Chapter Two
Charlotte sipped her latte as Marin settled across from her.
Marin. The name was unusual, much like the woman.
Charlotte had imagined various names for her over the years, wanting to be able to memorialize her properly in her mind, but nothing had ever felt quite right.
She’d never thought of Marin. It was a perfect fit for the tall brunette sitting across from her.
Marin looked a little bit older than she had when Charlotte last saw her.
A little bit leaner, as if her recovery from the accident had toughened her up.
Charlotte wanted to know everything she’d been through over the last two years.
Since today’s showing had been a bust, they’d see more houses together.
Maybe this could turn into a friendship.
Charlotte could use a new friend, and more than that, she felt an indescribable desire to have Marin in her life for longer than it took to find her a house.
She wasn’t sure she believed in fate anymore, but surely there was a reason they’d found each other again.
Sitting here now, Charlotte felt lighter than she had in months, maybe years.
“So,” Marin said, then sipped her coffee.
A bright smile lit her face. She’d smiled so much today.
She seemed happier than the woman from Charlotte’s memories, more vibrant in some indefinable way.
Whatever changes she’d made to her life recently, they seemed to suit her.
In fact, Charlotte was a bit envious, given her recent downward spiral.
“Where do we start?” Charlotte asked, suddenly overwhelmed by all the things that had led them to this moment. Tell me everything, she wanted to beg. I want to know absolutely everything about you.
“Let’s start with you, if you don’t mind,” Marin said, and there was something guarded in her expression now, as if she’d heard Charlotte’s silent plea. “I feel like our interactions so far have revolved mostly around me.”
Charlotte swallowed her disappointment. They had time. “Fair enough.”
“What brought you back to Vermont?” Marin asked.
“I’m looking for answers.” She sipped her coffee, debating how much of the story to share.
Her mother’s disappearance was common knowledge among everyone she’d known while she was growing up, but she’d lived outside that shadow for most of her adult life.
It was one of the reasons she’d left this town in the first place.
Marin watched her, seemingly waiting for Charlotte to elaborate. She was a striking woman. Marin might not be considered conventionally beautiful, but she had such warm brown eyes. High cheekbones. And her chestnut hair was glossier than Charlotte remembered. Anyway.
Charlotte exhaled slowly. “My mom disappeared when I was ten, just . . . headed out for her monthly book club meeting, and no one ever saw her again.”
“Shit.” Those eyes Charlotte had just been admiring were wider now. “How awful. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. It was pretty terrible. Suddenly everyone at school was whispering behind my back. There were so many rumors. You know how kids are. Some people said she’d run off with her secret lover.
Some people figured my dad killed her and hid the body.
There were a million theories, and they all hurt. ”
“Did the police have any theories?” Marin asked.
Charlotte lifted one shoulder, tracing a finger back and forth over her coffee cup. “They don’t put in too much effort when an adult goes missing, if there’s no evidence of foul play. I think they assumed she just left us. That’s not a crime.”
“No, but it’s not an easy thing for a child to accept about her mother.”
“Definitely not,” Charlotte said. “My dad hired a couple PIs over the years, but neither of them was able to find her.”
“What do you think happened?”
Charlotte sighed. “Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve gone around in circles about it most of my life.
I just can’t accept that she would voluntarily leave us to wonder if she’s alive or dead, but there was never any evidence that something happened to her.
Whatever I feel about my dad, there’s not a violent bone in his body. I just can’t imagine him hurting her.”
Marin cocked her head slightly. “So you’re here now trying to find out what happened?”
Charlotte nodded. “I know it’s a long shot. I mean, it’s been thirty years. The trail is cold, but I’m going to give it my best. My other reason for being here is to try to repair my relationship with my dad.”
“Were you close before she disappeared?”
Charlotte rolled her lips inward. “Yes. My early childhood was magical, or at least that’s how I remember it.
My dad was the fun dad, you know? He’d take me on hikes and play with my toys, read me as many bedtime stories as I wanted.
