Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
M ax was not doing well.
Yesterday, he’d told Sloane he loved her, and she’d reacted as badly as his worst fears had told him she would.
He’d returned to his empty, silent house. Sleep had been like a small, frayed piece of fabric. He’d woken this morning with a raging headache, his stomach an iron ball.
He wasn’t sure what was going on with Sloane because she hadn’t told him. Based on what he knew of her, though, he guessed that it could be a few things. After her jacked-up childhood, singlehood might feel safer to her. His track record with women was likely still a problem for her. She had a home and career in California. Her feelings for him probably didn’t match his for her.
Pulling the Porsche to a stop at a red light, he scrubbed both hands into his hair. He was on his way to Maple Lane to finish his unfinished business with Felix Camden, which did nothing to improve his mood.
The way Sloane had been with him these past weeks had made Max hope that she might love him. He wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t inexperienced. He knew when women were into him, and Sloane had been into him.
This relationship with Sloane, though, was lightyears different from any other because in the past when he’d seen that a woman held deep affection for him, he’d prayed that it wasn’t love. If it turned out that the woman did profess to love him, he ended things soon after. But with Sloane, he’d seen that she held deep affection for him, and he’d prayed to the sky and back that it was love.
The light turned green. He accelerated.
Three things might be true of Sloane. She might love him but have valid concerns. She might love him but be stuffing that down and unaware of it. Or she might not love him.
Please let it be one of the first two options . He’d have something to work with if it was either of those two. She hadn’t broken things off with him, after all. She’d asked for time. He’d been telling himself repeatedly that her asking for time didn’t have to spell the end. If he could make himself believe that, then he could keep the boat of his life upright and moving forward.
He reached Felix’s long driveway and saw that the famous maple trees of Maple Lane were dark red at this time of year.
He’d texted the older man to let him know he was coming. So, when Max knocked on the front door, it opened quickly.
“Good morning,” Felix said.
For Max it was not, in any way, a good morning. “Hello.” He’d left the velvet bag that his mom had used to store the tiara at her place. Max had the tiara in a backpack. That felt wrong but he didn’t know the protocol on how to transport priceless jewels.
Felix gestured for Max to follow him into his home office—which tripped a sense of déjà vu. His arrival here today overlapped in his brain with his arrival for their first meeting about the tiara months ago.
“Have a seat,” Felix said.
“No, thank you. This won’t take long.”
“Oh?” Felix, too, remained standing on the far side of his desk.
“If I’ve succeeded,” Max said, “and have something to return to you, I want your word that this will be the end of it, that no further action will be taken.” The marriage vows Felix had spoken were about as trustworthy as a bucket with a hole in it. But in other areas, like his career, Felix had shown himself capable of following through on things he’d said he’d do. Felix’s word wasn’t infallible, but it was better than nothing.
“No further action will be taken,” Felix said. “You have my word.”
Max reached into the backpack and handed over the tiara.
Felix’s eyes lit up. He accepted it the way kings accept tribute paid to them by lesser nobles. For several seconds, he admired the tiara, then set it on the desk. “Thank you.”
From a smaller pocket of the backpack, Max pulled free the cufflinks. He set them beside the tiara. “You’ll find that the diamonds in the cufflinks fill the two empty spaces on the side.”
Felix didn’t blink. “Very well.”
“Are we square?”
“We’re square.” Felix extended his hand. They shook on it.
They would never have a father/son relationship. And that was fine. In fact, that was how Max preferred it. But Max had, at least, made this right.
His mother had said, “It will never be over for me” in reference to everything that had gone on before with Felix. But with the return of the tiara, it was over for Max. All of it. The past. The scandal. Max’s resentments. The money and power grab he’d been on for years.
Over .
“I have just one favor to ask of you before I go,” Max said.
“Shoot,” Felix responded.
Ordinarily, Sloane endeavored to bring more grace to her life by constraining work to work hours and enjoying rest all the other hours of her week. But on this Tuesday evening, she found herself sitting on the apartment’s sofa, compulsively checking email on her phone at seven thirty, in a bid to distract herself from thoughts of Max.
One of the names in her inbox jumped out at her.
Stephanie Thomas . Anna Thomas’s mother.
Sloane went still. This email might bring good news or bad news regarding Ivy’s quest to meet her sister. Gathering herself to deal with either possibility, Sloane opened the email and read.
Sloane,
I appreciated the sweet email you sent when you reached out to me weeks ago to say that Ivy was interested in meeting Anna. In the end, your email required quite a bit of thought on my part and my husband’s part. And then, eventually, it took discussion between my husband and me and Anna.
