Chapter 51
Chapter Fifty-One
“Willow, you were amazing!” Zoey burst into her dressing room, looking like a miniature ballerina herself in spangly leggings and matching top. “Look at your mirror, it’s got lights around the edge,” she gasped and went to stare at herself all lit up.
Willow laughed. “Maybe I’ll get you one for your birthday.”
Zoey sighed wistfully.
Brodie waltzed in, open-necked shirt, midnight-blue suit, all the other dancers stealing glances at him as they sidled past the open door. He feigned oblivion at the attention and came and gave Willow a hug. “You were incredible, as always.”
Maeve followed, looking around with the same dreaminess as Zoey. “I love this place,” she said, taking it all in. “I’ve never been to the ballet before.”
Willow found herself getting unexpectedly emotional at seeing them there. When her brother had hugged her, she had wanted to cling on and not let go. Instead, she pulled Zoey onto her lap and wrapped her arms around her waist, enjoying the comforting weight of her.
“You were fantastic, Willow. I adored it,” Maeve gushed, then added with doctorly concern, “How are you feeling? How’s your leg?”
Willow was exhausted from the performance and her knee throbbed, but she didn’t want to give them any excuse to leave so she smiled widely and said, “I’m fine. All good.”
Maeve didn’t look totally convinced but smiled anyway and said, “Well don’t do too much.”
Brodie said, “I’m starving,” and went over to her dressing table and pinched one of the chocolates from a box she’d been sent. “Are you coming for dinner with us?”
Zoey tugged his sleeve. “We said we’d call Grandpa.”
“Oh, shoot!” Brodie popped another chocolate in his mouth then fumbled to get his phone out his pocket. “Well remembered, Zo.”
Willow watched the screen come to life as Emmett picked up on the first ring.
Suddenly there was cheering and clapping, and she saw that everyone was there—her mom and dad, Noah, Ren, and, as Emmett moved the camera, there were Logan and Bella, tiny Leo all wrapped up in Bella’s arms. Even Rocky came over and nosed the camera to see what was going on.
Willow wasn’t sure she could speak.
“Well done, honey,” her mom called a little too loud into the speaker, as if her voice had to reach Willow miles away. “We loved it!”
Ren whooped in the background and clapped her hands above her head. “You were great, Willow!”
Willow swallowed over the lump in her throat and said, “Thanks, guys!” Then she looked at her dad in the center of the screen and said, “What did you think, Dad?”
There was a pause because he wasn’t good at being put on the spot and he clearly had to come up with something positive. “I loved the bits with you in it.”
Noah and Logan both laughed.
Willow felt like her heart was clenched in a vice. “Well, thanks, everyone for watching.”
“It was our pleasure,” Bella called, then Martha took the phone off Emmett and held it so Willow could get a good view of little Leo. There he was all tucked up like a caterpillar in a cocoon, his perfect little nose, his tiny rosebud mouth and his thick black lashes just like Logan’s.
Willow couldn’t bear it. She hugged Zoey tighter and felt her lean back against her, resting her head against her shoulder. “How’s Thunder?” she asked just to change the subject.
“She’s good,” Noah replied. “And we’ve got Mercury as well now—he’s a darn fine horse.”
If Noah had Mercury, Willow knew that meant Dylan had gone without having to ask. The thought made her stomach hollow, like she wanted to bend forward, in on herself. She pressed her cheek against Zoey’s hair, willing the sudden feeling of emptiness away.
Brodie leaned toward the screen. “We’re going now because I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry, Brodie,” Noah called back.
“That’s cause I’m a growing boy,” Brodie replied, which made Maeve roll her eyes and say, “No you’re not, you’re an old man.” That made Zoey laugh, Willow could feel it against her chest.
Martha cut in from the phone. “We’ll say goodbye. You go and get something to eat.”
Willow heard Noah say, “Mom, you don’t have to shout.”
“I’m not shouting.”
Getting impatient, Brodie called, “Bye!” Everyone waved then he hung up and they were gone.
Suddenly the room felt much smaller.
Brodie clapped his hands. “Okay, let’s go. You wanna get changed and meet us there, Willow?”
Maeve frowned. “Brodie, we can wait.”
He slumped pitifully. “I might die if I don’t eat.”
Zoey sniggered and jumped off Willow’s lap to hold her dad’s hand, ready to go.
“It’s fine, you go, I’ll catch you up.” Willow shooed them away.
And suddenly she was alone. She had spent hours alone in that dressing room but right then it felt different—lonely.
She felt the loss of Zoey’s weight from her lap, the starkness of the bright mirror lights, the severity of the bars on the windows, and the mess of the clothes strewn haphazardly over the back of a chair.
She pictured her family all huddled together on Brodie’s phone screen, the little baby in Bella’s arms, and realized suddenly that when she saw them together—knowing that Brodie would be heading back there soon enough—she was jealous.
Jealous of the fact her brothers had come home.
That they were settled. Living the lives they had been meant to live.
If she thought about the show, she couldn’t deny she’d loved being on stage, back in the spotlight, but she had been waiting so long for her family to return and now they were, it seemed suddenly crazy that she wasn’t there, too.
Of all the dreams she’d ever had in life, that had been the one that overshadowed them all.
She turned in her chair so she was looking at herself in the mirror, face illuminated by the lights that Zoey loved so much, there were Polaroids of her and her friends sticky-tacked to the glass, Post-its to remind her of certain steps and then, tucked in the corner of the frame, one photograph that she took everywhere with her, it was of all her family together standing on the veranda of Silver Sky, taken the summer before the boys left.
Her mom and dad in the center, Logan and Jack on either side, then the twins on either side of them, then finally Ethan and Willow.
A little family pyramid. Their old Labrador, Duke, lounging at their feet.
She reached forward and plucked it out of the mirror’s frame and leaned back in her chair looking at it.
In the past, it had been fine when she flew in for the weekend and left again because it was just Noah at home with her parents and he barely spoke to her—or anyone back then.
But now it felt like Silver Sky was alive again and her injury had given her a taste of what it might be like to live there.
Be part of everything. Walk down the street with Brodie—when he wasn’t being a pain—have celebration dinners with her family in The Firestone, chat with Ren at The Silver Pantry, be ribbed by Noah, have Logan wink at her while playing ball.
She closed her eyes, and leaned forward on the vanity, her forehead on her wrists.
She thought about hugging her dad in the studio. They had been given a second chance with him—the heart attack had so nearly killed him—and she didn’t want to throw that away. And there was Zoey and the little baby to see grow up.
She sat up again and stared into her own eyes.
What about Dylan, where did he come into it? Was part of the joy of being back simply because he was there?
She imagined standing in the pines looking through to his empty ranch.
Would she still feel what she was feeling about being home?
She picked up the photograph again, looked at all their individual expressions, remembered them waving from the phone screen, heard Noah telling her mom off for shouting, and she smiled to herself. Yes, she thought, she would.