Chapter Twenty-Four. Duncan
TWO WEEKS LATER
Set back from the road on a quarter-mile lane bordered by feathery white pines, the Madigan home was a sprawling mid-century modern ranch built in the late 1950s. Deceptively modest from the front, it had a white brick fa?ade and low-sloped roof, and an open courtyard with beautifully sculpted conifers and ornamental grasses. The true magnitude of the U-shaped house was obscured from view—the sides of the house plunged deep into the woods around it, with wall after wall of windows that provided an unobstructed view of nature.
Architecturally speaking, it was a gem.
Duncan hated it.
He parked his truck in the circular driveway next to Temperance’s little car. Approaching the recessed entryway made him nauseous, like he was a fucking teenager again.
This was only the third time he’d been there, but he could have sketched the place from memory. The first time, he’d been fourteen years old, tagging along with Nate and Maren to pick up some of Maren’s things. Corbin Madigan had answered the door that day, and when he’d slid the moving boxes onto the porch, he’d told them Laine wasn’t feeling well, and she sent her regards. Maren had cried in the car on the way back to Westfall, and Nate drove the whole way with one hand on the steering wheel, the other on her leg.
The second time was the afternoon he tried to fix things with Temperance when she was home from college for the weekend. He’d stood there for ten full minutes that day trying to churn up the nerve. Shame and anxiety had saturated him like sweat. But he’d knocked. And she’d told him to go to hell.
Duncan ignored the massive brass knocker shaped like a caduceus. He rang the doorbell instead.
When Temperance answered, she was surprised to see him, but she hid it well. “Whatever you’re selling, we’ve already got one.” She wore her contact lenses instead of her glasses, and her hair hung loose, silvery bright as noon in January. The ends drifted around her elbows as she leaned out the doorway to look past him. “Where’s Rowan?”
Earlier that afternoon, Rowan had conscripted him to do today’s pre-wedding flower pickup from a CSA in Linden. She’d asked Duncan to pick Temperance up, as if it was an afterthought. “She knows her way around Linden,” Rowan had said. “So does my GPS,” Duncan had muttered to himself on his way out the door.
“There was a misunderstanding,” Duncan said.
“We were going to have Tiffany mimosas and turmeric facials at Terra today.”
“Say that ten times fast.”
Temperance rolled her eyes, but she laughed.
“Rowan assumed she could use my truck for the flower pickup after your turmeric mimosas, or whatever.”
“I’m not seeing the problem.”
“Nobody drives my truck, Teacup.”
She looked smug. “I did.”
“How did that work out for us?”
A dainty lift of her shoulder. “Fair.”
Quieter, Duncan said, “You’re also not nobody.”
A tiny line appeared between her brows. “She could have driven her car, though.”
“Do you have any idea how many flowers will be at this wedding? Imagine a practical number of flowers for a wedding, then abandon all reason and restraint, and you might come close. We might have to make two trips, even with my truck.”
Temperance stepped back from the door to let him in. “I need to put some shoes on.” As she walked away, her bare feet made fleeting impressions on the gleaming teak floors. In a white sundress that hit the back of her knees, she looked like a lonesome little ghost.
Immediately inside the foyer were several totes and cardboard boxes of her things. The air was still and sterile.
“I assumed your parents would sell this place when they moved to New York.”
“They’ll never sell this place.” Her voice echoed from deeper in the house. “I don’t think the stipulations of my dad’s family trust would allow it even if they wanted to.”
There were large photos on the walls in brushed metal frames. It was strange, though. Each one featured Laine and Corbin at different ages—together, more often than not—but there were none of Temperance or Maren. The closest thing to a baby photo of either one of them was one of Laine Talbot-Madigan, her very pregnant belly poking out of a white lab coat as she held a stethoscope to the chest of a blurred figure in the photo’s foreground.
Who the hell framed photos of themselves at work to display in their home?
Duncan passed the kitchen. The materials and finishes there alone were likely worth more than the house where he’d grown up in Westfall. Countertops and a cooktop island of high-end black marble. White marble underfoot. It was bleak and unimaginative, nothing like the warm and bustling kitchen his parents kept. A bottle of hand soap sat by the sink with a black towel—the only sign that anyone existed there at all.
In the main living room, the vaulted ceiling followed the clean geometry of the roofline, tapering toward the walls into flat soffits with recessed lighting. Floor-to-ceiling glass covered the entire south-facing wall, and all of the other walls were crowned with broad clerestory windows that allowed ever-shifting beams of sun to flood the space through the surrounding woods outside.