Anna hasn’t yet met any biological relatives. Learning that she has not only a biological relative, but one that is her twin . . . That was a surprise. A good surprise, I hope. Yet a surprise that merited some processing.
Anna would like to meet Ivy, as would I and my husband, Raj.
We live in Auburn, Maine. We’re frequent visitors to the “Harvest Days” hosted at one of the farms outside of town. From their barn they sell vegetables, flowers, honey, fried donuts, hot chocolate, and more. They have a Harvest Day coming up this Saturday and, given the beautiful weather we’re having, we thought that might be a nice place to let Anna and Ivy introduce themselves to one another.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Sincerely, Stephanie
“Ivy!” Sloane called.
Her niece emerged from her room dressed in flannel pajama pants and a My rat thinks I’m cool T-shirt.
“An email arrived from Stephanie Thomas,” Sloane said.
“Oh my gosh!” Ivy ran the rest of the way.
“Here.” Sloane handed the girl her phone.
After several seconds of reading, Ivy took a cheerleader-style leap into the air. “How far away is Auburn?”
“An hour and a half.”
“ Can I meet my sister this weekend?! ”
“Are you ready to meet your sister?”
“I’ve been ready for a long time, Aunt Sloane. This feels so right. Like God is telling me this is exactly the door to walk through.”
“In that case, would you like me to email Stephanie back and let her know that you and I will be there on Saturday?”
“Yes, but please tell her that you and I and Max will be there.”
“Um . . .”
Ivy waited with a quizzical expression.
“Max and I are taking a break at the moment.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just that I need time to think through some things. Nothing to worry about,” she lied.
“Did Max do something wrong?”
“No,” Sloane was quick to say. “He did nothing wrong. It’s more that he . . . would like for us to become more serious. And I’m not sure.”
Ivy sat beside her on the sofa, their knees angling together. “I’m not surprised he wants to get more serious. It’s pretty obvious that he’s crazy about you. He’s been good to you, right? Since you two got together?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve been happy. The happiest I can ever remember.” Ivy gave her words time to sink in. “Which makes me happy. I’ve always secretly hoped that, like . . . you’d meet a wonderful guy and maybe have a family of your own.” The compassion in Ivy’s eyes conveyed that she understood the “family of her own” Sloane had been given at birth had been a trainwreck and that Ivy wanted Sloane to experience the type of family Ivy herself had known. “Would you want a husband and kids? One day?”
“Yes, with the right man.”
“Could Max be the right man?”
The panic that had been riding close to the surface since her talk with Max pricked her chest. “I don’t know.”
“Well. You’re an awesome aunt and I think you’d be an awesome mom.”
“Thank you.”
Ivy popped to her feet. “I’d like Max to be there when I finally meet my sister. Is that cool with you?”
Sloane nodded.
Ivy scampered back to her bedroom.
Sloane had made it through the past three days by hiding from Max.
She acknowledged that as cowardly and beneath her. Especially so considering that he’d been brave when he’d told her how he felt. He’d made himself vulnerable and she’d responded by protecting herself from vulnerability at all costs.
It was just that she still had no idea what to do or think about the things he’d said. Not only had he told her that he loved her. He’d also asked her to move to Maine. He’d floated the idea of her returning to Libri, even. These things would demand more change from her than they would from him. Did she trust Max enough to upend her life once again?
Her head was like fireworks—her fears going a hundred different directions at once.
Across town, Fiona and Burke were cooking dinner at Fiona’s house. Well, Burke was doing most of the cooking. Fiona was looking decorative and assisting slightly.
Two and a half weeks had passed since they’d resumed communication. It had taken effort to bring their closeness meter back to a ten out of ten. But then, good things in life required tending. Like her relationships with her sons, both of whom she’d called today. Like her skin—smooth, thank you very much, due to recent Botox. Like her dress size. She planned to hang onto this dress size with both manicured hands as hard as she could for as long as she lived. Was that easy at this age? No, ma’am. It was not.
Entertained, she watched Burke chop vegetables at her kitchen island. He was making her a low-carb, low-calorie vegetable beef stew because he knew all about her mindset toward her dress size.
She’d come to treasure having this very masculine man in her very feminine house. He was the best-ever counterpoint to her years of doing life alone here.
