’m going out of town for a couple of weeks in the Hamptons with my parents.” Her smile was hopeful and again she reached out and took my hand in hers. “Let’s get together when I’m back. And then maybe we plan to wait until your party to make our final decision?”
That seemed pretty last-minute, but it also gave us the maximum amount of time left to think about the proposal. My gaze caught on the row of blue hydrangeas behind the gazebo and I quickly looked back at Blakely, unwilling to let my mind begin obsessing on the shades of each tiny petal. “Deal,” I said, reaching out and taking her hand and giving it a shake.
Blakely laughed, moving closer and throwing her arms around me. “Deal,” she whispered.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rory
The box on the upper shelf of my closet contained an undisturbed layer of dust. I lifted it carefully and then brought it to my bed where I sat down, taking a minute to give the dogs laying at my feet a few belly rubs. I sat back against the pillows before lifting the top off what to me was a treasure chest filled with my mother’s most personal items.
I’m lost, Mom. I need your guidance.
I needed her now and this was all I had. Even though it’d been a long time since I’d held it, the diary on top with the soft leather cover still felt familiar in my hand. My heart squeezed with the echo of grief as I opened it. I missed her desperately. The pages were filled with my mother’s loopy handwriting, musings I’d read enough that I could still practically recite them from memory. This particular one began when I was two weeks old, the other diaries piled in the box recounting my mother’s life beginning in her teen years until a few days before she died of an aneurysm—a tragic, unexpected loss that had left us reeling. She’d been here one moment, and then gone the very next.
A wistful sigh escaped as I replaced it. There was only one gap in time missing from my mother’s writings about her life: the two-and-a-half month period she’d traveled to a nearby tourist lake town where she’d gotten a seasonal job.
The spring she’d gotten pregnant with me.
That diary was present, but the middle section was missing. I picked it up, easily recognizable not only by the pink cover, but also by the fact that it was flimsy and thin. It looked as if the inner binding had come loose, the only pages still intact the first and the last.
I flipped it open, and began reading her hopeful words, missing her desperately, but finding a small amount of comfort in being able to “hear” her voice again.
When I arrived three days ago, Calliope greeted me with the most breathtaking sunset I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something since I’ve enjoyed some stunners in Mud Gulch in my nineteen years. It wasn’t only the colors of the sky though, it was the way it sparkled off that glass-like water and how the blues and the greens of the lake and surrounding trees all shimmered together under the golden sun. Picturesque but also…magical somehow.
Everywhere I turn in Calliope, there’s something beautiful to see. There are perfect sandy beaches with sailboats dotting the horizon. There are restaurant patios with crisp black umbrellas and pots overflowing with colorful flowers on every corner.
But there are also sleek condos with glass balconies that look out onto the water, and sprawling estates with fountains and tennis courts and who knows what else, that can be glimpsed perched on the higher ground behind the town. They call it “Calliope Hills”—and it’s obviously where the bigwigs live.
Oh, and speaking of higher ground, I got a job yesterday! I’ll be working as a server at the most posh club I’ve ever set foot in. How they keep all that silk and velvet so pristine, I can’t imagine. Fairies who appear in the dark of night, maybe? I was afraid to sit down on the chair when I met with the interviewer! (Who, by the way, had absolutely zero personality.) The club is dim and quiet, and everyone speaks in whispers and honestly, it’s a little spooky, but the tips have got to be good in a place like that and so I almost squealed when the woman called to tell me I’d been hired. I didn’t squeal until after I hung up though. I have a feeling people like her don’t appreciate reactions like that. I wonder if she appreciates any reactions at all. I picture the lady going home from work at the end of the day, climbing into a box and hitting a switch so that she just completely shuts down until it’s time to travel back to work and walk stiffly through those silent halls.
Anyway, training starts tomorrow so I’d better get to bed. I’m sitting on the old porch swing of the woman Lys put me in touch with who had a room to rent. The house is right on the town limits between Calliope and Pelion where property is more affordable. Pelion is a beautiful town too, though I haven’t seen as much of it. I can see the shore from where I’m sitting and it looks quieter over there, more peaceful maybe, even if I myself prefer the bustle of Calliope. Anyway, I like it here on this lake that shares two towns. And the house where I’m staying is comfortable and clean and no one has to whisper or tiptoe down halls or be afraid to sit on the furniture. It’s the type of house I’d like to raise a family in someday.
Thinking about family has me feeling sort of homesick for Mud Gulch. But I’m bound and determined to have a good spring break here and earn the kind of money I can’t make in Mud Gulch. That mud didn’t put up any kind of fuss when I left, so I imagine I had its permission to go. And Lord it’s nice to have a break from that dang bar and those creaky docks.
I have a good feeling about this place too. I see why Lys loves Pelion so much, even though things have been difficult for her here.
As for me? I sense something wonderful just around the corner.
I closed the diary, wanting to end on that hopeful thought instead of the last page, the day she left Calliope—that had a decidedly different feel. Rufus got up and walked to where I sat, laying down next to me and putting his head on my thigh. I scratched his jaw, tilting my head as I looked him in the eye. No, things in Calliope hadn’t ended as wonderfully for my mother as she thought they would, though she insisted I was the best thing that had ever happened to her. But that was because she was my mother and despite the anchor to Mud Gulch I might have represented in her life, she’d loved me, and I’d felt that love until the day she died.
I reached for the top, when I spotted the edge of my baby book at the bottom of the box. It’d been years—over a decade, actually—since I’d looked through it. There was a picture of me as a newborn stuck in the plastic picture holder on the front, and I knew that the inside was filled with recordings of each of my milestones—first smile, first tooth, first steps. My mom had filled in my growth chart, jotted down the foods I’d liked best, and written about the stitches I’d needed in my knee after falling off a swing when I was four. There was love in these pages and I gripped the cover to my chest for a moment, needing that extra dose of motherly affection in the only way I could get it. Sad. Not nearly enough, but not nothing either.
I set the book on the bed beside me, running my hand over Rufus’s head as I leafed through the pages, each entry a testament to how much she’d cared for me. “I wish you were here,” I murmured. I used my index finger to fan through the remaining pages before putting it away when I noticed something that made me pause. I paged backward to the blank form that would have described my father, from his hair color to his profession. The emptiness of that one page had always made my tummy squeeze uncomfortably. There was still no information there, but what I did see was a cocktail napkin that had been pressed inside. Confused, I picked it up, looking at the unfamiliar logo on the back and then turning it over. I drew in a sudden breath that caused Rufus to startle. “Sorry, boy,” I said distractedly, my gaze flying over the lines of the drawing. It was a sketch of my mother, and the date beneath matched the month and year she’d left Mud Gulch. I stared at the art, wide-eyed, wolfing it down with my gaze the way a starving person might ingest a long-awaited meal.
I closed the cover and set the napkin down gently on top, my hand shaking. “Oh my God,” I whispered. I’d never seen this before. My mother had to have placed this inside my baby book at some point before she’d died.
And I knew why she’d placed it in that particular spot, even if she hadn’t given it to me directly at the time. Maybe she’d thought I was too young. Maybe she’d meant to share more with me later, a later that never came, and this spot seemed like the perfect place to preserve such a precious item.
A wave of emotion rolled over me, the feeling that I’d asked my mother for guidance and she’d led me here, to this napkin pressed between the pages of my history. And if that was the case, then she meant me to go further.