A huge skylight was strategically positioned to accentuate the statement fireplace—a low, sprawly fixture of whitewashed brick, flanked by built-in bookshelves and luxurious banquette seating. All the other furniture in the room was covered in pale dustcloths, but Duncan had no doubt all of it was expensive. And probably white.
He had a vivid memory of staying home sick in fourth grade. Ma had made him a mug of vegetable soup to eat—the kind from a can, of course, one of the only ways he’d eat veggies at that age—while he’d watched The Price Is Right from a nest of blankets on the couch. He’d spilled a generous splash of it on the beige carpet when he reached for his SunnyD on the side table. Rather than fussing at him, Ma had cleaned it up, reminded him to be more careful, and asked if he wanted her to heat up another can. A shadow of that stain had remained on the carpet until they replaced it with new Berber a decade later.
Duncan couldn’t imagine Temperance being allowed to eat vegetable soup in this room. Hell, he couldn’t even imagine her being allowed to be ill.
The bones of this place made it an architectural dream. But it was the equivalent of art rendered with AI. Objectively gorgeous, entirely soulless.
There was something eerie about it, too, but he hadn’t been able to pin it down until he passed the bank of sleek electronics in the recessed entertainment center. Not a single one had a glowing LED standby light or time display. No lamps or ceiling fixtures were lit, there were no ticking clocks. It was a space in total stasis.
“All right. Let’s get going,” Temperance said behind him.
Duncan jumped and whirled around. “Jesus.”
Temperance frowned, then smirked. “What?”
“This house is a fucking museum.” He side-eyed a painting of a woman in a white shirt. It was faceless, featureless—but it seemed to stare straight into his soul. “Why don’t you just come stay with us while you look for a new place?”
She made a dubious noise in her throat and moved past him, gathering her hair over her shoulder to braid it. The cool floral sweetness of her shampoo lingered behind her.
Duncan followed her to the front door, where she armed the security system from a panel on the wall.
“Are you even allowed to have lights on when you stay here?”
“I try to keep a low profile. I left a used tea bag in the sink a few years ago and got a strongly worded email from Ms. Eccleston about ‘drawing vermin.’”
“Who is Ms. Eccleston?”
“Housekeeper, gardener. Security guard. She keeps the property ready for whenever my mom and dad are in the area. The only time they ever leave New York anymore is for their annual gala, though. And they always stay in Philly that weekend, anyway.”
Outside, he jogged ahead to beat her to the passenger’s-side door of his truck. He was surprised when she let him open it for her. “You, ah—ever go to that? The gala?”
She grabbed the handle above the window to boost up into the seat. “Why would I spend a thousand dollars on a ticket to go disappoint them in a fancy dress and uncomfortable shoes? I get to do that every day for free.”
THECSA Rowan had sourced her wedding flowers from was a mile or so outside the Linden town limits, so they stopped there first. It took Duncan and Temperance an hour to load all the live potted perennials into the truck. By the time they finished, the bed was packed corner to corner, a pointillist canvas of color.
Even though they arrived at Fortuna’s in Linden just before they closed, the whole block still smelled like hot sugar and dough. Fortuna’s had been a Linden staple for decades, famed for their biscotti and pistachio cannoli. They also had their own take on fortune cookies, with a message printed on the bottom of the paper liners of their cupcakes.
The glass front door to the bakery was propped open, and Duncan’s head nudged the little bell that hung above it when he followed Temperance through.
Two women turned away from the checkout counter and headed for the door as they entered.
Millie.
And her mother, Nina.
Millie carried a stack of boxes so tall her eyes barely peeped over the top. Nina looked more tired than when Duncan had seen her a few weeks ago, but when she saw him, her narrow shoulders straightened, and her eyes lit with fondness. Her expression turned to confusion when she looked past him to see Temperance.
“Duncan, hey!” Millie bent her knees to slide the boxes onto a table. She put her hands on his forearms and gave him a sweet kiss on the cheek.
“Hey, Mills,” he said. “Hi, Mrs. Bristow.”
“Hello, honey,” Nina said. Again, her eyes flicked to Temperance.
The next few moments were a choreography of subtle glances. Nina assessed Temperance from head to toe, while Millie cut her eyes from her mother to Duncan. Duncan’s attention skipped from Nina to Millie to Temperance, and Temperance glanced at Millie before looking to Nina.
Then, all three women looked at him.