Jeremiah and Jude, her boys. Her sons. The babies they’d been and the little boys they’d been would live in her heart always . They’d needed her when they were small. They’d clung to her. They’d relied on her. She’d poured all the love she had into mothering them. But the passage of time was both a giver of gifts and a thief. Jeremiah and Jude had done what they were absolutely supposed to do—they’d grown. They’d left her home long ago and become independent men. They were wonderful to her, but they didn’t need, cling to, or rely on her these days. Which was good, just as it should be. Yet also bittersweet.
Every time she saw a sentimental commercial featuring a mother and a son, she teared up. And she occasionally played “Slipping Through My Fingers” by ABBA when she needed an outright cry over it.
In the years since her sons had moved out, she’d filled her life with worthwhile things like running her company and an abundance of fun, frivolous things like golf and spa days. This last year with Burke, however, she’d come to understand that those worthwhile and frivolous things were no substitute for the daily, tangible presence of someone you cared about deeply.
It was joy and solace, to have Burke in her days. She was even more grateful for him now than she’d been before their temporary separation.
Prior to arriving here this evening, she and Burke had spent hours with the O’Sullivans because Isobel and her husband were stopping over in Maine for a few nights before heading out on a trip to Portugal. Today’s family reunion had been on everyone else’s calendar for months. It hadn’t been on Fiona’s calendar because Fiona couldn’t take part in O’Sullivan events that Isobel attended. But then, after the eclipse, Isobel herself had texted Fiona to invite her and Burke to today’s gathering.
It had felt like heaven to be included.
She and Burke had been discussing the O’Sullivans while he cooked. Over the past year, Burke could have earned a doctorate in her large family. He’d dedicated himself to memorizing data about each relative and knew which nieces and nephews belonged to which siblings. Today he’d had his first opportunity to meet Isobel. He’d been duly impressed by her, noting her calm personality and composure.
He wasn’t wrong. “She’s also fashionable,” Fiona was saying now.
“You are fashionable, too.” Chop, chop, chop .
“I’m Maine fashionable. Isobel is Manhattan fashionable.”
“I happen to prefer Maine fashionable.”
“Seriously?”
He set down his knife and faced her. “Isobel is a lot of things, but she is not you. In my eyes, no one held a candle to you today. No one could be as desirable or spirited.”
“Is spirited code for challenging?”
“Yes.” He winked. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I adore everything about you.”
Fiona had not, for a single minute of the time she’d spent with Burke, pretended to be anybody other than who she authentically was. He’d met her when their kids were small, when she and the other moms had referred to him as Nice Dad. She’d been herself then. Since he’d moved back to Maine, she’d been herself the whole time. He’d spoken those words while accurately knowing who she was .
Carried by a wave of fondness, she closed the distance between them, took his face in her hands, and kissed him. Just a peck, but quite a definitive one.
She wasn’t willing to invest her emotions in just any old man. But if that man was this man ? If that man was Burke, so honorable and loyal? Could she be ready to give romance a try?
She could.
Leaning back, she settled her hands on his shoulders.
An astonished, lopsided smile moved across his face. “Does that kiss mean what I think it means?”
“It does.”
“Fiona. That is very, very good news.”
“Burke. It truly, truly is.”
He drew her against him, kissing her with the assurance of a man who’d lived life well and earned true confidence.
Desire rushed warm through her bloodstream. She hadn’t understood that such a low-key man could pack such a knee-tingling kiss. Hadn’t known that she still had the capacity to experience this type of response. But here it was.
“Wow,” she whispered, breathless.
“Wow,” he agreed, hugging her against his sturdy chest.
This embrace felt like coming home after a lengthy journey that had been at times splendid and at times brutally hard.
There was a great deal of comfort in home .
Max accepted Ivy’s invitation to go with them to Auburn.
Sloane did not attend the Tuesday and Thursday sandwich dinners. But when Saturday arrived, it was time to pay the piper. They’d agreed to depart for their trip to Auburn at 1:00 p.m. Which meant Sloane and Ivy were ready to go, waiting at the base of the garage stairs at 12:50.
For several miserable, conflicted days, Sloane had been giving herself pep talks to prepare herself to be near Max again. Yet the instant she saw him, all of that preparation went poof , and the breeze carried it away like ash.
He’d let himself out his back door and was walking toward them in a casual gray sweater, quilted vest, black joggers. He looked irresistibly good.
Were he to take her in his arms, she knew what he’d smell like. She knew how his arms would feel around her. She knew the sensations of kissing him. A week ago, she’d had access to all of that. Which seemed impossible now.
“Max!” Ivy extended a fist.
