Chapter 2
Definitely Not his Wife
SARAH
Even though there was a lovely looking restaurant at the hotel, we wanted to explore the town. So after dropping off our bags and freshening up, we drove back downtown.
We immediately agreed on Betsey’s, an adorable cafe too packed to sit down at.
We got sandwiches to go, sitting down to eat them outside in the town square.
Luckily, I was able to steer Ellie from scoping out every male in our vicinity for me by asking her about her current relationship.
She said all the right things, but seemed lukewarm.
I didn’t push, but I did plan on digging into it with her before she headed home.
But as we tossed our wrappers into the trash, my eye snagged on a poster tacked to a community noticeboard.
I stopped dead, my heart leaping.
“Lost dog?” Ellie asked.
“No,” I said. “I mean, poor little guy.” I took the number on the poster just in case. “But I’m looking at this one.” I pointed to the paper tacked into the middle of the board.
“Meteor Shower Viewing Party?” She asked.
“Yes!”
It was going to be on the viewpoint behind the Rolling Hills resort—the hotel we were staying at.
I hadn’t followed the skies in years, but at one time, they’d been an obsession.
While he finally agreed to a dog, and tolerated my workshop in the garage, Ted always called me a dork whenever I talked about space.
He never wanted to look at anything with me, and made me feel like a loser whenever I pulled out my telescope.
Which was just so nice, since he knew it was a thing my dad and I had shared a love of, just like woodworking.
You know, the dad who’d died tragically when I was ten years old.
“It’s a sign,” I said now.
“Yes, Sarah, it’s a sign on a signboard.”
I laughed. “No, I mean it’s a good omen. It’s walking distance from where we’re staying. And…” I hesitated, my throat tightening. “My dad always used to tell me stars were good luck.”
“And I don’t mean the ‘first star you see tonight nonsense’, bug,” he’d told me. “You can wish on all the stars all at once. Each of them has the power to multiply your good luck by as many of them as you can see.”
My little jaw had hung open.
“How many stars do you think are up there rooting for you right now?” he asked.
“Millions!” I exclaimed. I think I was only seven or eight. “Gazillions.”
He’d picked me up. He smelled like the peppermints he always carried and snuck me when I asked.
It was a familiar, safe scent that calmed me down even now, years later.
He spread his hand across the night off the back porch.
“There are so many, no one can count them all. Which means there’s no end to the number of good luck stars up there just waiting to give you your wish. ”
“What if you see a shooting star?” I asked. “Does that mean that star can’t help?”
“Oh no, my little bug. A shooting star is extra special. That means it’s the star’s final, biggest wish. It guarantees you’ve got good things coming.”
“It’s so cheesy, right?” I said to Ellie now.
“It’s sweet,” she said.
As we walked back to the car, a happy plan set for tonight, I thought of my dad, and what he gave me in our short time together: the power of those gazillions of stars.
It was a good thing we hadn’t needed to drive, because the little parking lot was overflowing when we got there. The ledge around the lookout was lined with people, and the small patch of grass on the other side was pretty jammed too.
“This town is as crazy about stars as you are,” Ellie said.
“Seriously,” I said, my anxiety at not being able to find a seat ratcheting up. The shower was going to start any second.
But just as I was ready to give up and suggest we watch from the parking lot—or just head back to the hotel—a sharp whistle sounded.
I don’t know why I knew it was for us, but when I turned to see an elderly man with thin white hair looking at us and pointing to a family with a crying toddler, I felt that tingle of kismet once more.
The family appeared to be packing up. They were in the back section of the grass, just in front of the ledge lined with people, whose feet dangled at least five or six feet overhead.
“Yes!” Ellie exclaimed.
It was a perfect spot.
“Is it bad being happy the baby’s upset?” I asked.
“Nah,” Ellie said. “It’s way past her bedtime,”
I didn’t know if that was true, but to be fair, I didn’t know anything about babies.
I had never wanted them myself—losing my dad so young had cemented that fact early.
But looking at the family, Ellie’s expression shifted to something almost like yearning as the father took the screaming child from the mom.
He did this thing where he cupped Mom’s frazzled face and kissed her forehead.
It was painfully sweet. It reminded me of my sister and brother-in-law.
Then she was chin-up again, cutting a track through blankets and folding chair set-ups as the family departed.
One more thing to check in with my sweet friend on.
The man who’d pointed the spot out to us looked to be in his eighties. But he beamed the moment he was settled in his chair again. “Good timing, young ladies—it’s about to start,” he said excitedly. “I’m Roger, by the way.”
I smiled at the ‘young ladies’ and the man’s sweetness. “I’m Sarah,” I said. “And this is Ellie. Thanks so much for your help!”
“Of course!” Roger picked up his binoculars. “Nice to see young folks appreciating celestial wonders. My granddaughter’s probably about your age, and all she cares about is hitting the club.”
I swallowed down a laugh, wondering where he learned that phrase. “She’ll appreciate it someday.”
“Who do you think the other chair’s for?” Ellie whispered a few minutes later as she pulled out the bottle of Prosecco she’d picked up in town, insisting we needed to celebrate my new life. Not that it had started yet. “I’m not made for sitting on the ground.”
“It’s probably his wife, you weirdo.”
She grimaced. “Right.”
I elbowed her and we both laughed. Ellie popped the bottle and giggled as it overflowed over our fingers.
“To new beginnings,” she said. “For you, specifically. Or should I toast to good luck for your interview?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got all the luck up there. And the weekend to prepare.”
She grinned as we cheered.
As we chatted I heard the rustling squeak of the second chair, and the low rumble of a man’s voice. Ellie glanced over her shoulder.
Her eyebrows flew up and she looked back at me.