“Ah—Mrs. Bristow, this is Temperance Madigan,” Duncan began. “My, uh—”
What the hell did he say?
Temperance stepped forward with a warm smile and reached out to shake Nina’s hand. “I’m a friend of the Brady family. We’re here to pick up wedding cupcakes—my best friend is marrying Duncan’s brother tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there!” Millie clasped her hands together and rocked on her heels. “I hope the rain holds off.”
“Me, too,” said Temperance. If she was rattled, it didn’t show.
Then, a few beats of silence. Behind the counter, the swinging door to the kitchen squeaked rhythmically as the baker disappeared to the back.
Millie turned to her mother. “Mama, Temperance’s sister, Maren, is married to Nathan, one of the twins. So they’re practically family.”
“That’s the one.” Duncan snapped his fingers.
Nina Bristow’s eyes were kind. “Such a nice family.”
“Maren is the sweetest,” Millie went on. “Loaned me a pair of jeans and some wool socks last winter after I—”
Duncan coughed into his hand.
Millie pressed her lips together for a moment, then smiled. She lifted the boxes again. To Temperance, she said, “Brioche buns. For the barbecue truck. We need to run.”
“Yum,” Temperance said.
Millie said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Duncan.”
Once they were gone, Temperance said, “She’s really cute.”
Duncan grunted and followed her to the bakery counter.
A small young woman with deep brown skin and short curls dyed bronze came out from the kitchen again, wiping her hands on a towel. “Hey, what can I do for you?” Her name tag said AUDRA.
“Hi,” Temperance said, “we’re here to pick up wedding cupcakes. Last name is Brady.”
“Sure thing. Back in a sec.”
The baker returned with three huge boxes in her arms. She carefully slid them onto the counter and lifted the lids for inspection. The miniature cupcakes inside were all nestled in their own cardboard pocket, decorated with realistic-looking wildflowers made from piped frosting. Each flower was airbrushed and shaded with food coloring. Rowan would ascend into orbit when she saw them.
When neither Duncan nor Temperance spoke, the baker leaned forward and said, “Are they okay?” with a little notch of concern on her forehead.
Temperance looked up. “Oh. Oh, yes. They’re stunning.”
“Perfect,” Duncan said.
The baker said, “Y’all make a really beautiful couple. You must be so excited.”
“Oh, he’s—” Temperance began.
Duncan chuckled and leaned into her. “Oh yes, we’re so excited, aren’t we, Mrs. B?”
Temperance pressed a hand flat against Duncan’s arm and gave the baker a patient smile. “He’s joking. These aren’t for us.”
“I’m so sorry. Y’all had the look.” Audra pushed a clear plastic clamshell across the counter. Inside were two cupcakes with buttercream frosting. “For you two. On the house.”
Duncan withdrew a fifty-dollar bill from his wallet. He insisted on paying for them, but the baker said, “No need. We donate everything we have left at the end of the day to the Lillian Center in Chapel Ford. They actually prefer it when we send fewer sweets.”
After Audra thanked them and returned to the kitchen, he tucked the fifty into the tip jar instead.
“Wow, big spender,” Temperance teased.
Duncan cracked open the clamshell container and handed her a cupcake. He peeled back the wrapper on his and ate most of it in one bite. “That was all I had on me.”
“She said they were free, though.”
He chuckled. “Yep, but so is the guilt.”
Temperance unwrapped her cupcake entirely, gently pinched off the bottom half, and stuck it upside down on the frosting, like a sandwich. When she took a bite, not a crumb was lost, and her lips remained frosting-free.
Duncan licked a glob of buttercream from his upper lip. “That’s genius.”
“I know,” she mumbled around her mouthful. She took a final dainty bite, tipping a stray crumb into her mouth with the edge of her pinkie. When she read the fortune printed in the wrapper, she paled and paused mid-chew.
Duncan frowned. “You okay?”
“Mm-hmm.”
He looked down and read his own fortune. He huffed a quiet laugh and folded it into a little square. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“Mine—” Her eyes darted to the side, then back to him. “It’s blank.”
“Really? That seems ominous.”
“We should get going. The flowers in the truck—um, it’s hot—” She crumpled the paper liner between her fingers and pushed it into the trash, but she was so focused on getting out the door she didn’t notice when the bin’s swinging panel kicked it back out onto the floor. By the time Duncan crouched to pick it up, she was on the sidewalk outside. Her dress billowed around her legs as she headed for the truck.
He unfolded the crumpled liner and read it. He shook his head, stuffed it in his pocket with his own fortune, and picked up the boxes of cupcakes to follow her out.
