Afterword
Istayed with Wilder, Ryan, and Lilla for two weeks before we said goodbye again.
They took me around Hailuoto, visiting the seashore, the little history museum, and the hiking trails through the woods.
Lilla and I waded in the freezing water of the Bothnian Sea and screamed and laughed as the waves hit our knees.
Wilder made fish with herbs for dinner while Ryan hummed songs that she might have written, but ones that were unrecognizable to me.
The three of them moved about with ease, relaxed and unhurried as we traipsed around the villages.
I promised to keep them updated on the timeline of the project and let them know when their whereabouts would be shared with my editor.
Wilder still despised the idea, I couldz tell, but I heard snippets of him and Ryan discussing it the morning after my arrival, while I drifted in and out of jet-lagged sleep.
He avoided mentioning the book for the remainder of my stay.
But Ryan helped me make plans.
“The interviewees deserve to know first,” I told her, already wondering how I would break the news to Skip, Jas, and especially Mari.
“I’ll write letters to each of them that you can pass along,” she said. “I know I have some explaining to do.”
The evenings were long and warm, and we ate our meals outside in the wooded yard. I spent many collective hours after dinner leaning back in their Adirondack chairs, looking at the deepening sky, and wondering if I was doing the right thing.
Who was I to uproot their lives again? Was it ethical to thrust this family—that suddenly seemed so new to me and so distant from the people I had once known—back into the global spotlight, even with their consent?
It was on the evening of my last night that Wilder joined me beneath the stars. He wordlessly handed me a Finnish lager with a bear emblazoned on the can. We cracked them open in unison and sipped.
“I won’t publish if you don’t want me to,” I finally said.
He made a noncommittal movement in the darkness. “You’ve always wanted to write a book; I told Ryan as much. And it sounds like you’re almost done. So.”
“I didn’t expect the subject matter to be so close to home.”
“Me neither.” He gave a very brief laugh.
“Look, Ellie, I know it’s—I mean, you have to do what you have to do.
And maybe the reason I was upset had more to do with the fact that I knew this couldn’t last forever.
I’ve been living here away from real life all these years knowing it wasn’t sustainable.
So while I was angry that the shoe was finally dropping at first, now . . . it feels more like relief.”
I nodded, quiet.
“I hope she wasn’t upset with you that you’d left clues for me,” I said. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that to her.”
Wilder frowned. “You mean the crystal ball stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would she be mad? It was her idea.”
I paused mid-sip. “It was? But . . . why? I thought she wanted a clean break.”
He sighed. “No, that was me, actually. I really was so in my head with the plans and the chaos of becoming a dad and trying to get away in one piece that I was ready to just go and figure out the rest when we figured it out. But Ryan said we should leave you a hint, at least.”
“Oh.” I felt something shift in the back of my mind, an odd gut feeling. “Huh.”
I had a question for him, unformed, but Wilder moved in his chair before I could gather my thoughts.
“I know we all really made a mess of things, Ellie. I’m sorry about all this too,” he said.
“We’re okay now,” I allowed. “As long as I can know you and Lilla and Ryan are happy and healthy. That’s all I need moving forward.”
“It’s a deal.”
I said goodbye to the three of them the following morning, slinging my lone backpack into the rental car and giving each of them a hug.
“Text me when you get back stateside,” Wilder said, having given me his new number.
“I will,” I said. “It was really nice meeting you, Lilla.”
Ryan grinned. “Say goodbye to Auntie Elyse.”
“Bye, Auntie Leese,” Lilla said, waving a clumsy hand.
I waved back and turned for the car.
“Now I have an Auntie Mari and an Auntie Leese,” Lilla said loudly behind me.
I paused, glancing over my shoulder. But Ryan just laughed and whisked Lilla into the house. Wilder stood on the step and raised his hand.
“Bye, Ellie,” he said firmly.
I nodded, my question still on the tip of my tongue.
I kept glancing in my rearview mirror as I drove, putting more and more distance between myself and the family that were like strangers to me.
Lilla knew Mari’s name. She knew it like they had met before—but they couldn’t have.
Or did they?
Had Mari been entirely truthful with me in our interviews?
I steered my car onto the ferry and watched through my window as the little island of Hailuoto grew smaller and smaller in the distance.
Ryan had known that I’d always wanted to write a book. Ryan had told Wilder to leave me a secret message. And something—or someone—had convinced Mari to speak with me, when no other publication, no other reporter, no other biographer had been successful in reaching her before.
Something in me knew that I would never get the proof I needed or the straight answer I craved.
But to think what a book like this would do to build toward a comeback, the way that it would set the stage for Ryan’s return to fame . . . that would be good press, indeed.
I can’t make any concrete claims.
But perhaps, just maybe, Ryan Holding is the ultimate mastermind, after all.