Chapter 8
“Well?” Topher’s eyes bore into me.
There’s part of me that wants to push back, more on principle than anything else.
But I swallow down the thought. I don’t actually want to go back to work.
At least not right away. Ever since coming back from Wildwood, I’ve been creating little fantasies about what our life would be like up there.
Who I would be when we are up there. I’ll learn to grow vegetables.
We’ll raise chickens. I’ll be a wonderful mother.
I’ll take our baby for walks every morning.
Our child will grow up playing in the meadow and exploring the woods.
In the evening, we’ll read books in the library and have cocktails in the conservatory.
Eventually, I could find a job that has nothing to do with the Alex Bromleys of the world. We’ll be content.
“I think it’s a really good idea,” I say earnestly.
“Really?” He cocks an eyebrow toward me. I can’t tell if I’ve disappointed or impressed him by giving in so easily.
“Yes. I want to have more time with the baby. And I want a change of pace. And I don’t want to go back to work until I truly know what I want to do.” I smile to emphasize how much I believe it. “We give it a year and if we like it, we stay; if not, we move back to Cambridge.”
“I’ll have to secure a job first,” he says.
“Of course.” I squeeze his hand. “Doc.” I cringe slightly at how thickly I’m laying it on.
“Okay, then,” says Topher. “I guess we are moving to Wildwood.”
He pulls me in for an embrace, and I breathe in his scent, a mixture of detergent, sweat, and some woodsy note. I’ve told him the truth. I do want all those things.
But I’ve left something out too. I’ve remembered something since visiting Wildwood.
I remember an argument between my mother and grandmother.
It was Christmas and we were at my grandmother’s house.
They thought I was asleep on the couch, dressed in my corduroy dress and itchy tights and exhausted by toys and chocolate.
“Why didn’t you invite him?” my mother was asking.
They were in the kitchen. “I don’t want to talk about it,” my grandmother had snapped.
As she left the room and stalked by me, she muttered, “He should have done it. Why didn’t he just do it? ”
Something happened that caused my family to be ripped apart.
Something Ezra did. Or didn’t do, rather.
And I want to know what it is. But I don’t tell Topher this.
I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe because I fear it makes me look selfish.
Am I uprooting us all on a fool’s errand?
I also don’t tell Topher another thing. I don’t tell him that while my body is aching to go to Wildwood, there’s a part of me, a small but nagging part of me, that sits deep in my belly, that is a little scared of what we’ll find there.