He nods, swallows hard, and then tilts his head back to look up at the sky. I follow his gaze and glance up, my eyes immediately landing on Pleiades, a cluster of stars shaped like a question mark. Everything is illuminated tonight, not a cloud in sight. Clear enough that you can see the slight differentiation in color. Pale blue. Crisp white. Bright and shining yellow.
“You wouldn’t shut up about the stars when you were a kid,” my dad laughs, neck still craned back and face turned up. I ignore the stars and look at him instead, watching the way his hands curl around the arms of his chair. “You wanted to go to that space camp, do you remember?”
I do. I saw the commercial and immediately started saving the money I earned around town. I devoured anything and everything about astronauts. I launched a one-man campaign to have a space-themed week during STEM units at the elementary school and I made Nova and Nessa build a spaceship out of old garbage cans in the backyard. I wanted one of those patches they handed out with “Junior Astronaut” stitched on it. I wanted to eat space ice cream.
Stupid stuff. Kid stuff.
But as I got older, I started to look at what I had to study. I took out books from the library on engineering, math—goddamn biological science. School stopped being boring and became a path instead. A challenge.
But I never made it to that camp and I never took a single class on engineering. My dad fell off a ladder while repairing some roof shingles at the produce farm. One of the rails had buckled and the ladder listed to the left, sending my dad to the ground from a fifty-foot drop. A freak accident.
I remember the exact pair of shoes I was wearing when my mom got the call. Red converse with both sets of laces undone, one half off my foot as I sat at the kitchen table and tried to do my English homework. The phone rang twice and my mom answered with a cup of coffee in her hand, the receiver wedged between her shoulder and ear. I remember the small noise she made. A sharp intake of breath. A quiet, where is he? Shattered glass on the kitchen floor.
“What’s this about, dad?”
He heaves a deep breath and rubs his palms over his knees. “I just—“ He swallows around the rest of his sentence and turns from the stars to look at me. “I guess I just want to know if you’re happy.”
“‘Course I’m happy,” I reply. He studies me, looking for the flinch in my words. “What do I have to be unhappy about?”
I love working at Lovelight. I love my cabin on the edge of the grounds and the early, brisk mornings when it’s just me and my breath and the sun crawling up from behind the horizon. Cotton candy skies and the leaves on the trees rustling as sun beams urge them awake. I like the stillness, the quiet. Layla in her bakery, the smell of fresh baked bread twisting through the towering oaks. Stella in her office, paperwork everywhere and a drawer full of pine tree air fresheners she thinks no one knows about. Sal with baskets looped over his arms and Barney on the tractor. Every single person that finds their way there, down the narrow dirt road and around the bend. Through the arches and up the gravel driveway. The big red barn by the road and the rows and rows of trees, waiting for a home.
It is exactly where I’m supposed to be. My hands in the dirt and my feet on the ground. I’ve never doubted that for a second.
Rooted.
“I feel like I made a choice for you, is all. You were fifteen years old, and I—”
I push off the truck and grab his shoulder the way he’s always grabbed mine. I shake him once. “It was my choice,” I tell him.
He puts his hand over mine. Squeezes tight. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
CHAPTER FOUR
EVELYN
“God, Evelyn. I’m so sorry.”
On the verge of tears, Jenny stands behind the small desk at Inglewild’s bed and breakfast with a big, fluffy robe wrapped tight around her thin frame. She had been locking up for the night when I pulled up to the curb in my rental and hurried to let me in, robe and all.
“It’s just—you did such a good job for us the last time you were here. We’ve been booked solid since. And there’s a kite festival at the beach this weekend and—“
I’ve sent her into a tailspin. She flips open the paper ledger and sorts through the pages like it’ll say something different than the computer sitting on the corner of her little desk. She swallows and glances up at me before continuing to flip back and forth. It’s bad enough that I’ve held her up after hours. Now I’m about to give her a nervous breakdown, too.
I reach over and catch her hand in mine, keeping her fingers from ripping the pages out of the book. “Jenny. It’s alright.”
It’s not like I booked this trip in advance. Or put any thought into it other than—
I was happy standing in that field with my boots sinking into the mud and maybe I should go back and see if I can find my happy again.
A stupid idea. A whimsical one. One that seemed brilliant after six empanadas and Josie fist-pumping across the table while I booked my ticket. I pull back my hand and tug my hair into a ponytail. I feel greasy and gross from the plane trip, my shirt clinging to the small of my back. I stare at the ledger mournfully. Damn. I had been looking forward to a long soak in the giant clawfoot bathtubs Jenny has in every suite.
“It’s alright,” I repeat, and try to convince myself of the same. I’ll just find somewhere else to stay. No problem. “Can you recommend another place close by?”
Jenny swallows hard and looks down at the desk. She mumbles something, her hands clenched tight around the edges of the ledger.
“What was that?”
She exhales. “With the kite festival,” she begins slowly. “Everything is booked up. I’m not even sure the bigger chain hotels down at the beach will have anything available.”
Shit. Well. Okay. I didn’t know people liked kites that much, but that’s—it’s fine. That’s what I get for my impulsivity, I guess. I shouldn’t have jumped on a plane without making some reservations first. I didn’t even call Stella to see if it’s a good time for me to visit the farm.
But I know myself. I know if I gave it a day, I would have talked myself right out of it. I would have found something else to occupy myself with—a new project, a new task—and in a week, a month, a year, I’d probably still be stuck in this same rut, this endless loop of numb ambivalence.
I frown and glance out one of the big windows that looks out over Main Street, the street lights wrapped in vibrant green vines with flowers starting to peek open in bloom. Mabel, the stunning and slightly terrifying woman who runs the greenery, must have put them up to welcome spring. The last time I was here, there were wreaths hanging from every front door, garland and lights strung neatly from pole to pole—a row of perfect gingerbread houses wrapped in tinsel and lights, guiding you to Lovelight Farms at the very edge of town.
I’m glad people are finally discovering this gem of a town. I only wish it wasn’t when I needed it, too.
“Any other ideas on where I could stay?”
Maybe I’ll check local listings tomorrow morning and see if anyone has a space they’re willing to rent. I have no idea how long I plan on being here, but I do know that this feels like my best chance at getting back to myself. At figuring out what’s wrong.