WARMsummer air buffeted them both through open windows. Waves of Duncan’s hair lifted and tossed in unison with the whipping tendrils of Temperance’s.
He hadn’t been on this road in years. The deer were dangerous at dusk. Almost as dangerous as the memories.
The truck dipped down a small hill before the road became a flat stretch of weathered asphalt bracketed by tall forest on either side. Late-afternoon sunshine flooded the cab like sun tea in a Mason jar.
“Millie’s mom,” Temperance said after a while. “She’s sick, isn’t she?”
Duncan hesitated before he replied. “Why do you ask?”
“I already know the answer, Duncan. I saw her medical alert bracelet when I shook her hand.” She clamped the tip of her thumbnail in her teeth. “Addison’s disease?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she in treatment?”
“It’s early, but yes. She’s stable.” Duncan glanced across the seat, then back to the road. “Millie, ah—takes really good care of her.”
“I can tell.”
“She’s a really good person.”
“I can tell,” Temperance said again.
In the distance, an ancient sign poked out from the otherwise unrelieved expanse of woodland. THE BOONIES, it read in classic 1960s script, with a massive arcing arrow pointing into the trees. On weekend nights during the drive-in’s prime, cars would line up for admission on the gravel shoulder as far as one could see, lighting up the trees with an eerie red glow.
They drove past the entrance. The huge marquee that had once announced the upcoming shows now read WE ARE GIVING UP in crooked track lettering. The former owners had tried in vain to keep the place alive with fundraisers and special weeknight events, and back then, the marquee had read WE AREN’T GIVING UP. Time had completely changed the meaning of the phrase by dropping just a few tiles.
Before he could overthink it, Duncan hit the brakes in the middle of the road, hooked his arm over the seat back, and put the truck in reverse.
“What the hell are you doing?” Temperance sat up straighter in her seat.
“We’ve got some unfinished business.”
A high metal gate with flaking red paint spanned the drive-in entrance, harnessed together with an ancient chain and padlock. Duncan pulled the truck around it, following a path of rutted tire tracks made by more than a decade of trespassers.
When he’d been here last, the trees were copper and red, and in a sky as dull gray as soapstone, thousands of starlings had moved overhead like a cloud of ash. Crows as big as stray cats had picked through muddy popcorn buckets and candy wrappers faded by months of summer heat.
Now, sunbeams shot through the trees, illuminating a thick haze of dust kicked up by wheels grinding gravel. In the distance, between a circular thicket of Pennsylvania hardwoods, a ghostly white screen loomed behind row after row of skeletal pole speakers.
Duncan aimed the truck for the back left corner. The spot farthest from the squat cinder block concessions building, farthest from the screen. Speaker 492.
Their spot.
He shoved the gearshift into park and killed the engine. After the rumble along the rural road, the silence inside the cab made his ears feel stuffed with cotton.
Duncan got out of the truck and moved around the front. When Temperance didn’t get out, he opened her door and simply said, “Please,” with an outstretched hand.
He was surprised when she took it.
The evening woods were wild around them, a solid wall of noise. Nostalgia was potent. Duncan could almost smell the popcorn and the cotton candy. Hot tires, cut grass, and the scent of faded Little Trees air fresheners through all the open windows. Someone would be smoking a Swisher Sweets cigarillo, and someone would be smoking weed, and some asshole would inevitably leave their car running for too long before killing the engine, filling the air with exhaust fumes.
Temperance approached the speaker pole like it was a casket at a funeral. She touched a finger to the letters etched into the metal casing: TJ + D 4E.
How naive. How bold, to be only eighteen and engrave “forever” into something as eternal as metal.
“Second chances are for when you weren’t ready for the first,” Duncan said behind her.
She whirled on him.
“It wasn’t blank. Mine said the same thing.”
Her face paled. “They make them in batches, they probably all say the same thing—”
The wrappers rained crumbs when he held them up for her to see. “What about this phrase feels threatening to you?”
“We have to be civil. The wedding—”
He laughed through clamped teeth and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Cut the shit, Temperance. We’re not friends. We are never going to be friends.” He tucked the cupcake wrappers back into his pocket.
“We have to try.”
“If we could, don’t you think we’d have done it already?”
“Rowan and Harry don’t deserve to be caught up in our mess right now—”
Duncan pinched his fingers to his thumbs and thrust both hands in front of her face, like he was trying to conjure clarity for her out of thin air. “They’re playing us.”
