Chapter 15
I’m so relaxed.
It’s the first thing I notice. My eyelids slowly lift from what feels like a nap.
My breaths come even and deep. I look down to my body, horizontal, bikinied, the shade of simmering caramel.
I feel the press of rope on my skin, into my whole back side.
There’s a gentle sway in the thick warm breeze.
A hammock?
Hitched to two palm trees.
I’m in a hammock!
This can only be a good sign.
I bolt to an upright position, wobbling with the tilt of my weight. The scent of coconut sunscreen wafts into my nostrils—good girl—the setting around me both a strange surprise and an indescribable comfort.
This is not a resort, though the aqua water shimmers like any pristine hotel pool. Palm trees line the perimeter of the yard, graced here and there by vignettes of seating, card tables, and woven rugs.
Massive and square, the one-story house strikes me as more of a compound. Hard edges, concrete, glass windows and doors. It’s a mansion but not lavish, at all. There’s no pretention about it. Not to mention, we appear to be perched in a jungle.
Where have I landed?
Wherever it is, I still love pink. My swimsuit and toenails tell me so. The tips of my hair burn their usual blonde in the sun.
Next to me is a tiny round table with a book on top, pages spread down, holding my place in roughly the center point.
It’s something I do in rest mode. The luxury of knowing I’ll wake up and nobody will have moved it.
When I can’t be bothered to find a bookmark, or even to move at all, splat you go, current read.
Smiling, I pick it up. The Alchemist. In real life, I’ve never read it, but it’s one of Reid’s all-time favorites.
He’s always quoting it. Funny—I always meant to read it as a way to connect with him, figuring there’d be time.
I thumb the edge of the cover, then flip through the pages and see I’ve been underlining and sketching hearts in the margin, wherever I love something.
The detail touches me. Knowing I do this as every iteration of me, that I consistently adore books and mark them.
Books give me their words, and I give them my hearts.
Fair trade. I just wish I picked up this one while I had the chance.
My eyes trip on a quote, underlined, with multiple hearts flanking the passage. My throat tightens. I know Reid’s read it to me before: So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.
What a beautiful notion. If it’s true. I try to bat thoughts of Reid away. His kindness, his scruff, and his old-fashioned manners. His supreme-level dad jokes, which were so gosh-darn terrible they actually made me howl.
“Do you think you’d still fall in love with me if you met me now?” he asked me on his fortieth birthday, during a vacation afternoon on the beach. “At forty instead of twenty-three?”
We took a birthday trip to Punta Mita in Mexico with five of our closest couple friends. The dramatic flex of his upper body, toes buried in the sand, was intended to be a joke as he posed the question, but the ripple of his torso still tingled the base of my neck.
I walked right up to him, wrapped my arms around him, and turned his baseball cap backward so I could answer him with a kiss. I teasingly gave his cheek a small lick of my tongue first.
“Salty,” I said before pushing my lips to his. “I’d choose you in every life.” I tapped his nose. “What’s that you say about the universe? From that alchemy book?”
“The Alchemist,” he muttered into our kiss, hands trailing down to my backside. “Conspiring. You . . . Me . . . Your butt . . .”
I giggled. “Such a conspiracy.”
We still seemed connected on that trip, only two years ago in my real life.
But as my own big birthday approached, it had admittedly been a while since Reid touched my butt.
Maybe school, the kids, work, and life were simply rolling too fast, like a boulder between us.
Or maybe our distance was because my body had become increasingly, shall we say .
. . no longer what it is in this hammock.
Our intimacy seemed to thin the closer I got to forty, right along with my skin.
I sigh, glancing down now, admiring.
Not a blemish or birth scar in sight on my supple frame. I run a thumb down six-pack abs, extra impressed by this Sutton. Someone’s been doing deep core work.
“Sleeping beauty,” singsongs a strong female voice. “Look who rose from the dead!”
My chest jolts. With joy, I think. And then sorrow. Mixed. Two things existing at once. Like me.
“Camila?” I wonder aloud, standing to my bare feet. The tropical ground doesn’t even feel hot, probably a testament to calluses I have grown here. My heart doesn’t have any calluses, though—I’m molten lava, shocked by the sight of her. Totally, completely uncool.
Before I know it, I’m running to hug her. She holds two big glasses of milky liquid, each topped with a straw and umbrella. Gracefully she hugs me with them.
“I made horchata!” she says. “Raquel taught me how. With espresso. Poured it all over ice. Sprinkled with cinnamon.”
I salivate. “Are you kidding? Wow. Thank you!”
Who is Raquel?
Camila nods to the hammock, where we return.
Even more bronzed than usual, she’s wearing big tortoiseshell sunglasses with a deep-green bikini top and black sarong. Her wild brown mane looks like it hasn’t met a blow-dryer in months.
Like me, she looks relaxed.
We nestle into the hammock together, sipping our beverages.
“Oh my gosh. This is delicious,” I effuse.
“Isn’t it? She’s incredible.” Her tone falls. “I hope we pay her enough. She has six kids. She told me today.”
I toss a look toward the house. Enormous, I notice again.
“How many people stay here again?” It’s a risk of a question but somehow seems fair enough.