Max bumped it with his own fist, then his gaze came to rest on Sloane. He gave a strong, overall impression of fitness and health. Yet she could see in his eyes that he hadn’t been sleeping well. Also, he seemed slightly thinner, as if he’d been undergoing too much stress.
“Hi, Sloane.”
“Hi, Max.”
He continued staring at her. With heat and awareness and grief.
“Which car are we taking?” Ivy asked, breaking the moment.
“My Blazer.” He proceeded to reverse a classic SUV from the garage. It had been restored well on the outside and—when she climbed into the passenger seat—Sloane saw that the interior had been restored equally as well.
Ivy filled the drive to Auburn with words. It was as if the teen was carrying on a conversation with both Max and Sloane, but Max and Sloane weren’t having a conversation with each other. The air between the occupants of the front seat was thick with things unsaid. They were handling that, and Ivy’s presence in the car, by resorting to polite distance. Back when she was thinking of him as Darth Vader, she’d have been delighted with polite distance. Now it came as a severe disappointment.
She greedily cataloged tiny details of him. Like how his watch caught the light. The brand logo sewn into the side of his joggers near his hip. The angle of his fingers, one hand steering and one hand relaxed on the arm rest. His profile.
Sloane forced herself to look out the side window.
“I want you to be with me and only me . ” She pulled the well-worn memory of him saying that to the front of her mind. “To live in Maine. To be my girlfriend and then one day my fiancée and then one day my wife.”
Had he truly said all that? Did he truly feel all that? Even if he did feel all that, could he keep that level of commitment going for a lifetime? The neglect she’d experienced firsthand made her doubt that he could.
Sloane had been the one to ask for time, yet she felt wrecked because of it.
Ivy had been nervous before meeting Seth.
Before meeting the first Anna Thomas, she’d been half nervous and half excited.
For this meeting with the second Anna Thomas, she was mostly excited and just a tiny bit nervous.
She’d gotten close with Sloane and Max over the last four months and so having them here today gave her a bunch of confidence. There was just one thing that would have made the drive to meet Anna better: if the two of them had still been the Sloane and Max from October. Today was November second and this Sloane and Max were super strange. Stiff, with not much to say to each other even though their spark-y vibe was as strong as ever.
Adults were weird sometimes! Sloane and Max were clearly meant for each other. But they were taking their sweet time about it. If Mateo, a boy in the grade above her at school, ever asked her to be his girlfriend, she’d say yes to that right away .
After Sloane had emailed Stephanie to say they’d meet them today, Stephanie had sent them the farm’s address. They found it without difficulty, parked, and were now walking toward a red barn that had big, wide-open doors. The day was cool but sunny. The nice weather was probably part of why lots of other people had shown up for Harvest Day.
Ivy scanned the tables and chairs. No one sitting there was near her age. As far as she could tell, they’d arrived before Anna.
Ivy chose a table, and they sat.
Thanks to Sloane, she’d learned it was poor etiquette to show up too late and that it was also poor etiquette to show up at a host’s house too early. But it was fine etiquette to show up eleven minutes early, as they had, at a public place like this one.
“Do you have any last-minute etiquette lessons for me?” Ivy asked her aunt.
“No.” Sloane smiled at her. “Your etiquette’s excellent. You’re going to do great.”
Ivy watched a bumblebee fly around and around before landing on one of the shrubs nearby. Then she looked toward the parking lot, and a clang went through her.
A family of three was coming from that direction. A plain, conservatively dressed mother with medium-length blond hair. A thin, tall, friendly-looking father with brown skin and dark hair. And their daughter . . .
Their daughter.
Ivy’s mouth dropped open. Goosebumps pebbled her arms. Not taking her eyes from the family, she rose to her feet. The girl had clearly seen her, too, because her face mimicked the amazement Ivy felt.
This girl . . . this Anna . . . had pale skin and long, strawberry-blond hair.
“I can’t believe it,” Sloane whispered.
Anna Thomas was not just Ivy’s twin. Anna was her identical twin .
It had occurred to her, of course, that Anna might be her identical twin. But only one-third of twins were identical. It had been hard to imagine that she had a twin sister, let alone an identical twin sister.
But the girl walking in her direction was living proof. This was like something out of the multiverse. Ivy was looking at herself and, at the same time, looking at a completely separate person. It gave her the sensation of being disembodied, observing herself from another point of view.
Anna’s hair was almost the same length as Ivy’s and they’d both worn it down today. They’d both dressed in sweatshirts, leggings, and tennis shoes. As Anna approached, more similarities came into focus. They had the same freckles everywhere. And had chosen the same shade of sheer rose lip gloss.
