The tears in my eyes were falling now.
“And when my mom came back and she saw how happy I was—she never let me come over to your place again.” Libby’s breath went ragged, but she managed to smile. “My point is that you know who your mom was, Avery. We both do. And she was wonderful.”
I closed my eyes. I willed myself to stop crying, because Libby was right. My mom was wonderful. And if she’d lied to me or kept too many secrets—maybe she’d had to.
Taking a deep breath, I turned back to the postcards. There were no dates, so it was impossible to tell the order in which they’d been written; no postmarks, so they hadn’t ever been mailed. I spread the postcards out on the floor and started with the one on the far left, aiming the black light at it. Slowly, I read it.
I drank up every word.
There were things in that first postcard that I didn’t understand—references whose meaning was lost with my mom. But near the end, there was something that caught my eye. I hope you read the letter I left you that night. I hope that some part of you understood. I hope you go far, far away and never look back, but if you ever need anything, I hope you do exactly what I told you to do in that letter. Go to Jackson. You know what I left there. You know what it’s worth.
“Jackson,” I said, my voice coming out wispy. What had Toby left for my mother in Jackson? Mississippi? Had that even been on Tobias Hawthorne’s list?
Setting the first postcard aside, I kept reading and realized that Toby had never meant to send these messages. He was writing to her, but for himself. The postcards made it clear that he was staying away from her on purpose. The only other thing that was clear was that they were in love. Epic, incomplete-without-the-other, once-in-a-lifetime love.
The kind of love that I’d never believed in.
The next postcard read:
Dear Hannah, the same backward as forward,
Do you remember that time on the beach? When I didn’t know if I would ever walk again, and you cursed at me until I did? It sounded like you’d never cursed before in your life, but oh, how you meant it. And when I took that step and swore right back at you, do you remember what you said?
“That’s one step,” you spat. “What now?”
You were backlit, and the sun was sinking into the horizon, and for the first time in weeks, it felt like my heart had finally remembered how to beat.
What now?
It was hard to read Toby’s words without feeling a wealth of emotion. My whole life, my mom had never been involved with anyone but Ricky. I’d never seen anyone adore her the way she deserved to be adored. It took me longer to focus on the implications of the words. Toby had been injured—badly enough that he wasn’t sure if he would walk again, and my mother had cursed at him?
I thought about what the old man had said in his letter to Zara and Skye, about a fisherman pulling Toby from the water. How badly had he been injured? And where had my mother come in?
My mind spinning, I read on. Another postcard and then another, and I realized that, yes, my mom had been there, in Rockaway Watch, in the wake of the fire.
Dear Hannah, the same backward as forward,
Last night, I dreamed of drowning, and I woke up with your name on my lips. You were so quiet in those early days. Do you remember that? When you couldn’t stand to look at me. Wouldn’t speak to me. You hated me. I felt it, and I was awful to you. I didn’t know who I was or what I’d done. I remembered nothing of my life or the island. But still, I was horrid. Withdrawal was a beast, but I was worse. And you were there, and I know now that I didn’t deserve a damn thing from you. But you changed my bandages. You held me down. You touched me, more gently than I could ever deserve.
Knowing what I know now, I don’t know how you did it. I should have drowned. I should have burned. My lips should never have touched yours, but for the rest of my life, Hannah, O Hannah—I will feel every kiss. Feel your touch when I was halfway dead and wholly rotten and you loved me despite myself.
“He lost his memory.” I looked up at Libby. “Toby. Jameson and I thought that he might have had amnesia—there was a hint to that in Tobias Hawthorne’s old will. But this letter confirms it. When he met my mom, he was hurt and in withdrawal—probably from some kind of drug—and he didn’t know who he was.”
Or what he’d done. I thought about the fire. About Hawthorne Island and the three people who hadn’t survived it. Had my mom been from Rockaway Watch? Or another nearby town?
More postcards, more messages. One after the other, without answers.