Thankfully she doesn’t balk.
“Technically thirty, with the ten bedrooms, bunk beds, and living areas. But it’s almost never that full. With only ten of us, you hardly notice anyone else is here.”
“It’s so true,” I say, observing the grounds.
Where were the other eight people? Who were they? And why?
What are we doing here?
As the rich vanilla rice drink slides down my throat, I think to myself.
I think hard.
In fact, I let the past flash through my mind like one of those quick-cut TikTok trends that gives me a millennial migraine.
My year in ten seconds! Enjoy!
The tactic works, though.
Bingo.
We are in Nicaragua.
Camila moved here to teach when she got pink-slipped at the end of that school year, just like Quinn said.
She stayed here three years, in our other life.
Jobless amid the recession—and bilingual—she decided to seek an opportunity in Latin America, where she could work at a local school, submerse herself in the community, and connect to her roots.
She’s of Mexican heritage, but Nicaragua always twinkled in her eye because of her parents’ meeting here.
It feels right, I decide. It feels exactly like her. I’m overcome with gratitude that I landed here in this life, no matter how long. Relieved I got out of LA when I needed to.
My chest craters with thankfulness. I wonder what month it is, betting it’s summer.
“I’m so glad you came.” Camila swirls her drink with the straw. “Summer is so much slower, here and at the preschool, but you still get a feel for the life here.”
Summer. I knew it. “I’m loving it,” I say, already meaning it. I must have a phone here somewhere, which will help fill in even more gaps. Fingers crossed that I brought my calendar too.
“You’re a natural with the kids.” Camila crosses and uncrosses her ankles, her dancer’s feet. “They love you.”
Her words hit like a gentle fist. Kids. What kids? “I hope so,” I say.
I rarely feel like a natural, to be honest, not even thirteen years into motherhood.
“Are you kidding? You’re going to put me out of a job.” She elbows me. “They flock to you. You’re so good at reaching their level, without any baby talk. And your Spanish is getting so much better. You’ll be fluent just in time to go home.”
I find myself hoping that time isn’t soon. But I remind myself I just got here—and so far, so wonderful. Twenty-five feels like a salve to my soul after only fifteen short minutes. Like maybe it’s just the reset I need.
“Are you nervous?” asks Camila.
I take a bite at my straw.
Am I?
Shoot.
“Nervous for what?”
“Your date! With Charlie. Tonight? That hot tamale?”
I refrain from smacking my forehead like a buffoon.
Here we go again.
Another significant man in my life about whom I don’t have the foggiest.
I moan.
“Wait, I thought you were excited! You’ve been waiting basically an entire month for this. From the second you arrived, you two have been inseparable.”
Oh, boy. I swallow my true response:
Have we?
Thankfully Camila keeps talking.
“I think it’s adorable that you’re trying to crack him,” she coos. “Even cuter that you’re so close. After living and working with him for a full school year, I can honestly say I have never seen him light up like he does around you.” She gets quiet. “Or open up. After the news.”
I stare at her silhouette, her straight nose and full lips. My talkative pal. Espresso always made her a talker. I will her to keep it flowing.
“Just the worst news,” I try, fishing for details.
“Right? You leave on a medical mission for a few months, and your wife calls to say she’s leaving you for her boss?” She clucks her tongue. “Sends divorce papers by international mail. Brutal. He’s lucky he got out when he did, if you ask me. True colors.”
“And he’s just . . . staying here, isn’t he? Wow.”
She chomps an ice cube, pushing her glasses up. “Well, can you blame him? I think he was toying with leaving until you arrived, though. And I’m just glad he’s moving past the I’m-too-old-for-Sutton thing. Six years is nothing. Literally, nothing!”
Quick math. Thirty-one. Now we’re talking.
Better than twenty-three.
I bless my friend silently for the flash flood of information.
“What should I wear?” I sit partway up, wobbly. It must be time for a shower soon, if I ever must leave this hammock.
“One of your sundresses is perfect. The hotel is beautiful. And trust me: Don’t eat the lettuce. It’s not worth it.” She slices a finger across her throat in a dead motion.
I laugh. “Do you . . . like him? Are we good together?”
She nods without a hitch. “He’s solid. As a rock. Seems a little dull on the surface, maybe, but you honestly make anyone shine.”
“That’s a sweet thing to say.”
“It’s true!” She turns to me. “I can’t ever tell you how much it’s meant that you came to spend this summer with me. I know you’re figuring stuff out too, but . . . you could’ve gone anywhere.” She touches my hand. “I’ll never forget it.”
Somewhere over the rainbow.
That’s where you’ll find me . . .
And then in Spanish.
Allí es donde me encontrarás.
With the palm fronds dancing above us, sweet horchata filling our bellies, and every unknown sprawled before me—which way, which step?—I try not to crumble at the sense of her real-life touch. How can this incredible woman get killed, just like that, a short ten years from this moment?
Instead of falling apart, I force myself to breathe.
I steady myself with the melody of that song, the arch of a rainbow, to that world and this, the heft of this gift I never thought I would hold again. This time, we get this time.
“I’ll never forget it, either.”