CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It had taken eighteen years for this to happen. Slight correction: it had taken eighteen years for me to ask something this impossible of my parents and for them to say yes.
That one often-denied word was what placed me back in Sacred two days later, on Cedar Street, two hours after I was discharged from Sacred Heart Medical Center in Springfield, Oregon.
I wore black joggers, a plain white tee, and flip-flops from one of the suitcases the rescue workers had salvaged from the red Camaro.
I wore a watch that was not gold, but stainless steel and narrow; it didn’t fully cover the imprint on my left wrist of another larger watch that was nowhere to be found in the wreckage.
Another curiosity: this fleshy white stamp wouldn’t fade.
I wasn’t scared over this. The band imprint, and the perfectly healed welt from a scar that wouldn’t stop bleeding before, were reminders that I had truly lived what I’d lived. The evidence matched my memory.
Two days ago, after my parents broke the heart-ending news about Tía Vivian, we grieved together.
With me propped against the back of the raised hospital bed, and Mom on my left side, and Dad on my right, we made an imperfect triangle.
They’d suffered wounds too. My hospital room was one that I didn’t need to escape just then. My family wasn’t.
Still, there was no mention of the ship or their jobs.
The old me would’ve brushed it off and added it to my grudge list. But post-limbo me was done with not saying stuff, even though it meant I might break.
I had already been shattered to fragment and bone (me, not just the watch).
The image of why and how—his image—came up fresh against the white hospital sheets and my lunch tray of teriyaki chicken and Jell-O.
As the words tumbled out, I hoped that Tía Viv could somehow see that I wasn’t running away from them this time.
“Can we talk about how it took me almost dying for you to come back?” I asked. “To be here for me?”
My father’s face. As if he were the one stricken. “Sylvie, not now, amor. We can—”
“No. I need to tell you what it’s really been like for me.”
My mother had been so quick to bury her head.
“Let’s talk very soon about this. You need to rest.” My father had been so quick to say that.
But I was just as quick to say, “What I need is for you to listen. Please.”
They forged a strong look between one another; then over my small, bruised frame, they nodded.
I started with the changes I noticed in them, how I felt like I was holding them back from living their best life.
In the middle came my ploys for attention, to be noticed.
At the end, I told them that I understood how the bright, steady income and the bonuses had kept us afloat.
And that, yes, I even got that they’d wanted to keep me safe and wouldn’t trust anyone but Vivian with my summers.
But they had never talked through any of that with me, which had left me feeling like more of a problem to solve than a daughter to be cared for.
My dad walked the perimeter of my hospital room three full times before admitting, “In my home, sharing our feelings was not something we did often. But there was also great love and trust.
When mis padres made a decision, we were taught not to question it. We trusted their wisdom.”
I shook my head. “But by not telling me stuff and by giving me excuses instead of explanations, I had to fill in the blanks myself. And none of my answers were ever good.”
Mom dabbed at her eyes. “We took too much for granted, and we missed the signs you were giving. We—I—thought that you understood. That you were fine. I never asked . . . but I should have. For that, and everything, I am sorry.”
We had all missed what the absence of words had done.
But what had struck more than their genuine apologies was the way they delivered them.
Without blame. United, hands clasped tightly.
It wasn’t happiness or total peace that filled my room—not right then.
That might have been more impossible than a magic watch.
A lifetime of buried hurts couldn’t be fixed in one conversation.
But I felt that we finally had a chance.
Togetherness filled my room. An ocean of it.
When that parted, and we did, I found I had one more word to say.
Please—-
I have to go to the cabin in Sacred. Alone. Tía told me all about it. She was there, and her tools are still there. There’s a spare key.
I need this. Please. (I need her.)
I was not prepared for the words my mother would say after they’d agreed to my request.
“We were waiting for the right time to speak to you about the cabin. Sylvie, your tía bought it. We didn’t know until yesterday.” A line of tears slipped down her cheek. “In her trust, the property is willed to you alone.”
There had never been an on-site job or a wealthy client.
