Mae
They stop at a diner on the way home from the airport, where they all order blueberry pancakes—Nana’s favorite.
“The doctors said she probably didn’t feel anything,” Pop says. “She was taking a nap, and she just didn’t wake up.”
“But I think she knew somehow,” he says, putting a hand over Pop’s, who clasps it back. They exchange a look. “After the first stroke, the way she was talking, it was almost like…”
“Like she was saying goodbye,” Pop says.
Mae puts down her fork. “I wish you’d told me,” she says, her throat tight. “If I’d known, I would’ve been here.”
What she doesn’t say is this: that she should’ve been there.
That the only reason she wasn’t, the reason she was thousands of miles away at the time, was because she lied to them.
“She knew that too,” Dad says. “And that’s not what she wanted. You two had already said your goodbyes.”
“Right, but not for—”
“Mae,” Pop says, looking at her over the bottle of syrup and the napkin dispenser and the mugs of coffee leaving rings on the table. His voice is strangely calm. “That’s the thing. You almost never know when you’re saying goodbye to someone forever.”
Mae nods, lost for words.
“It’s okay,” he says gently. “She knew what was in your heart.”
On the drive home, they listen to the movie score from Titanic, which was Nana’s favorite.
The rest of them always complained when she put it on, but she was unabashedly, stubbornly in love with it.
“You cretins wouldn’t know great art if it bit you in the behind,” she’d say, to which Pop would roll his eyes and remind her that he runs an art gallery and Dad is an art history professor. Still, she wouldn’t budge.
Now Mae listens to the swells of music and feels the emotion in every single note. Maybe Nana was right, she thinks, and suspects it won’t be the last time.
At home she walks from room to room, running a hand over various items: Nana’s chair at the kitchen table; her favorite coat, which is still hanging near the back door; the green mug she always used for her afternoon tea.
In the guest bedroom, where Nana lived for the better part of the past year, Mae lingers near the door.
She doesn’t realize anyone is behind her until Dad clears his throat.
“I loved her,” he says. “I really did. But oof—that perfume.”
Mae laughs; she can smell it too. It’s not the scent itself, which is lavender with a hint of something else, minty and herbal; it’s how much she used to wear, the cloud of it that would trail her around the house.
“Best smell in the world,” Mae says, breathing in deeply.
Later, after they’ve all had a nap, they sit around the kitchen table, painfully aware of the empty chair, and go through what else needs to be done for the funeral tomorrow. Pop reads through the final list of appetizers for the reception, and when he’s done, Dad grins at Mae.
“Better than train food, huh?”
“Actually, it wasn’t so bad,” she tells him. “They had a pretty good menu. And we got some good stuff when we were off the train too. The best was the deep-dish pizza in Chicago—we absolutely demolished it.”
She blinks a few times, overcome by the memory of that rainy night. Each time she thinks of Hugo, her heart feels like it’s being wrung out, and she’s so distracted that she almost misses the next question.
“So you got along well?” Pop asks, and when Mae gives him a blank look, he adds, “You and Piper?”
“Oh,” she says. “Yeah.” It’s the kind of drawn out yeah that makes it clear she doesn’t know where she’s going next with this.
Her mind begins to toggle through all the many things she could tell them about her future roommate: We’re best friends already or She was a total nightmare or It’ll be better when we’re in a dorm room and have a bit more space.
But in the end, she can’t bring herself to lie.
Maybe it’s because they’re planning a funeral right now, or because she missed them more than she thought she would.
Maybe it’s the guilt of not having been here, or maybe it’s because of Hugo, whose absence she feels like a phantom limb.
But whatever the reason, she finds herself saying, “Actually, there’s something I have to tell you. ”
They listen as the whole story comes spilling out—the post that Priyanka had sent her and the search for a Margaret Campbell; the video she sent to Hugo and the moment she met him at Penn Station—and when she gets to the part where they boarded the train, Dad is so red faced and Pop is so white faced that she stops. “Are you guys okay?”
They stare at her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. If I’d known this would happen, I never would’ve—”
A muscle in Dad’s jaw is beginning to twitch. “What were the sleeping arrangements?”
“What were the, uh…”
“The sleeping arrangements.”
“Well, we didn’t really have a choice on the train. But they were bunk beds, so…”
“And what about off the train?”
Mae squirms in her seat. “It sounds worse than it is.”
“Try us,” Pop says flatly.
“Hugo was going to give me the hotel rooms, but then he lost his wallet in Chicago, and we’d already shared the smaller room on the train, so it didn’t seem like such a big deal to—”
“To what?”
“We got a cot,” Mae explains, deciding it’s better to leave out any logistics beyond that. “It wasn’t a big deal. Honestly.”
“So let me get this straight. You lied to us, went off on a cross-country train trip with a boy you’d never met before, and then shared a hotel room with him in a strange city?” Dad says in a strangled voice. “Sure. Yeah. No big deal at all.”
Pop folds and then unfolds his hands. “Were you, uh…,” he says, braving a glance at Mae, then quickly lowering his eyes again. “You were…safe, right?”