Then after she disappeared, he just . . .
shut down. He left me with babysitters, never seemed to want anything to do with me.
Looking back as an adult, I can see that he was grieving, but at the time, it felt like I’d lost both parents, and I hated him for abandoning me like that.
I left Vermont after high school and never looked back. ”
“Do you have other family here in town or just your dad?” Marin asked.
“Just my dad. My parents had both moved to Vermont to work at the university, so my aunts, uncles, and cousins are scattered up and down the East Coast. I don’t see them in person as often as I’d like.”
“My family is somewhat scattered, too, so I get that.”
“I pretty much cut ties with everyone in Vermont when I left, even my friends from high school.” Charlotte sucked in a deep breath, meeting Marin’s eyes.
“After watching you die—or thinking I had watched you die—it felt like a wake-up call, a reminder of how short life can be. I’ve been running around ever since, trying to do all the things I would have regretted not doing if it had been me lying in that street. ”
Marin flinched. “I suppose I’ve been doing the same thing. Ironic that that moment somehow led us to this one.”
“Feels kind of fated, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Marin agreed. “And I say that as a person who—prior to almost dying—didn’t believe in fate. I was the least superstitious person I knew. I didn’t even believe in luck. I thought it was all nonsense. Give me numbers. Now those make sense.”
“No wonder you looked so skeptical when I read your horoscope.”
“Exactly.” Marin pointed a finger at her.
“You’ll never know how close I came to telling you not to even bother.
I was mostly humoring you to be polite, but then you read out the most eerily prophetic thing.
It was like you’d peeked inside my brain and seen my most private thoughts and desires. ” There was that guarded look again.
Charlotte would have given anything to know what Marin wasn’t saying. “Really? I honestly don’t remember anything about the horoscope I read you.”
“I do,” Marin said quietly. “I remember every word.”
Now Charlotte was desperate to remember what that horoscope had said.
“So,” Marin said, one corner of her mouth quirking upward. “If you ever want to read my horoscope again sometime . . .”
“Would you believe I deleted my horoscope app a few months ago?”
Marin gaped at her. “What? Why?”
She sighed. “I got disillusioned with them. I spent two years after you died—god, I’ve got to stop saying that.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you’re alive.
But I spent two years trying to find purpose in what happened.
I chased after all these things I thought I wanted, but none of them panned out. They were all mistakes.”
Marin reached across the table, touching her fingers briefly to the back of Charlotte’s hand. “This doesn’t feel like a mistake.”
Marin swiped a gloved hand over her car’s windshield with a frown.
A light snow had begun to fall while they were in the coffee shop, and now her car was dusted in white.
Having lived her whole life in the city, she was unaccustomed to driving.
She’d always had a driver’s license, but she had mostly depended on public transportation.
She’d been intimidated by cars even before she’d been hit by one, but this year was all about conquering her fears, and that included becoming a more confident driver.
So she brushed off her windshield and slid into the driver’s seat, wincing at the fiery bolt of pain that shot down her right leg, making her toes tingle. Nerve pain, her new best friend.
Marin started the engine and connected her phone to the stereo.
This was one thing she liked about driving, being able to blast her own music.
Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” started to play as Marin pulled out of the parking spot.
Maybe she was too old to be listening to Chappell Roan, but she refused to apologize for indulging in whatever her heart desired this year.
She liked catchy pop tunes, and it thrilled her that there were so many young artists these days who were out and proud.
If Chappell’s music had been around when Marin was a teen . . .
But there was no sense lamenting things she couldn’t change.
She’d made it here in her own time. Well, she hadn’t actually come out yet.
She hadn’t gotten past practicing the words in her head, but she would.
Soon. She’d been stuck in her private fantasies, waiting for this moment for years. For decades.
Now that her divorce from Andrew was finalized, it was time. Vermont was her blank slate, the opportunity to introduce herself authentically. There would be no preconceived notions. She was finally free to be herself.
Her pulse raced just thinking about it.