Chapter 35
I’m flat on my back, squinting, with sunshine searing into the slits of my eyes.
My skull has a pulse, which doesn’t feel healthy. It’s thrumming to the bass of that gorgeous song, “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone. Quinn might not love pickleball, but she makes a killer playlist.
I groan.
Dull pain radiates from my nose. I reach up to touch it but jolt at the sensitivity. My entire face is a nerve.
I blink rapidly, forcing my pupils open to the intensity of the light. Then, in a ring above me, I see faces and visors and ponytails and—
“Quinn!” I cry, startled immediately by the sound of my voice. It sounds . . . older.
Future me?
Present me.
Forty.
Well, almost.
Am I here?
Did I make it back?
I roll my head sideways on the royal-blue asphalt and gasp at the bloody towels. Lifting a hand to my face again, I wiggle my toes. I am splayed out like a piece of raw hamburger meat on a grill.
Back here on the pickleball court.
“Did I—”
“Black out?” Sierra drawls. “You sure did, honey.”
My throat cinches with emotion at the comforting sound of her accent, the one that smothers syllables in molasses. She folds her arms across her pink polo dress.
She’s here. We’re friends. She planned this whole day.
She did it.
The best mom and friend.
I look down, my white dress splattered in crimson. “How long was I out for?”
Quinn spins her wrist. “Twenty minutes, exactly.”
My eyes go wide.
Of course.
It was so Quinn to watch the minutes.
And so my angel to spin the clock hands like that.
Exactly to twenty.
Slowly, my breaths find a rhythm.
My gaze flits from face to face, each one full of concern or relief as they process my reawakening. Quinn, Sierra, Sara, Dalia, Lauren. Kelly with a Y, Kelli with an I, Brittney, Ashley—
Just as my smile begins to spread, a new voice pierces the circle.
“I got more ice!” it announces.
My senses consume her in morsels—and at first, I’m positive they can’t be right.
Like pieces from various jigsaw puzzles, each pulled from a different box.
The voice, soft but direct. The cheetah-print tennis dress, large gold hoops, golden skin.
High-top sneakers, brown hair pulled high.
The cheekbones of J.Lo and warmth of Managua’s sky.
When she squeezes her way through the crush of girls to kneel at my side, the picture takes shape, and I’m finally, totally sure.
As I peer into her brown eyes, I whisper her name. “Camila?”
She’s here?
But I know in this moment—this breath, this time—that she was never not here.
Did she not get in the car?
Somehow, she got the message.
I grab her forearm and hoist myself onto one hip. Ignoring my bloodbath, I grip her neck, tugging her into a hug. And she doesn’t fight me. She just holds me back harder.
“I’m just so glad you’re okay!” she cries.
My voice breaks. “I’m so glad you’re okay too.”
She laughs, smoothing my crusty hair. “Of course I am.” She waves away my nonsensical comment like it’s a casualty of this weird accident. “Here.” She lifts the bag of ice to my nose, but I jump.
It hurts.
A lot.
My gaze slants to Quinn. “Is it broken?”
Her green eyes are ER steady. But it’s undeniable; I see that they’re also sparkling.
Her shoulders are high. She’s exuding the confidence of the Quinn that I’ve always known best. And I’m daring to hope for this too—that maybe, somehow, I pierced something poolside with Alan.
I’m surprised I can believe it, but maybe, just maybe, my best friend is happy now.
I’ve witnessed crazier things.
So has Grandma.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” she says measuredly. “But it’s going to be a bad bruise.” She winces. “Maybe down to the bone.”
“So—” I consider. “Super cute for my party tomorrow.”
Everyone releases a giggle, with obvious relief at my sarcasm, a sure sign of life. The tension of their tight huddle begins to release. Like a balloon.
Up on the patio, I see the giant clear balloons floating.
Quinn joins Camila on the ground to my right, Sierra crouching at my other side.
The four of us.
Together.
The miracle of it.
My eyes travel left and right, to these women who’ve made their way into my bloodstream, into my DNA.
They’ve always found me. Traveled with me. Through all the miles and years.
I look up to the clouds for my angel, the portal, a sign, but I see nothing.
Thanks, God, I whisper. Thank you.
There’s nothing more I could want, I think—until my thoughts flash to my family.
Please, please be as I left you.
Please be my whole life still.
“You’ve never looked more beautiful.” Reid whispers the words from behind me, into my neck.
I’m wearing a hot-pink sequined dress, not unlike the one I wore on my twenty-first birthday, that night we first met.
I grab his hand, squeezing its fullness in mine, then press my other palm covertly to the place of his hip scar.
You’d better believe I’ll be seeing it later.
