24 Early Saturday Morning
(Wedding day)
“EMMA, WE’VE GOTTA GETup.”
I wake up to the smell of clean laundry and coffee. It’s still dark out, but Finn is dressed and ready for the day. Last night I ate pizza in a daze, totally drained from the confrontation with my dad and the anxiety attack I’d had afterward. After we ate—and I showered off the sweat and grime from chopping wood—Finn and I decided to wait until the morning to get back on the road. I think Finn could tell that I was still fragile and not up for an airport scramble back to LA just yet. He herded me to bed, tucking me in on the pullout sofa. In the middle of the night, I woke briefly to see Finn sprawled across my dad’s recliner, his jacket tucked around him like a blanket, the soft glow from some old black-and-white sitcom dancing across his face.
He’s much too chipper for someone who hasn’t slept in a bed since Wednesday. “Too early,” I mumble, pulling an orange fleece blanket back up over my head.
“Come on,” he says, nudging my foot under the blanket. “Rise and shine.”
“I can’t rise when there’s no shine,” I say, pointing to the dark window. But I get up anyway and stretch my arms over my head. Then I notice a small pile of clothes—freshly clean and neatly folded. “Did you wash these?” Something trembles to life in my chest. No one has done my laundry for me in nearly two decades. As soon as I was old enough to take over that chore from my mom, I did. I think back to my wish at the fountain in Vegas. I just want someone to take care of me the way I take care of everyone else.
“I found my way to an express cycle.” Finn shrugs. “I figured your dad wouldn’t mind.” He pulls the fleece blanket from the bed and starts casually folding it like the gesture doesn’t mean anything. I swallow down the lump that has formed in my throat. Everything still feels raw, and I know I’ve only just begun to process the tangled web of emotions seeing Dad again has brought to the surface. But as I watch Finn carefully line up the blanket’s edges, I realize maybe I don’t have to do it alone.
“Do you think your dad has enough UT gear?” Finn moves on to the fitted sheet and pops it free of the thin mattress. “Maybe he’ll let you borrow some. Freshen up your design aesthetic a bit.”
He’s looking at me expectantly, so I blink past my epiphany and muster a reply, “Yeah, the man is a fanatic. You know, the last time I saw him before today was at a college football game. Honestly, I think at least fifty percent of why he even bothered to come was the chance to walk around his old alma mater.” Finn offers me a soft, sad smile. “I mean, I enjoyed my time in college as much as the next person, but I’d like to think I have more to look forward to in life.” A pang of sadness strikes through me, as I look around Dad’s living room, these UT details the only personality in sight. Maybe college was as good as it got for my dad. Is there anything sadder than holding on to a piece of your past instead of living your life in the present? I wince as an image of the worn movie ticket I keep tucked in my wallet flashes through my mind.
“Come on.” Finn jingles a set of keys in front of me. “I think there’s somewhere we should go. Meet me in the kitchen when you’re ready.”
I pull on my clean clothes—all signs of coffee spillage now gone from my tank and sports bra—and find some mouthwash in the medicine cabinet for a quick swish, then head into the kitchen, where my dad’s drinking coffee out of a UT mug. Finn hands me a Styrofoam cup with black coffee.
“I’ve got to head into work early, but it was nice seeing y’all,” Dad says. “Come back anytime. And just drop the Wagoneer keys off in the mailbox whenever you make it back.”
“You’re letting us take the Jeep?” I ask.
Dad walks with us to the front porch. “Of course. And I’ve got your number saved in my phone now, so I’ll text you to make sure the Porsche gets taken care of.”
“I… Thanks, Dad.” Part of me is tempted to bring up our conversation from yesterday. I start flipping through the different points I could bring up, the arguments I could make, but I stop myself. I don’t want to hold on so tightly to the things that hurt me anymore. I don’t want to be stuck in the past. So instead of launching into a heated debate, I just say, “And you know, you can text me other times too. Like you do with Liz. It’d be nice to know what you were up to.”
He nods once and reaches out to pat my shoulder, then pulls me into a hug. I return his hug, a couple of tears leaking out as I do, and then, after a few seconds, I let him go.
“Y’all drive safe.”
“Yessir.” Finn shakes my dad’s hand again and climbs into the Wagoneer. It rumbles to life. I take a deep breath and climb into the truck. The last time I was in it, my feet didn’t reach the floorboard. And it occurs to me that my dad did keep something from his time with us. He kept this truck. The truck we spent hours and hours working on.
