Chapter 7
Seven
The sound of Nate Rivers’s door closing would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Livvie made it approximately forty feet down his driveway before she had to stop the car.
Which proved unfortunate, because forty feet down his driveway meant she’d parked in front of the coral-pink cottage next door—her aunt’s cottage—having a breakdown in full view of anyone who happened to glance out a window.
Including, apparently, her aunt.
The front door opened. Aunt Lila stood on the porch in loose linen pants and a flowing tunic the color of autumn leaves, her silver hair tumbling past her shoulders, her expression the particular blend of concern and amusement she’d been perfecting since Livvie turned sixteen.
“Are you going to sit in that car all day, or are you coming inside?”
Livvie turned off the engine. Didn’t move.
Lila crossed her arms. “I have hot cider. I have chocolate. I have very strong opinions about that man next door. Pick your poison.”
“It’s three in the afternoon.”
“And your point?”
Livvie went inside.
The cottage wrapped around her like it always had—mismatched furniture, books stacked on every surface, art covering every wall. A fat orange cat looked up from a velvet armchair, assessed her with naked disdain, and returned to sleep.
“That’s Mr. Darcy,” Lila said, already heading toward the kitchen. “He’s new. He hates everyone. You’ll get along great.”
The kitchen hit her like a time machine. Coral-pink cabinets. Yellow countertops. Turquoise walls and pine ceiling beams and a vintage stove that had been old when Livvie turned thirteen. The whole room looked like a 1950s diner had collided with a sunset, and somehow it worked.
“Sit.” Lila pointed at the pine table with its mismatched chairs. “Talk. You can use short words if you’d like.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Too bad. You’re in my kitchen.” Lila already stood at the stove, stirring something that smelled like cinnamon and apples. “Start from the beginning. Or the middle. I’ll catch up.”
Here went nothing. She told her about the meeting. About Richard. About flying to Minnesota with the brilliant plan to save Nate Rivers from himself because his book had once saved her. About standing on his porch and telling him chapter twelve had changed her life.
“And then?”
“And then he let me in. Gave me terrible coffee. And twenty minutes later, he thanked me for stopping by.” She heard her voice go flat. “Like I’d shown up selling Girl Scout cookies.”
Lila set a mug of cider in front of her—proper cider, with a cinnamon stick and everything—and settled into the chair across from her.
“What did you expect?”
The question unseated her. Huh. “I don’t know. Maybe…a smile? A ‘glad to see you’?”
“You came here to remind him of his failures. That feels a little like an ambush.”
It did, didn’t it. “I guess I thought he’d remember that we were friends—all of us. And that maybe I was on his side.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“No.” Livvie wrapped her hands around the mug. “I thought…I don’t know what I thought. That he’d remember on his own, maybe.”
Lila made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a sigh.
“Sweetheart. That man hasn’t looked anyone in the eye in three years.
He orders his groceries online. He gets soup delivered from the deli because leaving his house requires too much.
You think he’s got the capacity to untangle his feelings when the girl he once crushed on, who is also a representative from his agency, shows up to root out his missing manuscript? The man can barely remember to shower.”
“Wow. Thanks. Very comforting. And he most certainly didn’t have a crush on me.” Except her heart had heard that part, thank you very much. Shoot.
“Whatever. I saw how he used to look at you. But yes, that was then, this is now, and I’m not here to comfort you.
I’m here to give you cider and tell you the truth.
” Lila leaned back in her chair. “Nate Rivers is a mess. The whole town knows it. June Bellamy brings him casseroles he doesn’t eat.
Mayor Gillson has been trying to get him involved in the Flannel Festival for three years—they want to dedicate a reading corner in the library to Emma.
Did you know that? Emma started building it, but it still sits half finished.
Just waiting for someone to care enough to complete it. ”
Oh.
“He doesn’t leave that house,” Lila continued. “He doesn’t talk to anyone. He just sits in there with his dogs and his grief, and every few months, someone from New York calls to yell at him about a book he’s never going to finish.”
“It’s not never.” Livvie’s voice came out sharper than she intended. “He’s not—he’s capable. He just—”
“Just what?”
“Just needs someone to…” She trailed off, not sure how to finish. Someone to what? Believe in him? Push him? Refuse to let him disappear?
Lila studied her for a long moment. Then. “I see. The crush. You still have feelings for him.”
“I don’t—that happened seven years ago. One almost-kiss. It meant nothing.”