“Even with this thing?” I lift his fingers tenderly to the bandage across my nose.
“Only if I can take it off later.”
I laugh. “I still can’t believe you came back,” I say for the fortieth time, spinning to face him. “You landed at JFK. And turned right around and came back. It’s very nineties romantic comedy of you.”
“I know you’ve always loved Tom Hanks,” he says.
“I like them steady,” I say, planting a kiss on his mouth.
My attraction to Reid has crowned to an all-time high since the moment he arrived in the doorway this morning, the day of my party, after a red-eye. When I flung open the door to the sight of him, the fact that he hadn’t planned to be at my party seemed suddenly like the most minute thing.
He was here, in this actual world, and as my own living husband.
I looped my arms around his neck and couldn’t stop kissing his jaw, touching every contour of his angled face, raking my hands through his hair.
“Well, hi there,” he said, slipping a hand around my waist. “Not mad at me anymore? But—excuse me, what the heck happened to your nose?”
I touched it self-consciously. “It’s a long story. But—no. We have a lot to talk about, but I’m not mad at you anymore.” I arched onto my tiptoes, taking him in, marveling. “I love you. I’m so thankful for you. Also, excuse me, but why aren’t you in New York?”
He met my eye.
“I was walking through the airport on a Friday night—and I saw a family,” he said.
“This little family of five, and the kids were tiny. So young. But they were doing it. The husband was wearing one of the babies, the wife was pushing two in the stroller, and I thought, Wow, this life, that life, is so much work. But I get to do it with Sutton. I mean, we survived twins together. We’ve been married close to twenty years.
And I thought, what is wrong with me? What on earth am I doing not moving mountain ranges to be here with you on your fortieth birthday? ”
“Casanova,” I teased.
“Yeah, well, I hope you can forgive that guy from the other night. He’s gone now.
Happy birthday, Sutton. I love you so much.
” He paused, seizing my hands, rubbing my thumbs.
“I know . . . we’ve been distant these last months.
Maybe longer. Maybe years? Gosh, I don’t know.
But I want to be better. I’ve stopped trying in a lot of ways.
I thought about it the whole flight here.
We can go to counseling, or start having date nights, or calendaring sex—”
“Oh!” I interrupted. “Seduce me, why don’t you!”
He smiled. “I can’t tell if you’re kidding.”
I kicked his shin. “Maybe you can find out later. Eleven o’clock?”
He hiked a brow and cradled my jaw. “It’s a date.” He spoke again after a pause. “I want to be better. I will.”
“We will.” I kissed him. “Yes, to all of it.”
I believed us, and thought again, Thank you, God.
I didn’t want to spill my whole story right away, all at once—all the balloons, all the worlds, all the new memories and choices and misses and kisses—but I would. I knew I would, eventually.
“I’m all in,” I said. “With you, forever.”
I never want to be young again. I just want you. And this life.
Forty suddenly seems like the youngest age in the world.
Everything, still ahead.
Yesterday, Friday, after the tournament and before Reid’s arrival this morning, I took one of the most luxurious showers of my existence. Scrubbed my body, then my bloody dress, thankfully with the kids still at school. Wandering our lovely home, I remained a zombie in disbelief.
Nespresso machine.
UGG slippers.
Our flat-screen TV, which looked like an impressionist painting, so flat against the white wall.
Each new detail shone with the essence of otherworldliness.
But slowly, I began to accept that this was the world—the only world—left for me.
I felt my return grow solid under my feet. The oak floors, ocean candles, the vintage bones of our place.
Home again.
For good.
Furthermore, for the first time ever—and I do mean ever—I was first in the carpool line, promptly at 2:45.
I couldn’t wait to see those kids, ruffle their hair, inhale their sweaty-sweet school-day smell, empty their backpacks, and clean out their Bentgos and wash their tiny piles of uniform laundry.
Max looked both ways before opening the car door. He gasped as I hurled my arms around his perfect, gangly body, inhaling his teenage aroma, all perspiration and hot-lunch pizza. “What happened to your face?” he growled with alarm. “And why are you here so early? What’s happening?”
I touch my sore, bandaged nose. “Little pickleball accident. No big deal. I missed you guys so much today! I needed to see you as soon as possible.”
More than you could ever know.
The twins piled into the back bench, screaming in stereo.
I spun to face them, inhale them.
“We got the part, Mom! We got it! We’re Annie! We got it! We’re sharing the part!”
“But I get to sing ‘Tomorrow,’” said Malone.
“Then I get ‘Hard Knock Life’!” whined Maisy.
“Everyone gets ‘Hard Knock Life,’” shot Malone. “It’s ensemble.”