They’d grown up apart, she and Anna, but they shared big things. The same DNA. The same two biological parents. The same birthday.
Anna came to a stop.
It’s you , Ivy thought.
You are the reason I was inspired to find my birth family. So that I could meet you and know you. So that we could be in each other’s lives.
Ivy laid a hand on her chest and felt her heart sprinting. “I’m Ivy.”
“I’m Anna.” Even their voices were the same. “Would it be all right if we . . . hug?”
“I’d love that!” Then they were hugging, shoulder to shoulder, red hair to red hair.
Distantly, Ivy heard the adults exchanging names. Maybe her etiquette wasn’t excellent after all, because she’d completely forgotten to introduce them.
“I’m so excited to meet you,” Ivy said when she stepped away, her hands in a clapping position.
“Me too. I can’t believe we’re”—Anna made a small motion toward Ivy from head to toe—“identical twins.”
“Me neither. You’re so pretty!” Wait, had that been conceited, since she was calling someone pretty who looked just like her? The words had burst out because she genuinely meant them.
“You’re so pretty, too!” Anna said, laughing. “I love your hair.”
“I love your hair! Now that I’m seeing you, I think I even like my freckles.”
“Same!”
Ivy held out her arms and they hugged again, this time squealing a little and jumping up and down.
Joy overran Ivy’s heart like the bubbles of a Sprite, rising up and spilling over the sides of a glass.
“This is extraordinary,” Raj said.
“We had no idea Anna had an identical twin,” Stephanie murmured.
Ending the hug, the girls turned toward the adults.
Sloane, Ivy was surprised to see, was wiping away tears. At some point, Max had moved next to Sloane, not touching her, but standing nearby in a show of support.
“Anna,” Ivy said, pleased to get to make a few introductions after all, “may I please introduce you to my— our Aunt Sloane. Her older sister, Harper Madison, was our biological mother. Harper died four years ago, and Sloane loved her a lot. Anyway, Sloane is fabulous.”
“I’m honored to have this chance to meet you, Anna.” Sloane extended her hand.
“I’m honored to meet you,” Anna said as they shook.
“And may I please,” Ivy continued, “introduce you to Max Cirillo, our friend.”
“I am also fabulous,” he said to Anna as they shook hands.
Sloane addressed Anna’s parents. “Thank you both for making this possible. It’s incredibly gracious of you.”
“You’re welcome,” Stephanie returned. “Thank you for the very same thing.”
“Identical twins,” Raj said, “separated at birth, raised apart, then reunited. This must be a very rare thing.”
“It feels miraculous,” Sloane said.
The adults beamed at the girls.
She and Anna turned their heads in unison to smile at one another.
“You know,” Anna said, “I always wanted a sister. Didn’t I, Mom?”
“Yes. Anna’s an only child. But starting when she was a preschooler, she asked repeatedly for a sister. Not a brother. A sister. Now I wonder if some part of her remembered you, Ivy.”
They ended up spending the next two hours together. They drank hot chocolate, ate donuts, FaceTimed Ivy’s mom and dad, and admired the shaggy cows in a nearby field.
Never had Ivy been as interested in anything, even rats, as she was in Anna. It seemed like Anna felt the same way because she asked Ivy lots of questions about her life, about Harper and Seth, about Sloane. Ivy asked Anna lots of questions, too.
Turned out, they both had strong faith in God. English and history were their best subjects. They enjoyed sports but weren’t very athletic and so spent most of their time at games on the bench. They liked the same Netflix shows. They were both fans of Bruno Mars. They followed some of the same YouTubers.
She and Anna were essentially the same person, split into two bodies. Now they were back together. And they fit .
Aunt Sloane, of course, ensured that Ivy’s group did not overstay their welcome. She and Anna had exchanged numbers, so when they said goodbye, Ivy wasn’t sad. This didn’t seem like an ending. This seemed like the beginning of something that would be an important part of her whole life.
In the back seat of Max’s car on their way to Groomsport, Ivy smiled dreamily, replaying her favorite moments of the day. She had so many! If each memory was a seashell, then she had a whole beach of them.
She hadn’t known she had a biological sister. But God had known. He’d seen Ivy growing up. He’d seen Anna growing up. He’d loved them both. He’d given them great families.
Right around the time Ivy began wanting to learn more about her biological relatives, God sent Aunt Sloane (the only biological relative she’d known all her life) here to help her. And now look what had happened.
God had given her and Anna to each other.
Sisters.