Finn looks over at me and smiles. “You’re okay if I drive?”
“I’m okay if you drive.” I smile back. “Besides, I don’t know our mystery destination.”
We’re both quiet as Finn takes us further and further away from the city. The sky lightens from navy to a French blue, but the sun still hasn’t risen. I expect us to turn in toward the airport, but we keep heading north. I’m itching to know where we’re headed, but I try to just relax into the unknown, closing my eyes and just letting myself feel the rumble of the Wagoneer.
After a few moments, I’m the one to break the easy silence. “I fought with my dad yesterday. Or more like, I yelled and he just sat there.”
Finn raises his eyebrows. “I thought there might have been something to set you off.” He looks over at me. “Did it make you feel better?”
“A little bit. He was just so selfish when he left us, and all I wanted was for him to admit to it. To admit that he screwed us over. To admit that he hurt me. To admit to anything. I don’t know what I wanted. Maybe for him to say he was as miserable without us as we were without him.”
Finn shoots me a look as he pulls onto an exit ramp.
“What?” I ask.
“I mean, did you see the man’s house?” Finn asks. “Does he really need to tell you he’s miserable?”
“I guess you’re right.”
“And I knew you as a kid. You weren’t miserable. You were fearless. You sparkled.”
“I sparkled?” I can’t help the smile that comes to my lips. “Sybil’s the one that sparkles. I’m just the one trying to point her in a safe direction.”
“Maybe.” Finn smiles back at me. “It’s always been hard for me to see anyone else when you’re around.” My heart rate speeds up, and I’m about to ask him what he means, but he continues. “All you could do is tell him where you stand and what your feelings are. At least then you know that you’ve done everything you could. After that, it’s up to him to make the next move.”
“My dad?”
Finn furrows his brows at me. “Yeah, who else?”
“Right.” I survey the road for clues about where we’re headed, but can’t come up with anything. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” I’m tempted to pull up my phone and track us, but I decide to trust Finn.
Half an hour later, we pass a large sign. “Are we going to the Grand Canyon?”
Finn grins over at me. “We were so close,” he says. “Seemed like a waste not to.”
Finn flashes his national parks pass, because of course he has one, and the park ranger waves us through. It’s early enough that the grounds are still quiet. We’re all alone as we walk toward the edge of the canyon. The sun peeks over the horizon, and the first rays of dawn cut across walls carved by the Colorado River. Reds and oranges glow all around us, and the canyon seems fathomless, stretching out in all directions.
It feels like the perfect place to make peace. To accept that the version of Dad I thought I might have doesn’t—and will never—exist. I pull the movie ticket from my wallet. The once slick paper has gone soft with age, and half is clouded light pink from when my blush compact broke apart in my purse in eighth grade.
“He was supposed to take me to a movie the day he left,” I explain to Finn. “I don’t know why I’ve even held on to it. But I’m done holding on to the dream of what kind of father I was supposed to have. I just feel like I’ve been holding on to this awful day for the last twenty years. I wanted to just scream after his truck until my lungs gave out, but I couldn’t. I had to keep it together for Mom and Liz, you know? Like if I just keep moving, keep working, keep achieving, then maybe I can outrun what happened.”
Finn doesn’t say anything, he just pulls me into a hug. I let myself lean into him for a few moments. Then I pull away, but I grab his hand. The ticket snaps once in the wind, slipping from my fingers. I let it go. It sails upward for a moment and hangs above us briefly before it’s whipped away into the canyon and out of sight.
I exhale, feeling lighter than I have since I was a kid.
And then, I don’t know what comes over me, but I let out a giant scream into the abyss. I pour out everything I’ve kept inside since the day my dad left, every secret pain that I’ve held on to, releasing it all in an act of catharsis that makes my throat raw. And I feel a power coming over me as Finn, at my side, lets out an equally wild scream. More of a howl. I can hear in it, in both our voices, the hurt of things that happened outside of our control. I know, without having to ask, that the loss of his own father is a big part of that hurt. Our shouting is so loud and so long that it startles a giant bird into flight. The bird swoops above us once, twice.
We stand silently as it continues on its way, heaving for breath, our hands entwined. As the bird flies off, I think, This is goodbye. Except what I feel is not the feeling of goodbye at all. The bird isn’t leaving, I realize—it’s flying. And what I feel is not sadness, not anymore. What I feel is hope.
