I press a hand to my chest, heart fluttering like an anxious moth. “I—wow. Yes. I can definitely make time.”
“Excellent. And Diane? I read the last chapter last night. The ending made me ugly cry. In a good way.”
I blink hard, looking at my painted self, eyes calm and unafraid. “Thank you,” I manage.
We talk logistics for another minute. I hang up in a daze, the whole house tilting on its axis. Suddenly, I don’t know what to do with my hands, or my face, or any part of myself.
Nathan’s voice cuts in from across the room. “Everything okay?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. But he’s already seen my expression, and he crosses the hall in three strides. I barely get the words out: “The publisher wants the book. They want to see it all.”
His reaction is instant and physical. He lifts me up and swings me in a slow circle, careful not to crash into any furniture. I laugh, breathless and shocked, and when he sets me down, he kisses my forehead with all the ceremony of someone who knows how important this is to me.
Cassie and Amaya look up, the photo album forgotten.
“What happened?” Cassie asks, running over in her socked feet.
I crouch to her level. “Remember the book I was writing?”
She gives me a look. “How could I forget? It took you, like, forever to write it.”
“Well, somebody wants to publish it. Like, for real.”
She blinks. “Are you going to be famous?”
I laugh. “Probably not. But maybe I’ll get a better desk.”
She nudges me with her elbow, then, in a burst of affection, hugs me tightly. Amaya joins in, and for a minute we’re a tangle of limbs and giggles.
Nathan watches, hands in his pockets, head tilted. When our small huddle breaks apart, he reaches for my hand. “Proud of you,” he says.
It feels like the room is swelling. I look around at this strange little scene—my partner, my daughter, her best friend, and, of course, Rolo. I think of Sara. The thought is sharp but not unlivable. I wish she could see us like this, messy and hopeful, unfinished but so stubbornly, beautifully alive.
Later, when breakfast is over and the girls are off searching for sand dollars on the beach, Nathan and I wander out to the back porch. The sun is just beginning its ascent, splattering the horizon in pink. The air is cool and carries with it the salt of the sea. We’re both quiet, lost in our thoughts, but it’s comfortable. The kind of comfort you only have with someone who’s seen you at your worst and still thinks you’re worth the sunrise.
“I always knew you could do it.” He reaches for my hand, entwining his fingers with mine. “You deserve this.”
I chuckle, bumping my shoulder into his affectionately. “You’re a good liar,” I tell him.
“I’m serious, Diane. You’re brilliant… We all knew that. It was just a matter of time everyone else caught on.”
I squeeze his hand in reply, too overwhelmed by emotion to form words. And in that moment, I realize that not only is my story not over, but I can’t wait to see how it ends.
46
Diane
DECEMBER
The weather is unseasonably warm, and the house is full of sun, salt, and the anticipation of people. I have the front windows thrown wide for the cross-breeze, but also because it feels wrong to trap anything inside on a day like this. I imagine Sara’s voice, amused and dry, narrating my every move. “You’ll let in all the gnats, and half the neighborhood’s going to see you fussing in your pajamas.” She’s not wrong, on either count.
But today is hers, so the gnats can come, and so can the neighbors. I float from room to room with my checklist, balancing a ceramic pitcher of flowers on one hip, a roll of painter’s tape in the other hand, and a mind full of instructions I didn’t write down. Cassie is at the dining table, tongue between her teeth as she carefully scripts names on card stock. Her handwriting is a mess of loops and sharp angles, a code only she can read, but I have learned it, because mothers always do.
Nathan is in the living room, up on the stepladder, putting the topper on the tree. He hums as he works, something tuneless and persistent, and even from across the house, I can feel the rhythm in my chest. Above the fireplace hang five stockings,meticulously arranged in a perfect line. Three for us, one for Sara, and another for Rolo, a doggie stocking decorated with a tiny bone.
I set the pitcher down on the console in the hall. The flowers are all wrong—dahlias, poppies, bachelor’s buttons, a handful of ragged roses. Sara would have chosen something elegant, lilies or maybe peonies, arranged in color gradients. I like the disorder of mine. It feels like the way I remember her, wild and sudden and a little bit too much. I pluck a dead leaf from one stem and smooth the blooms into a shape that will never be perfect, but will last the day.
From the kitchen, Cassie calls, “Can we use the seashells on the table, or is that weird?”