“Mm-hmm.” Lila’s tone suggested she bought none of it. “And yet here you are, in my kitchen, looking like someone just put your heart through a blender because a man you definitely don’t have feelings for asked you to leave.”
Livvie opened her mouth. Closed it. Took a long drink of cider because it proved easier than answering.
“So,” Lila said. “What’s the plan?”
“I don’t have a plan. I had a plan. The plan—show up and be compelling—failed spectacularly.”
“Then make a new plan.”
“It’s not that simple—”
“It’s exactly that simple.” Lila stood, moving to the window that looked out over the lake and, Livvie knew, directly at the green Craftsman house next door.
“You want to help him. Fine. But you’re not going to do it by knocking on his door and hoping he lets you in.
He’s had three years to build walls. You need to find a window. ”
“That sounds vaguely illegal.”
“It’s a metaphor.” Lila shot her a look. “Drink your cider. We’ll figure something out.”
They moved to the living room because Lila believed difficult conversations required comfortable seating.
Livvie curled into the corner of the leather couch while her aunt settled into an armchair by the window—the window that, Livvie couldn’t help noticing, offered a clear view of Nate’s house through the trees.
“Tell me about your life,” Lila said. “The parts that don’t involve brooding authors. You don’t come to visit me anymore, and I’m trying to forgive you for that.”
But she winked.
“Sorry.”
“I get it. Life is busy. Tell me about the bright lights, big city.”
Livvie gave her the highlights. Six years at Pemberton. Still junior. Still waiting for a promotion that kept going to people who proved louder and sharper and better at taking credit.
“And your painting?”
The question caught her off guard. “What?”
“Your painting. You showed real talent—serious talent. That summer you did those lake scenes—I still have them upstairs.” Lila gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. “I keep meaning to rotate them into the gallery wall, but I can never decide which of my terrible flea-market art to take down.”
Something tightened in Livvie’s chest. Once upon a time, yes, she’d sat in the beautiful sunroom, with the summer light cascading through the oak and maple trees, and lost herself in the colors and turns of watercolors and oil, trying to figure out what medium she liked best.
No, what she liked was disappearing into her art, finding the nuances of light and color that spoke to her soul. “I haven’t painted since that summer.”
“Since Emma.”
“Since Emma.”
Lila stayed quiet for a moment.
“Something died in you when she died,” Lila said. Not a question.
Livvie nodded. She didn’t trust her voice.
“And something died in him too. The difference is, you kept going. Built a life. He just…stopped.” Lila turned from the window. “Maybe that’s why you’re the one who can reach him. You know what it’s like to lose the thing that made you create. You just handled it differently.”
Livvie thought about that. About the watercolors she’d packed away and never unpacked.
About the sketchbook she’d bought two years ago that still sat in her desk drawer, untouched.
About the way she’d funneled all her creative energy into other people’s stories because her own felt too heavy to carry.
She’d thought herself fine. Functional. Moving forward.
But maybe she’d just been running in a different direction than Nate. Same grief. Different hiding places.
“I don’t know how to help him,” she admitted. “I don’t even know how to get back in that house.”
“You’ll figure it out.” Lila stood, gathering their empty mugs. “You’re a Fox. We’re stubborn.”
“Mom would have said delusional.”
“Your mother would have said a lot of things. It’s up to you to sort through the ones that you want to keep.” Lila disappeared into the kitchen. “Hungry? I’m making something with too much garlic and not enough vegetables, and I refuse to eat it alone.”
Livvie smiled despite herself. “Sure. I’ll get settled upstairs.”
A car pulled up outside.
Not to Lila’s cottage—to the house next door. A small sedan with a glowing Uber Eats sign in the window.
Livvie sat up straighter. “Who’s that?”
Lila returned from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. She glanced out the window. “Oh, that’s Jake. He does deliveries. Poor kid drives all the way out here twice a day sometimes.”
“Twice a day?”
“Nate orders lunch and dinner. Sometimes breakfast. The man has a tab at the deli that could fund a small college education.”
Livvie watched as Jake—early twenties, friendly looking, slightly harried—climbed out of the car and headed toward Nate’s porch with a paper bag.
“What does he usually get?”
“For lunch—the daily sandwich. For dinner, the daily soup. Today is the chicken wild rice from Kline’s. Good soup, I’ll give him that.” Lila paused. “Why?”
Livvie’s brain did something it hadn’t done since she’d left New York. It made a plan.