Chapter 17
Lindsey was bleary-eyed, sitting in the back of Murray’s car.
Going to a funeral meant to honor a woman you didn’t know was truly a singular thing, an event clouded with the suffering of so many people you also didn’t know, until it had made Lindsey feel disoriented.
Lindsey had found herself catching their grief and holding it in her chest. All the while, she’d squeezed Taylor’s hand, wanting to impart to Taylor: You’re not alone.
Of course, she’d allowed herself, briefly, to think of her own mother’s funeral, how she and Candice and Henry had sat together, strangers at that point, all three of them carrying tremendous secrets.
It had occurred to Lindsey, more than once during the service, that there was still so much she didn’t know about their brother, Henry, who moved in and out of their lives like a ghost.
Now, Taylor and Lindsey and Murray were leaving the cemetery, and it was nearly five thirty in the evening.
Traffic picked up, that famous Los Angeles traffic that everyone around the world hated so much, and Lindsey shivered as Murray pressed the brake and then the gas and then the brake.
Taylor was hidden behind her sunglasses, probably having a thousand thoughts she couldn’t fully name.
There was too much to say, which maybe meant nothing was right to say.
Now that Lindsey had told Taylor her deepest secrets—about Maya, about Christopher, about how anxious she was in the world—she felt a safety with this improbable woman.
Still, Taylor didn’t know that Lindsey had been such a massive fan of her work through the years.
And of course, Lindsey wasn’t sure if she wanted her to know how deep her love had been, back then.
But Lindsey reasoned that her love for Taylor Charron, the TV star, was different from her love for Taylor Charron, the person.
This Taylor was outside the bounds of a sitcom. This Taylor was real, unscripted.
Taylor groaned and showed Lindsey her phone screen. It was a text from Jason, asking if she wanted to grab dinner to talk more. “What should I do?”
Lindsey grimaced. “Do you feel you have more you want to say to him?”
“Apparently, he has more he wants to say to me,” Taylor said. Her eyes widened as another text came through, which she showed to Lindsey.
JASON: There’s something you should know.
“Goodness,” Taylor said, shaking her head. “I don’t know if I have the energy for that.”
“You have to focus on yourself,” Lindsey told her. “He’s being selfish. He wants to tell you whatever’s on his mind, to clear his conscience. But you’re on another journey now. You’re moving forward. Without him.”
Taylor offered Lindsey a soft smile. And then, as the car stopped again and horns blared around them, Taylor said, “Now that you’ve told me your story, I can’t stop thinking of the bird-watcher. How does he fit into all this?”
Lindsey took a breath, surprised that Taylor had found any time to consider her life.
“I think he can tell I don’t have emotional space for anything right now,” Lindsey said finally.
“We went out for dinner and drinks the night before we left for LA, and he was really trying to get to know me. He said I’m the first person he’s been interested in for a while.
But I have all these walls up.” She spread her hands out in front of her.
“I think I need, like, ten years of therapy before I can let someone like Jake in.”
Taylor grimaced. “You’ve told me your story,” she said. “What if you call him later and try to tell him, too?”
Lindsey felt nauseated. “I don’t know. What if he…”
“Doesn’t listen? Can’t handle it?” Taylor filled in the blanks. “If he’s like that, then it’s good to know now. You have nothing to lose in telling him the truth. Just try.”
When they got back to the house Taylor had rented for them, Taylor set herself up in the living room with a glass of wine and more snacks.
“I’ll be here for the night,” Taylor said, laughing.
“I know I should be at the beach, or hanging with old friends, or talking to Jason about our heartbreaks, or whatever. Goodness, maybe I should even be with my father and aunts and uncles, mourning my mother properly. But I’d rather protect myself. ”
Lindsey smiled. “Good. I’ll join you in a bit.”
Lindsey headed to her room, where she closed the door and took three gulping breaths.
Was she really going to call Jake and tell him the truth?
It felt wild. But after going to a funeral and thinking again about Maya and remembering all she’d already lost, she was heavy with the feeling that we only get one life.
