Chapter Twenty-Four
Davis beeped his truck doors unlocked and motioned for me to climb aboard.
“I thought we were going for a walk?”
“We are.” He opened the passenger door, and Violet jumped inside. “She wants to visit another park.”
I looked to the pretty tail-wagging blonde. Her wide pink tongue lolled cheerfully from her open mouth. “How can I say no?”
Violet licked my arm as I buckled up.
“Can we stop at the bookstore?” I asked. “I want to put a few letters into the cubbies.”
Davis shifted into drive, looking unimpressed. “Weren’t you just there?”
“Yes, and I received a bunch of letters. Now I want to drop off my responses.”
“Can’t you drop the letters off at your next class?”
I shrugged.
“How’d you have time to write all those letters and create your murder board?” he asked, slowing to a stop at the end of the lane.
“Caffeine.” I hopped out with a smile. “Be right back!”
Davis and Violet waited while I hurried into Village Books, heart hammering in my chest. I waved to Michael, then dropped my letters into their respective boxes before slowing as I approached the cubby marked with my name.
An envelope leaned neatly against one wall. My name, not Forever Yours, was scripted neatly on the front.
I pounced forward on a burst of dopamine. The anonymous letter exchange was addictive, and I already wanted more. Something about the writer, and the direct path of his words to my heart, made opening each letter feel like Christmas morning. I swiped the treasure with greedy fingers, then made a beeline for the front door.
“Where’s the fire?” Michael called.
I waved an arm overhead and smiled but didn’t slow down. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if Michael was Historically_Bookish and Forever Yours. He’d been at the store earlier when I found the letter after class, and he was still there now. Unlikely coincidence? Or just a guy working his shift?
Davis heaved a labored sigh when I climbed in. “Any other errands you need to run, or can we walk my dog?”
I rolled my eyes and tore into the envelope as we merged into traffic.
Emma,
It’s too soon. I know. But I found another letter I had to share. I hope you liked the last. I’m already shamelessly hooked on these correspondences, both the historical ones and our own.
This is a note to Virginia Woolf from Vita Sackville-West. You might know Vita and her husband weren’t monogamous, and Virginia’s spouse only cared that she found joy. Vita’s words speak to me. Their urgency. The sincerity. Their truth. If I could write half as well as Vita, I’d write a similar letter to you.
Forever Yours
I flipped to the second sheet of paper and absorbed the first few words.
I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn’t even feel it. And yet I believe you’ll be sensible of a little gap. But you’d clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become.
I pressed my lips together in delight, familiar with the letter Forever Yours mentioned and enclosed. I’d only ever dreamed of a longing like hers, and never dreamed of being on the other side.
“Another admirer?” Davis asked.
I peered over Violet’s luscious fur. “No.”
He dared a glance in my direction as he drove. “Then who?”
“It’s from Forever Yours.”
Whatever Davis thought of that, he kept it to himself.
I wanted to keep speculating about the secret author, but it didn’t seem right to talk about it with Davis. A man I’d kissed once in reality and a thousand times in my memory.
I folded and tucked the letter into its envelope, then snuggled with Violet as we motored away from downtown.
We followed a winding, tree-lined road into the forest. Shade blocked the sun, and the truck grew momentarily dark. When the canopy receded and the light returned, Davis parked near a building marked as Visitor’s Center .
“Woof!” Violet stood, eager to get outside.
Davis gave her a soothing pet, unfastened his seat belt, and caught my eye. “I like this place because the trails and views are amazing. More serenity. Less people.”
“Your favorite,” I teased.
“You should be able to find a lot of specimens for your herbarium here.”
I opened my door and climbed out, stretching my back and shoulders. “You remembered my herbarium.”
“Of course.” Davis set a hand on one hip. “And Violet loved your muffins, by the way. I enjoyed the surprise of finding them and your note.”
My cheeks heated at his approval, and I looked away.
“What else are you working on now?” he asked. “Besides plans for a revamp of your store.”
“Embroidery,” I said with a severe eye roll. “Noodles. Soup.”
He laughed quietly, and the sound warmed my chest. “Hope the noodles turned out better than the soup.”
“I think half will disintegrate in broth, and the rest will be the consistency of leather,” I admitted.
“Sounds delicious.”
Violet jumped down from the cab, and Davis locked the truck.
“I think my next hobby will be uncovering the identity of Forever Yours,” I said, only partially joking. “I saw a novel at the Emily Dickinson Museum featuring her as an amateur sleuth alongside her housemaid.”
“A real Sherlock and Watson story,” he said.
“Exactly.”
