It seemed unlikely that Matt had traveled all that far to seek her out. And if Kittery was born in 1915, she figured Rosalie was probably born somewhere between, say, 1960 and 1995. So she wasn’t the one born in 1940, or the one who lived in London, or the one who had been dead since 2006, or the one who had danced the role of Clara in The Nutcracker in Sydney, Australia, in 2012. Probably.
But what about the Rosalie Kane whose Facebook profile, mercifully part public, placed her down the coast in Old Orchard Beach? Her birth year wasn’t there—just “November 12”—but in photos, she looked to be about fifty. Right on target. In two of the pictures, she was standing in front of a school, although all that showed of the sign were the letters ING STREET SCHOOL. A little more poking around placed Rosalie Kane as an art teacher at Nocking Street School in Old Orchard Beach. A celebrated artisan having a granddaughter who was an art teacher had a certain logic. This might have been wrong, but it was the best place she could think of to start.
It took a few tries, but Laurie managed to compose a Facebook message.
Dear Ms. Kane: I’m writing with a curious question. Are you by chance the Rosalie Kane who’s related to Carl Kittery, the decoy carver? I’m so sorry to impose, but I’ve recently found out that your grandfather might have known my great-aunt Dot Bennett, who died recently. I’m hoping you can help fill in some gaps in her history for me if you don’t mind. I’m happy to come down from Calcasset to see you, perhaps for coffee? Delighted if you can help, and if not, that’s totally all right, and enjoy the rest of your day. Best wishes.
She fretted a bit over whether it was too formal or too casual or too much to ask, but if Rosalie had made time to write a letter for a dirty dishrag of a human being like Matt Pell, she would probably be willing to make time for Laurie. She hit Send, and as she’d done so often since she’d come back to Calcasset, she felt like she was sending off a wish with a flare gun, just hoping someone would see it and want to make it real.
Chapter Twenty-One
She had showered, using the soap and the shampoo that smelled like gardenias. She had changed. She had picked up in the living room, and the bathroom, and the kitchen, and the guest bedroom where she slept. Did that count as having expectations? Didn’t she have expectations? Didn’t he already know she had expectations? Didn’t the entire group chat know she did? Would pizza and beer give her dragon breath? If he had the same dragon breath, would that cancel it out?
Laurie flopped down on the couch on her back and put her bare feet up, throwing her forearm over her eyes. “I am going to be fooouuurrrrr-teeeeeeee,” she declared firmly. “This is so dumb.” She lightly slapped her cheek a few times. “Stop it, stop it.” She thought about Nick sitting next to her at the library desk, lit up by the monitor, trying to solve her mystery. She’d been chasing the duck for a while by then, but in that moment, she’d been distracted by his shoulder, his neck, the corners of his mouth, the familiar timbre of his voice.
June’s wedding eight years ago had been at the Presbyterian church in Thomaston on one of the hottest days of the summer. Before Chris, before Angus. Laurie was a bridesmaid, and her dress was mercifully simple: tea-length, blue, sleeveless, affordable, and at least moderately resistant to looking sweated-in. Charlie’s younger brother walked her down the aisle; he was a twenty-year-old who looked at his phone for most of the day and ordered a vegan entree he didn’t eat. She first spotted Nick during the ceremony, sitting with Becca about halfway back. She felt her hand tighten around her flowers, and she briefly thought she might snap the plastic handle. She had last talked to him on the night they broke up. Now he was married, and he was older, and he was right there.
He was in a blue jacket and a white shirt, and that Superman curl still sat above his eye. Becca was pretty and her hair was impeccable, Laurie noted with an unwelcome sense of resignation. She’d known Nick would be here—in fact, she’d told June it was perfectly fine, she wouldn’t feel awkward. And she mostly didn’t, because it was so far in the past, until she suddenly did, because…it was Nick.
It was watching him sit with his wife that made Laurie suddenly and acutely aware that she had spent the last few years chasing the feelings of comfort and trust, and the magnetic and uncomplicated drawing together, that she’d felt with him. There had been good relationships with other people, good sex with other people, good times with other people. But that feeling that she was connected like the sides of a locket to the other half of herself, that feeling had never returned. Maybe that feeling belonged to being younger, and not to him, but what if it did belong to him?