Chapter 38 #2
“Do you remember how many letters you got from me that fall?” she asked.
“Two,” he said, as if it wasn’t ancient fact. “The second one was where you told me you’d met someone else. To respect your decision.”
This betrayal had a sharper tang than the other ones—a poison drip designed especially for her. “I can’t believe she did that,” Frankie whispered, rubbing a hand at her chest where the serrated truth had stabbed her.
Owen stood, fine hair clippings drifting off his shoulders in a cloud as he moved to her. He squatted and placed his hands on her forearms, pausing as if unsure how to phrase what he needed to know. “Are you actually telling me Estelle ended us?” he said finally. “That my heart broke for nothing?”
Frankie’s insides twisted at the sorrow in his voice.
That’s what Thora had meant when she said Frankie was the one who’d got away from him.
“She could have taken your letters before they reached me, and I always put outgoing mail on her desk so she could add stamps. It would have been easy for her to take the envelopes and copy out new letters if she set her mind to it.”
“But why?” Owen asked.
Another string of images from her life with Estelle popped into Frankie’s mind at once.
Touring with her, being homeschooled, eating together, reading together, gardening together, the story about the song, college decisions, job decisions, the tiny house in the yard, partnering at Starview. Mother of the year.
“She wanted me to stay,” Frankie said. “She needed me to stay.” She could see it so clearly now, like a curtain had parted to reveal the plain facts behind a magic trick.
Owen had been a complicating factor in Estelle’s plans for Frankie’s future after high school—a factor that she likely sensed would hold more sway than a mother.
One by one, Estelle’s machinations snapped into view.
The decision to choose a “safe” major instead of pursuing music had likely been to prevent Frankie landing a career that would have her touring or moving to hard-to-come-by jobs.
The need for help at Starview increasing at the same time Frankie had a lead on a teaching job in Charlotte now seemed less of a coincidence.
The tiny house appearing—such a thoughtful gift if not for the lack of buy-in from Frankie, who’d felt she couldn’t turn it down.
Then there was that other time she’d come close to leaving—with Zach and the road trip.
“That’s why she lied about the cancer,” Frankie said now, not caring that she was omitting context for Owen. “To keep me close.”
Whether Estelle’s deceptions had stemmed from a fear of loneliness, a misguided attempt at alleviating guilt over what she’d done to Amber, or something pathological, Frankie would never know, but regardless, it was now clear they’d been more fit for a puppet master than a loving parent.
Frankie had been tethered to Estelle and Aspen Creek, not voluntarily like she’d thought but like a prisoner in body and soul, unable to leave because the choices she’d been offered had presented no such option.
And there it was, Estelle’s finest con laid bare, because Frankie had never even realized.
She didn’t notice she was crying until Owen wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. She covered his hand with hers and held it against her skin. “I didn’t meet anyone else,” she said, needing him to hear it. “I promise.”
“I know,” he said. “And I didn’t want my freedom. I just wanted you.”
She bridged the space between them in a heartbeat, their lips coming together in a gentle conjuring of times gone by. The salt from her tears lent a biting edge to the solemnity of the moment—one she’d no doubt carry with her into tomorrow’s activities—but Owen’s touch was nothing but sweetness.
He leaned back, his pupils dark with warring delight and agony. “I should have texted you or sent you an email too—not just relied on the letters. If I had known… I just didn’t suspect…”
“I think she counted on that,” Frankie said.
“Both of us wanting to do right by the other. And I didn’t have my phone anyway.
Someone took it from—” Her mouth snapped closed.
Of course. Estelle would have wanted to minimize the risk of Frankie and Owen finding other ways to communicate, so she’d taken the phone from Frankie’s backpack at Starview.
The surrounding details were made up like so many things had been in Estelle’s life.
“I’m still sorry,” Owen said, resting his forehead against her knees like he was bowing to her.
She threaded her fingers through his now shorter strands, lingering there for a while before lifting his face to hers again. “Me too,” she breathed against his lips.
She finished cutting his hair, each touch and movement drawn-out and more tender than when she’d started. Their discovery was a glinting soap bubble between them—beautiful and complex, its swirling colors reflecting the many versions of the two of them they might be.
Frankie wished nothing more than to press pause on everything else and look closer, but the bubble was also fragile to the world it existed in.
This moment on Thora’s deck with her garden surrounding them was a carved-out sliver of time.
Here, it was easy to forget all the years that had passed since the two of them had made their plans.
That Owen had his sobriety to focus on. That regardless of what happened tomorrow, Frankie now had real choices to make about her life that could not be based on anything or anyone other than herself.
As Owen walked her to her car, they both knew there would be no promises made this night. No plans or commitments. And that was okay.
“How does it look?” Owen asked, running a hand over his neat new cut. “Decent enough to be your date tomorrow?”
Frankie smiled. Well, she thought, no long-term plans or commitments at least. “I’ll pick you both up at one.”