What if Jake was someone special? What if she was going to miss out on getting to know him, because she was too afraid to face herself?
The phone rang and rang. It was almost nine at night on the East Coast, and Lindsey was frightened that Jake had gone to bed early so that he could wake up early to watch birds. She didn’t know if she had it in her to wait till tomorrow to tell him. The moment would be gone.
And then, Jake answered. “Lindsey, hey.”
Lindsey rocketed to her feet and clenched her free hand. “Jake.”
“How was the funeral?” Jake sounded happy, if surprised to hear from her. That had to be a good sign, right?
“It was hard, I guess. Not for me, but.” Lindsey squeezed her eyes shut and told herself to leap. “It got me thinking about what you said. And about all I couldn’t say.”
Jake was quiet for a moment. “I thought maybe you were holding back.” There was a hint of good-humored sarcasm there.
Lindsey laughed gently. “I know. It’s been, um, hard for me to approach my past. I really don’t want to scare you away.”
“Your past won’t scare me away,” Jake told her. “We’re in our forties. We both have pasts, right?”
“Not like this,” Lindsey said, anxiety swelling in her stomach. “I was married before.”
“Lots of people were married,” Jake said.
“Yeah. But the difference is, I guess, that we had a daughter, and she died.” Lindsey took a dramatic breath and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Oh, Lindsey,” Jake said. “I’m so sorry.” And then, after a pause, he said, “Tell me about her.”
So, over the next half hour, Lindsey told Jake about Maya.
She talked about the surprise of her pregnancy, how worried she’d been that her life would become very small, and then about the joy of learning that in fact, her life had only gotten bigger and richer.
“My husband and I were very committed to our business, but we balanced family life pretty well, all things considered. I thought we were going to get away with having a very happy time. And then, our daughter drowned.”
Lindsey explained what had happened after: how she’d moved out, how she’d pretended to be someone else, how she’d taken a waitressing job and never spoken about her daughter. “I wasn’t angry when Christopher moved on. I figured it was only a matter of time,” she said.
“He should have asked for a divorce before doing that behind your back,” Jake said.
“I’m really not angry about it,” she said.
“I’m not angry with Christopher at all. At least, I wasn’t until he and Piper sent me that box.
” She explained to him that there was a box waiting for her in the closet at her Nantucket apartment, how it called out to her at night and infiltrated her dreams.
“What do you wish they would have done with her things?” Jake asked.
By now, Lindsey was splayed across the California King, her heart slow. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t like that they’re forcing you to face this,” Jake offered.
“Why do they get to decide when I face it?” Lindsey asked, her voice catching.
“It isn’t right,” Jake agreed. “They shouldn’t dictate when and how you move forward.”
“Yeah!” Lindsey laughed as tears spilled from her eyes. It felt delicious to hear someone else say what she’d known all along.
“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t open it,” Jake said.
“I know.” Lindsey sighed.
“I’ll be there if you want that,” Jake said.
“Oh, Jake. I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Lindsey said.
But Jake told her it would be his pleasure if she wanted that.
“I’ve been through my fair share of hardships.
I’ve lost people. I’ve had eras I’ve had to say goodbye to.
I can’t fathom what it’s like to lose a child.
I won’t pretend to. But I know what it’s like to feel alone in something.
And I don’t want you to feel alone in this. Not anymore.”
Lindsey rolled onto her stomach. She wanted to ask Jake if he was too good to be true. But she also wanted to live in the magic of this call a little bit longer. “Tell me,” she said then, smiling. “Tell me about all of your eras. Tell me everything that’s happened to you.”
Laughing, Jake plunged into his stories of heartache: the girlfriend he’d nearly married who’d left him four days before the wedding, the woman he’d eventually married who’d accused him of abandoning her for birdwatching, the brother who’d died a few years ago after a skiing accident.
Lindsey had the sensation that they were spilling one another’s stories, showing every bit of darkness to one another, so that they could move on.
They fell asleep mid-call, Lindsey cozied up in California, and Jake, his head heavy, his alarm set for four thirty in the morning so that he could run along the beach, taking photographs and following his dreams.