“Definitely not his wife,” she whispered. “Maybe his son? Though they look absolutely nothing alike. Damn.”
I frowned. “Okay,” I said. What did it matter who the man was with? Plus, we’d moved up to the edge of the space, so it wasn’t like we were sitting with Roger and his… whoever he was here with.
“You should look,” Ellie hissed at me.
I leaned in. “They can probably hear you!” I pulled off my glasses, sticking them in my hoodie pocket. “Anyway, I can’t see now.”
Ellie was normally a little on the shy side like me. Or she had been. She seemed to have come out of her shell since I’d known her last.
“Sarah, seriously. He’s the most—”
But a star ripped across the sky then, so bright and glorious Ellie cut herself off.
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed, laughter bubbling up my throat.
The crowd cheered wildly.
Ellie looked distraught. “I missed it!”
I laughed. “Don’t worry! It’s just the beginning.”
As if on cue, another star shot through the sky, this one even brighter.
“See?” I laughed again, my heart soaring just like the meteor.
As the next one struck across the blackness, I rose to my knees, and was surprised to find my throat growing thick with tears. I was suddenly overcome, wholly unprepared to see such magic.
Someone on the other side of Ellie asked her a question, something I couldn’t hear. It was a tour group, by the looks of it, and she leaned in to chat with them.
I didn’t mind. I was wholly absorbed.
The kid in front of me was too, leaping in the air as another meteor shot across the sky. “Dad! Did you see that?”
The kid reminded me of myself at his age, which sent a fresh squeeze to my heart. But I did have to angle myself left to see past him. It only occurred to me a few minutes later that even though we were a few feet away, by doing that I was probably blocking the view of the newcomer behind me.
I twisted backward. Of course, all I could see without my glasses was a large, blurry shadow folded into the previously empty chair.
“Am I in your way?” I asked.
I knew I must have looked half-mad. Smiling and crying all at once.
“You’re fine.” The voice was like rough wood. Like the man didn’t use it much, but when he did, people listened.
I still couldn’t see who it belonged to. It didn’t matter. I gave a nod. Then I turned forward again. Another star shot across the sky. Then another. Then, the dome over us exploded, the meteors too numerous to count.
That’s when I really started to cry.
It wasn’t unusual for me to burst into tears lately. And I was a sap, anyway. But for the first time in a long time, the tears weren’t for Ted or my broken life. They were for how painfully perfect this was. I couldn’t have planned a better first night to mark the beginning of my new life.
Ellie turned back and her face fell when she saw mine. “Hey! Are you okay? Do you want to go back to the hotel?”
“No!” I smiled as I pressed away the tears with my palms. “I don’t want to miss a thing.”
The crowd cheered again as another impressively bright light flew across the sky, followed by a series of smaller ones.
For the longest time, it felt like my life was driving me, instead of the other way around. I took the promotions I was offered. Bought the houses the realtors insisted were the best. Deferred to Ted’s tastes. But I didn’t seek those out for me.
Being here in this town, it felt like I’d finally made my own choices. So did this job, if I got it. Yes, Ted had asked for the divorce. But it was the wake-up call I needed. I could do whatever I wanted.
Dad would be proud. I imagined the stars were him, throwing confetti at me.
Except that image reminded me of another thing Dad had told me. Once, when I’d gotten a wasp sting one summer night after picking up a corn cob it had been sitting on, he said, “They’re not just for wishes, bug. Throw your pain up to them, and you’ll get magic in its place.”
I’m pretty sure he’d made that up to distract me from the pain of the sting, but I’d done it.
I’d thrown the corn cob as far as I could, aiming for the stars.
Mom made me pick up the corn from the yard, of course, along with the cobs my little sisters threw after seeing me do it.
But when I did, I’d gasped, the last remnants of the sting instantly forgotten.
That night in the yard I saw my first fireflies.
Stars on earth, not unlike the stars in the sky now.
Magic, if I’d ever seen it.
Another one streaked across the sky, and I laughed, both at the delight of the memory and the stars overhead, but also of picturing me somehow tossing Ted up into the sky.
“Attagirl,” Ellie said, giving me a squeeze.
Since I couldn’t throw anything, I made a wish. I wished for a sign that I was doing the right thing. It was silly, maybe, and I already felt good about being here, but what harm would it do?
Over Ellie’s shoulder, I saw Roger holding up his adorable little binoculars.
“You know,” I said, shaking off the last of my tears, “the only thing that would make this better was if I had my telescope.” A practical wish like that would have been better, I realized too late.
I hadn’t seen my telescope in years. Ted said I must have lost track of it, but I think it was just as likely he sold it.
He did things like that, justifying himself because he’d spend the money on us.
But no amount of fancy dinners would make up for my beloved telescope.
“Is it much better with one?” Ellie asked.
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “It’s amazing. You can see the whole universe.”
Even though mine hadn’t been particularly fancy, it had been my most cherished possession. A gift from my dad not long before he passed.
Someone behind me cleared his throat.
I’d angled myself in front of the guy behind me again.
“Sorry,” I said over my shoulder. I lowered myself down.
“Not that,” said that man.
I turned. The man was leaning forward, handing me something. Between the dark and my poor eyesight, I couldn’t see what it was. And I still couldn’t see him.
I reached into my pocket, pulling out my glasses.
The first thing I took in when my eyes came into focus wasn’t the object. It was the hand holding it. Even in the dark I could make out thick fingers. Wide fingernails, and in a flash of light from overhead, cracked knuckles and rough fingertips. It was a working man’s hand. A big working man.
Finally I registered the item the hand was holding. It was a long black metal tube, with domed glass at its end. A telescope.
I snapped my gaze up.