She groans. “Nothing happened. Not like that.”
“Not like that?” Dad says, his eyebrows shooting up again. “So does that mean…something did happen?”
“Look, it was just…I didn’t think you guys would say yes if you knew.
” She ignores the matching expressions on their faces, which tell her she’s absolutely right, and keeps going.
“But I needed to go. You were the ones who said I had some living to do, and it seemed like fate for this to just fall into my lap. It was never about him. The idea was to figure out my next film, and we were supposed to just give each other plenty of space. But then…I don’t know.
Something happened. We really liked each other. ”
The worry has eased from Pop’s face, and he’s watching her now with a bemused smile. But Dad still looks slightly murderous. “I swear, if he touched a hair on your head…”
“He did,” Mae says, trying not to laugh. “But really, it’s okay. He’s a nice guy. You’d like him. And anyway, it’s over now.”
“Good,” Dad says. “Because if I ever see this scoundrel—”
Pop is full-on laughing now. “Okay, maybe we can take the whole overprotective father act down a notch here.”
“It’s not an act,” Dad says, scowling. “She just spent a week on a train with some random kid. Oh god, he is a kid, right? How old is this guy?”
“Eighteen,” Mae says. “Same as me.”
Dad grunts. “Still.”
“Okay,” says Pop. “I think that concludes the lecture portion of our program.” He waves a hand at the papers spread out on the table before them: information for the funeral service, a bill from the undertaker, printouts of various prayers and hymns.
“As we’ve all been reminded, life is short.
Mae, we would’ve preferred if you hadn’t lied to us.
But you’re probably right that we would’ve said no.
What’s done is done. I’m glad you had a good time.
And that you met a boy you like, though as your dad, I confess I’m also happy that part of the adventure is over. ”
“Thanks,” Mae says, smiling at him gratefully. “I really am sorry. Though I kind of thought you’d have found out by now…”
“How?” Dad asks, still shaking his head in an indignant way.
“Because I told Nana.”
“The one time she manages to keep a secret,” Pop says, but he says it fondly.
Dad sighs. “At least tell me you got some inspiration out of all this.”
“I did,” she says. “I think I might’ve even gotten a film out of it.”
“And?” Pop asks.
“And it might even end up being good.” She shrugs. “But what do I know?”
“A lot,” Dad says with an intensity that surprises her. “Don’t forget that, okay?”
She smiles at him. “Okay.”
“So,” he says, “think you could give your old men a sneak peek?”
Mae is unaccountably nervous as she pulls her computer out of her bag.
She sets it on the table between them, and they scoot their chairs closer.
“It’s not even remotely close to being finished,” she explains as she opens the file.
“I still don’t have the shape of it yet.
This is literally just a bunch of interviews, but it’ll give you an idea of what I’m hoping to do. ”
This isn’t the first time she’s shown them something at this stage.
They’ve always been her test audience, eager to help and quick to praise.
But this time she’s too anxious to look at them.
Instead she cups her chin in her hands and stares hard at the screen, watching the reel of old friends who go by—Ida and Roy, Ashwin and Ludovic, Katherine and Louis—like she’s right back on that train again.
“My biggest dream?” says a young woman named Imani, whom they interviewed outside the bathrooms late one night in the middle of Nebraska. “I already have it.”
“What is it?” Mae asked, and the woman’s smile broadened.
“Love.”
Maybe it’s being in the house with her dads, right across from the empty chair where her grandmother used to sit.
Or maybe it’s that Mae misses Hugo, the pain growing worse with each interview she watches, remembering the way he sat beside her, his eyes bright as he listened to all those stories.
She’s watched these a dozen times, maybe more, but this time something is different.
This time she understands—all at once—what the film is about.
As it turns out, it’s not a story about love.
It’s a love story.
Her mind is so busy spinning as she thinks through what this means that by the time Hugo appears on-screen, she’s almost forgotten he’s part of it. She hasn’t watched his interview since she filmed it, hasn’t let herself, because she knows it will hurt too much.
And she’s right. The minute she hears his voice, she feels her heart wrench.
“But then I got on this train,” he says with that familiar smile of his, “and everything changed.”
“Ooh, a Brit,” Dad says, then looks over at Mae, who is watching the screen with a frozen expression. “Wait, is that him?”
She nods feebly, and they both reach for the volume button at the same time.
“Turn it up,” Pop says, leaning forward to watch.
Every so often, they exchange a look over the top of her head, but Mae’s eyes are on Hugo.
Behind him the desert whips by, the metallic sound of the rails providing a familiar soundtrack.
Mae never realized it was possible to feel homesick for a train. Or, for that matter, a person.
When the interview is over and the screen has gone black, Dad turns to her. “He’s in love with you,” he says, looking at her in surprise.
“What?” she says, shutting the computer. “No.”
“He is,” Pop says with a grin. “It’s obvious.”
Dad is still staring. “And you’re in love with him too.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe it.”
“What?”
“You ran away and fell in love with a boy on a train,” he says, his voice full of wonder. Then he laughs. “Nana would be so proud.”