We followed Violet past a wooden marker etched with the words Robert Frost Trail, and I immediately thought of the opening line to one of his most well-known poems, “The Road Not Taken.”
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.
I took a moment to appreciate the narrow trail before us. “This is beautiful.” A well-trodden path wound through the forest ahead, a dark ribbon among brightly colored leaves.
Many think the poem, about a fork in a road, means that we should take chances and do brave things—take the paths not taken. In reality, Frost suggested that it’s the smaller choices that make up our lives.
I supposed I could’ve chosen to cut Davis out of my life for the rotten things he’d done. If I had, though, I wouldn’t have had this hike, or any of the other memories we’d made together.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
“Just feeling inspired.”
I would be more conscientious about how I spent my time. And the memories I chose to make with it.
He passed me a fallen leaf, mostly green with yellowed edges. “White oak.”
“Thanks.” I collected an array of leaves as we meandered and let Violet smell every patch of moss, exposed root, and fallen acorn along the way.
“Thinking about the calligraphy guy?” Davis guessed when the silence between us stretched too long.
I bit my lip as a spark of excitement burst through me. Maybe I could talk to him about this after all. “I’m wondering if he was in one of the letter-writing classes. That would make sense, right? Since we’re encouraged to leave letters for one another.”
“Maybe. I’ve never taken the class,” he said.
“Do you think it could be Michael?” I asked. “He’s not in the class, but he’s at the shop a lot. And he said he uses the Historically_Bookish handle on IBOOM.”
“Michael?” Davis’s frown returned. “The clerk? He’s like twenty-three.”
“He’s twenty-five. He took a gap year after high school, then another after undergrad.”
“Right.” Davis adjusted Violet’s leash in his hand. “I forgot who I was talking to for a minute.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Davis stopped and stared. “You talk to more people in a single day, while trying to become a recluse, than I do in a month.”
“I’ve given up on becoming a recluse,” I said. “I’m too people oriented, and I like doing things. Anything. All the things. Which means I’m a miserable failure on this particular quest.”
He slowed to turn curious eyes on me. “What about the list?”
I shrugged. “I do a lot of those things every day, and the real point of it all was for me to be happy again. I’m making solid progress on that.”
Davis nodded. “Good.”
“Do you know if Michael has a girlfriend?” I asked, still wondering if he’d been joking earlier, and if he was my admirer.
Davis looked over his shoulder in my direction, pushing the leafy branch of a sapling out of our way. “That’s a question for my aunt for sure.”
I bit my lip, unwilling to ask Grace about Michael. Daisy would get the clarification for me if I couldn’t bring myself to simply ask him. Are you my longtime online friend?
Are you sending me love letters?
In person, he was kind and pleasant, but the chemistry was different. Not like in the banter on IBOOM or in the letters from Forever Yours.
The narrow trail opened ahead, and Davis hung back to let me pass.
My limbs were warm from the hike, my cheeks cool from a hearty fall breeze. I sucked in a surprised breath at the view as I emerged from the trees.
“Welcome to Mount Norwottuck,” Davis said reverently. “The highest peak in the Holyoke Range.”
I stepped onto an outcropping of rocks near the edge, awestruck by the endless beauty. Tingles spilled down my arms and my spine. “Amazing.”
“You can see the entire Pioneer Valley from here,” he explained.
A blanket of treetops in every shade from green to scarlet stretched across the expanse below us, reaching all the way to the horizon. A perfect cloudless blue sky arched above. It was like looking at the ocean. The vast world beyond, the encompassing peace, and sounds of nature made me feel small, but not insignificant.
I stood, unmoving for long moments while Davis and Violet rustled behind me.
“You like it?” he asked, finally joining me on the rocks.
I nodded, unable to pull my eyes away from the view. “I never take the time to do things like this. I’ve missed so much.”
“You’re here now.” The warmth of Davis’s words reached into my chest and turned me to face him. He passed me a bottle of water and an apple, then cracked open a bottle of his own.
I returned my eyes to the scenic view, transfixed by the first radiant shades of sunset and thinking of a similar moment I’d spent on a park bench with Cecily not so long ago. I thought of how many things had changed in a short period of time and how many others never would. Like the fact I wanted moments like this in bulk. A lifetime subscription of memories with my life partner and our dog. Climbing mountains, having picnics, and whatever else the future had in store.
I’d been kidding myself to think that leaving Willow Bend for any amount of time would erase this from me. I wanted a big, epic love, and a loud, full life. But for the first time in years, I was ready to wait for it, however long that took. Because finding the right person would be worth it.