After a moment, Finn gently tugs my hand, leading me toward a hiking path marked the Trail of Time.
“Emma, I wanted to tell you something.” His voice is serious, and my heart instantly begins to shield itself, bracing for some terrible truth that’s going to ruin everything, but I push down my defenses. I need to be better at trusting Finn. He’s not that teenage guy who left me standing with a corsage all those years ago. The Finn Hughes I know today is the guy who rubs my back and grounds me through an anxiety attack. The guy who supports me with his friendship even after I’ve shut him down romantically. The guy who saves me from falling off a kayak. Who encourages me to chase my dreams and believes in my talent. Who opens up to me about the darker moments of his past over candlelit dinners and tells me I look beautiful. He’s changed, and so have I. And when people show you who they are, you should believe them.
“I know you’re upset about my not telling you the whole story about Sybil.” He stops to lean against the informational placards that line the path. “On that voicemail yesterday, I was talking about something that happened that day—the day I stood you up for prom. And if it was up to me, I’d tell you all about it. But it’s Sybil’s story to share. I just can’t break her confidence. She’s trusted me to keep her secret all these years, and I can’t betray her. It’s important to me that when someone trusts me with something personal and true, I stick to my word and protect that.”
I take both of his hands in my own. “I understand. Thank you for telling me. I’m glad that Sybil had you when I wasn’t there for her.”
“I don’t think it’s that you weren’t there for her. I think sometimes we just need different people at different times in our life.” He pushes off the sign, and we keep walking.
I almost want to laugh. All this time I’ve been telling myself Finn isn’t trustworthy. A big part of that started on prom night, when he stood me up and didn’t explain why. And yet, what if that night was proof he is the most trustworthy person I know? I just didn’t have the full story. And I hadn’t asked.
“There’s one more thing.” Finn has stuffed his hands into his pockets, and he looks nervous. “I’ve been talking to my real estate agent, Christine—”
“Christine is your real estate agent?”
“Yeah, Christine Gilchrist. She’s a friend of my parents.”
“So you weren’t setting up a date?” I hope that the teasing tone of my voice masks my relief.
“I don’t think Christine would have me. She’s been happily married for four decades to my dad’s best friend. They were like a second set of parents to me after Dad died. Anyway, she’s working on the paperwork for my mom to sell the house. To me.”
I gasp. “Are you serious?”
Finn nods. “I’d been thinking about it ever since my mom said she wanted to move. It’s such a great house, and I’d been looking at coming back to Dallas anyway. Plus, with the sale of my company, I could afford to make her a good offer.”
“So the Dilbeck won’t get torn down?” I ask breathlessly.
“It will not get torn down.”
I squeal and throw my arms around him. “Oh my god, Finn. That’s such great news.” I release him reluctantly. “What made you finally decide to buy it?”
He shrugs. “You asked me to.” Like it was as simple as that. Like all I ever had to do was ask, and I could have everything I ever wanted.
ON OUR WAY BACKto the car, the shops are just opening, and I duck inside to grab a postcard. Maybe I’ll send it to my dad when I’m back in New York. Little things to reopen the lines of communication. I can’t control who my dad is, but I can control my own actions. And who knows. Maybe, if I give him a chance, I’ll see that my dad has changed too. Or, rather, that maybe I’ve let myself grow blind to the good parts of him that were always there, unable to see past the one mistake he made that hurt me so badly. After all, he opened his home to me when I really needed it, even though I hadn’t reached out to him in years. He let us take his beloved Wagoneer, no questions asked.
Just like with Finn, I can forgive him for the past without letting it define our future.
Finn is waiting for me when I get back to the car. “I got something for you.” He places a white quartz figurine in my palm. It’s the shape of a bear, and I can’t stop the laugh that escapes from me.
“I’ll treasure it forever,” I say sarcastically.
Finn grins at me, then says in a softer voice, “The woman who sold it to me says it symbolizes protection and healing.” I curl my fingers around the carved stone and bring it to my heart.
Healing.I could use some of that. So I say again, this time more earnestly, “I’ll treasure it forever.”
“I don’t know…” Finn says skeptically. “This coming from the girl who just let a supposedly beloved memento go flying straight into the Grand Canyon.”
“Hey!” I smack his arm with a grin. “That was an accident!”
Finn’s about to retort, when suddenly my phone buzzes in my back pocket, interrupting us. “Oh my god,” I say, looking at the screen. “It’s Sybil.”