And though my tía had kept the truth from me, I understood and even appreciated the reason.
Vivian had brought me here because, somehow, she’d known that I would need this Sacred summer.
The cabin I’d grown to love was an unfathomable heirloom.
Walking down Cedar Street now, I glanced at another heirloom, the Omega on my wrist. After our talk, my father had pulled the watch from my suitcase and set it on my hospital bedside table.
This version of the Omega had never been broken.
Another watch had stopped its hands just like it had stopped me between life and death.
I didn’t fully understand how, but I clung to the fact that we both worked now.
Again and again, I found myself needing to put all of this somewhere.
Too much to carry inside my skull. I kept my fist balled at my side.
I could function this way. I imagined my secret hiding inside that tiny hollow.
The act of clenching and unclenching my fingers around it helped me to walk and eat and drink—simple things I used to take for granted.
It helped make a universe of wonder that never ran out into something I could live with.
My heartbeat skittered when I reached Spines and Pines.
Mom had stayed behind in Eugene to begin the gut-wrenching task of organizing Vivian’s memorial.
Dad had driven me into Sacred. He let me wander a street he thought looked cute and that I might enjoy exploring while he grabbed some groceries for my sleepover in the cabin that was now mine.
(I already knew the low, whirring sound the refrigerator made.)
A bell dinged me into the shop, and there was Corbin. His first instinct was to smile—I liked that. But his mouth narrowed as he looked me over. “Seems you’ve been through quite a lot, miss.”
Time travel. Saying impossible goodbyes. Being impossible.
But he just meant the physical bruises and bandages. I gave three quick squeezes to my balled fist. “Something like that.”
“Right. Well.” Corbin stepped aside. “If you need help finding anything, say the word.”
Being truly seen was something I hadn’t even known I’d missed so much. “Thanks.”
But I knew exactly where I was going. There would be a pink velvet chair on my right, a canister with vintage umbrellas on my left.
I knew the oblong shape of the first table.
A snow globe was there waiting for me to buy it.
I picked up the piece and shook shook shook until the little snowflakes scattered.
This time, I placed the item back on the table.
I wanted my life to look different. I didn’t want to repeat things. Here was a small place to start.
My breath gave a rough hitch when I found the brown leather notebook. For a few moments, my fist flew open so I could hold the cover with both hands. I flipped through, scanning the now-empty pages where I’d left doodles of trees and my name in flowery script. And Penn.
My eyes filled as they did so often now.
Written, not in this book, but across nearly every thought I had was the one reason I asked to go to the cabin instead of his street in Eugene.
Less than an hour after I released Tía Viv to the beautiful place that awaited her, and after I released Patrick Gerrity from the watch and my blistering need for him, I was given a second chance.
The evidence was clear. My broken heart was the price I’d paid for my life.
I dragged my fingernail into the buttery soft leather. It was clear where I had to leave Penn.
He wouldn’t recognize me on this day in this week in this month. If I did dare to reach out, I’d only keep breaking that same broken heart. The wound would bleed and never clot over—I knew what that was like.
I put down the brown notebook. Only my phone buzzing in my pocket kept the flood of hard feelings from sending me into another emotional limbo.
I wedged it out. Ana was calling, and my smile jumped wide.
My parents brought me a new phone this morning.
This one worked perfectly in this life, this time. Cellular service, apps, Wi-Fi—normal.
“Ana?” My voice was still recovery-scraped.
“Oh my God, Sylvie,” she started. Grier was also there in the background. “Your mom called yesterday. She told us what happened but said you wouldn’t get your phone back until today and—we’re just so glad you’re okay.” Her voice broke. “I’m so sorry about Vivian.”
I leaned against the display table, tears brimming again as Ana went on and on with Grier punctuating here and there.
When I finally squeezed two inches into the conversation, I told them I was completely devastated but my injuries would fully heal.
Things were still too fresh to tell the whole story, but I would get there (leaving some things out—some people).
“We’re coming back to LA at the end of the week,” Grier said, commandeering the phone. “To be there with you.”