“What?”
“Tell me again what Rowan said to you. Do you remember?”
“Something about peace, for the wedding.” She shrugged. “And that it would—”
“—mean a lot to Harry?” he finished for her.
She narrowed her eyes. “Yes.”
“Harry gave me the same line. Said it would mean a lot to Rowan.”
“That doesn’t mean anything—”
His patience started to fray. “Oh. Really? How about how Harry put us together to decorate the greenhouse for his proposal? How Rowan stuck us together to clean up the vineyard after the storm? Harry being a literal doctor and being mostly MIA while you were stuck in bed? Sending us on these fucking errands together? Rowan told me to bring you today because you”—he curled his fingers in air quotes—“knew your way around Linden.”
Temperance rolled her eyes. “So does your GPS.”
Duncan threw his hands up. “Thank you.”
Fireflies flickered in the high grass like sparks from some phantom fire. Temperance twisted the end of her braid around her fingers. She wouldn’t look at him.
“How long have you known?” she said.
“A while. A month, maybe.”
“So you let me go”—she paused—“for a month”—another angry pause—“thinking we were trying to be friends. But it was a fucking game to you?”
“I’m sorry,” he shot back, “but what part of literally anything that’s happened between us in the last few weeks has given you the impression that I want to be your friend?”
“What’s your angle, Duncan? Did you think you were winning at your own game, pretending we could be friends, then you found yourself having feelings again?”
“It’s cute that you think I ever stopped.”
“Don’t.”
“Part of me wanted to find out if we could do it. You said it would be easier, and I wanted to believe it.” Duncan took a step toward her. “I thought—if you really believed it, it would help me believe it, too.”
She blazed up at him like a little ember.
Softer, he said, “I miss you.”
Temperance crossed her arms. “How can you miss me? You don’t even know me anymore.”
His laugh was bleak. “Know you? I’ve never had a chance to not know you, Temperance. You are everywhere for me. Everything.” He shook his head, swept his arms wide. “All the time.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Tell you how I feel? I will never get over you. I’ve spent the past fourteen years under you.”
Temperance got loud. “You’re the one who ended things.”
Duncan buried his fingers in the front of his hair. “I tried to come back and fix it—”
“I knew about Millie by then, Duncan.” Her chin trembled.
He groaned. “She was a friend back then, and she’s a friend now.”
“So you’ve never slept with her.”
Duncan hesitated. He sheared off a hangnail with his teeth, welcoming the sting. “I didn’t say that. But it was months, months after—”
“Samara Mooney, Eden Liang, Florence Holley, all the others over the years? Were they your friends, too?”
His eyes went wide. “Are you slut-shaming me? I know you’re not that small-minded—”
“Duncan, I don’t care if your body count is in the hundreds. The point is that you’ve spent the last fourteen years disappearing into other people to feel whole.”
Nowhe was pissed off. “You’ve always seemed to be fine with it when you’re the one unzipping my pants,” he snapped.
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve been breaking off pieces of me for years. Using them to fill up the empty spaces inside you.”
Temperance spun away. She pressed the heels of her palms to her temples. “Oh, my god—is that what this has been about?” She whirled on him again. “You’ve always been able to say no.”
Duncan’s voice rose. “I don’t want to say no to you.”
“Then that’s on you for not using your words.”
“Don’t use your pediatrician voice on me, Temperance.”
“So everyone’s either a throwaway hookup or propped up on a pedestal? Is that how it works?” She got in his face. “The funny thing about pedestals is that the people we elevate never deserve to be there. I put my parents on a pedestal for the first half of my life, Duncan. I know what it looks like.”
Temperance was as mad as he’d ever seen her. Her eyes blazed like a gas flame, and her lips were tucked tight against her teeth. She hadn’t run yet, though. That was something.
Quietly, Duncan said, “I love you, Temperance. I’m tired of pretending I don’t.”
Her breath caught, and her chin wobbled again, but her jaw clenched tight. “No. That’s not fair.” She shoved past him and stalked back to the truck.
“There’s something I need you to know—”
“We’re done, Duncan. I’m not doing this here.”
He shouted after her, “Whatever is happening between us—I’m calling it. I won’t be your drop-in fuckbuddy, then go back to not speaking to you for months at a time.”
She got to the truck and yanked the passenger’s-side door open, turning to face him again before she climbed inside. “An ultimatum? Really?”
“No. It’s a boundary. I’m using my words, Dr. Madigan. Not my problem if they aren’t the ones you want to hear.”