Pictures of You

Chapter 24

the PRESENT

24

Evie

The Book Cottage is a block up from Darby Street, in the shade of a large red maple. The tree drops so many leaves that they pile around the cart in front of the shop and its owner, Rose, has to brush them off the books. How can I remember the name of the bookshop keeper but nothing else from the past decade? It’s maddening.

According to my high school plan, I was meant to be through my undergrad degree at Sydney Uni, and ultimately a PhD, which I would have completed in three years—the minimum time. I should have spent semesters overseas in postdoctoral fellowships at Yale or Brown or Oxford, and by now I would be working as a forensic linguist, solving crime by day, writing bestselling thrillers by night.

That was the plan. Not becoming a supporting character in my high school boyfriend’s story with nothing discernible to show for my life except a giant diamond ring that I hate, a clinically decorated mansion, a viral podcast, and a gorgeous Instagram aesthetic.

I pull on the familiar brass handle and predict the exact moment the door will creak, and it does. The scent of old books and the whirring of the vintage fan above the counter send me straight to my childhood. It feels like home.

Hold it together.

Drew steps into the shop behind me, tall and broad. His scent is far less familiar. I turn and glance from the dark waves of his hair to the stubble on his jawline and picture him in Wild magazine—some glossy profile on the rugged photographer behind the beautiful landscape imagery—and instruct my imagination to stay on track. I’d had to do the same last night, standing beside him at the counter of a beachside hotel. The sixteen-year-old in me ran away with the whole notion of it—my being away in another city with a man —until he checked us into separate rooms and, admittedly, a sense of relief washed over me.

Walking tentatively toward the counter now, I see Rose serving a customer and my heart quickens. She hasn’t changed. A bit rounder, maybe. Still wearing her light brown hair in that tight, messy bun, brown eyes still twinkling when she talks to people about books. Right now, the soft-spoken, middle-aged former librarian is the only connection I have with anyone from my past. I want to throw myself into her arms and stay there until everything rights itself and she hands me the scoop on my parents’ whereabouts … but at the same time, I’m terrified. What if this is the moment that breaks me?

She looks up and her familiar features crumple into an unreadable mash-up of emotion. I want to step forward, but something stops me—as if sudden movement will scare her off.

Someone steps on a floorboard in a nearby aisle and it creaks, breaking the moment. Rose swallows and takes an audible breath. “Evie,” she says at last. She comes around the counter, walks up to me, and touches me on the cheek, as if she can’t believe I’m here.

Hot tears well, and I struggle to contain them. I want to keep my act together almost as much as I want to fall spectacularly apart. I need to know about Mum and Dad—now. But just as I’m about to ask that question, Rose turns, takes a step sideways, throws her arms out, and says, “Drew!”

Rose knows him?

And if he knows Rose, why didn’t he say so?

But Drew looks just as taken aback as I feel. He moves a half step away from her, brows knitted as if he’s trying to work out how he fits into this picture. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Have we met?”

She’ll have none of his reticence, drawing him into a deep hug, and he looks at me over her shoulder in wordless surprise. He’s either a brilliant actor or he really doesn’t know who she is. My heart is hoping like mad it’s the latter, because Drew is the one person in the world I feel like I can rely on right now.

“Look at the pair of you!” she says. “All grown-up.”

The pair of us? We are not a pair. We’re not even friends. We’re barely acquaintances. He’s just an innocent victim, caught up in my unwitting chaos, trying to untangle the disaster that is my life, so he can get on with his. In New York.

And why does the idea of him doing that suddenly make me so bereft and anxious?

“Rose—”

“Come on!” She cuts me off and bustles us outside to the tiny courtyard garden, where I sink into a wrought-iron chair with a flat, faded yellow cushion and watch as Rose pulls up a chair from another table, sits down, and takes my hand.

“Now, Evie girl. How are you? I was sorry to read of your loss.”

Does she mean my parents? My heart almost explodes in fear before I ask, “You mean Oliver?” She nods. “Rose, I can’t remember anything that’s happened since I was sixteen!” The words gush from me. It’s a massive relief to give the truth air. “We went back to the house but there was another woman living there with a baby. I don’t have phone numbers for Mum and Dad or Breanna or anyone from here …”

Tears surface, hot and fast. Fear-laced tears. This is my loss. All of this. Not a husband I can’t remember. A whole life that I’ve lost. A whole family.

Rose gets up and throws her arms around me while staccato sobs gush from my throat.

“Are Mum and Dad …” I can’t even finish the question.

“They’re well,” she says. “They’re okay.”

Relief floods through my veins, bottled-up emotion erupting violently. They’re okay. They’re alive. My life is salvageable.

I’d been up early this morning, and had skipped across the road from the hotel, through the concrete tunnel toward the beach. It was all so wonderfully familiar. Finally, something I truly understood. Sand. Salt. The gentle spray of sea mist on my face, the pink of the sunrise kissing the navy-blue horizon, dotted with freight ships heading for Newcastle port.

I wandered down the Shortland Esplanade along the coast toward the Ocean Baths, where there’s a pavilion with an art deco facade I’ve always loved. I learned to swim in that pool. I learned a lot of things. How it feels to dive under the surface and hide when the sun is too bright and your skin is too hot. What it’s like to be out of your depth.

When I was seven, I’d been overconfident in the water. We were at the baths with a group of family friends, and I was the youngest. It was one of those situations where all the adults think someone else is looking out for the kids, and I guess nobody was. And when the older children I idolized went farther into the pool, I followed them. It was fine at first, then my toes couldn’t reach the sandy floor. Pretty soon I was going under, panicking in the green water, kicking, gasping for air. It felt like years but was seconds, probably, before a stranger pulled me from the depths and I staggered out of the pool and ran for my parents. Bolted for them. Desperate for the safety of their arms.

This morning, I stood there on that same concrete, on the safety of dry land, and had been drowning anyway. Wanting their arms around me. I was home. And I’d never felt so far away.

So to hear now from Rose that they are alive … I can barely cope with the relief.

Drew reaches across the table and touches my hand. Just once. Silent communication that returns my attention to him, and the fact that Rose recognizes him, which makes no sense.

“How do you know Drew?” I ask, after Rose hands me a box of tissues and I blow my nose with gusto, face feeling all red and blotchy. Now I look like a proper widow.

“Yes, I’m sorry, Rose—I don’t remember,” he adds politely. I’m starting to worry that the amnesia is contagious. We cannot have two of us down with it.

She laughs. “Oh, we haven’t met in person.”

He’s as baffled as me.

“But you showed me all those pictures of him, Evie. In high school.”