Chapter We Are Thirty-One
We Are Thirty-One
One Year Later
She surges out of the water as if weightless. Seventy tons are no match for her need to fly. I cup my hands over my mouth, smothering my awed gasp. One of the last remaining right whales, performing before our eyes. A ballerina of the sea. Her journey here was treacherous. But she’s made it.
“I miss my mom,” I say to George.
He puts his arm around me. I look up at him—windswept hair blowing into sea-blue eyes.
We’ve been traveling up the coast, following the right whale migration for a series George has been writing, on and off for almost the entire year we’ve been together.
During that time, we’ve also visited Newfoundland’s Fogo Island, Québec City, and Tombstone Territorial Park in the Yukon, places on my own bucket list. And now we’re here, on the Bay of Fundy.
“She’ll be here in a few days,” George says with a kiss to my cheek. “But let’s call her when we get back.”
I smile. We’re staying at an inn on Campobello Island, off the coasts of Maine and New Brunswick, but everywhere we go is home. Motel rooms on the side of highways. An Airbnb in Halifax. My parents’ place. The Big House. Our apartment in Toronto.
George is home.
Throughout our travels, I’ve been eating, cooking, and taking notes—both for the cookbook I’m working on and for my job.
Last year, I told Brie I was missing the creative spark and thought her recipes were, too.
I gently confessed how I felt her content lacked heart—that, at its core, food should be about people, not algorithms. She agreed and promoted me to director of food content.
It wasn’t what I’d expected, but developing a vision for the company has given me the kind of professional rush I craved.
“I’m proud of you,” George says now.
“Oh?”
“For bringing your mom home.” Home, he means, to her whales.
I squeeze his hand.
The wind picks up and I shiver. George wraps his body around me so my back is nestled against his chest, his arms banded around my middle. Together, we watch the water. There have been so many moments like this one during the past year, when our life, our love, feels like a fairy tale.
Perhaps none more so than this spring. We were home visiting our families, and I was woken one morning by him knocking on my bedroom window.
He said he wanted to take a walk to watch the sunrise.
Together, we crossed the field toward the Big House, and when we reached the gap in the cedar hedge, he dropped to bended knee and took a ring of amethyst and diamonds from his pocket.
A few days later, we exchanged vows beneath the flowering branches of the apple tree, family gathered around us, a confetti of apple blossom petals at our feet.
I carried a bouquet of violets from Mimi’s garden.
George combed his hair. We promised to be best friends forever.
We promised to be so much more. And then we danced in the ballroom of the Big House, my eyes closed and my heart impossibly full.
Wherever we go, George writes about the places we’ve seen, and I document what we taste, mapping our journey through food.
We scheme about the future, just like we used to, only now we do it on planes and during long car trips.
We talk about this life we’re making together.
The stories we’ve shared. And the ones still waiting for us.
Every spot is our own. Our cupboard under the stairs. Our apartment. Our castle.
With one last pirouette, the whale returns to the sea, back to her kingdom.
I turn to George, hugging him close, returning to mine.