Chapter 28
Anne
Life wasn’t a storybook, everything unspooling neatly toward a happy ending. It was more like writing. “Like driving a car at night,” Doctorow had said. “You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” Something like that, anyway.
I had enough light to take my next step, and I wanted to take it with Joe. I fizzed with excitement. I couldn’t wait to tell him, to see where / how far we could go.
“How’s Daanis?” he asked.
I was briefly thrown off-balance, as if I’d run over a bump on my bicycle. “Um. Aren’t we going to talk about it?”
“What?”
Everything. Us. You. Your ex-wife. I glanced toward the bar, where Brittany and Cindy had their heads together. Friends since high school. But I wasn’t focusing on the past. I was brimming with my own news.
He was watching me with that dark, expectant gaze, waiting for an answer.
Daanis. Right. And that was another big, shiny, exciting thing I couldn’t wait to share. Because she was part of my decision, too.
“Daanis is great,” I said, letting the other stuff go for now. Being in the moment, which, according to Daanis, was the only way to be around a newborn, who ate and slept and cried and pooped at random. “They’re coming home tomorrow. I have pictures. Look!”
Another message from Chris popped up on my lock screen, Miss you, with a thumbnail of…Was that a bed? I flicked it away to scroll through my camera roll.
“They named her Namid,” I said, turning my phone so Joe could see. “It means ‘star dancer.’ Isn’t she gorgeous?”
I went a little overboard, sharing everything I had, marveling over the baby’s long dark eyelashes, her tiny, perfect fingernails. “This one.” I tapped it. “This is my favorite.”
Joe stared down at it for a long moment, his face unreadable. “Sure.”
“Don’t you love it?”
His mouth pulled to one side. “That’s like asking me if I like puppies or kittens. I like kids.”
“I remember.” Our eyes met. Something fluttered inside me, lodging under my heart.
“Blackrocks for you,” Brittany said, setting Joe’s beer in front of him. “And a straw for Little Orphan Annie.”
Joe shot Brittany a hard look, which she ignored. “Sorry,” he said to me as she sashayed away.
“I asked for it.” I waggled the straw between my fingers. “It’s fine. As long as she didn’t spit in my beer.”
He smiled slightly and looked away. I suppressed a sigh. Seemed like we couldn’t escape the subject of his ex-wife after all. “So, what’s going on with Brittany?”
“She’s back on the island. Working.”
“I can see that. I meant, what’s up with the two of you?”
His face blanked. “Nothing.”
I couldn’t tell what his expression was hiding. I had known him all my life, but there were big chunks of his life I only knew through the island grapevine. Things a wife—his ex-wife—would know. History we didn’t share.
“You two looked pretty cozy when I came in,” I said.
I wasn’t insecure, exactly. (Okay, I was the teensiest bit insecure.) I was the one he was sleeping with.
But he had loved her. He had married her.
For two years—until me—there hadn’t been anybody else for him.
I could see how Joe, a man who salvaged things and made them work, might want to repair their relationship.
His loyalty was one of the reasons I loved…
Oh.
I was in love with him. The realization swelled inside me, extravagant, expansive, opening my eyes and my heart.
Images flashed through my mind like the slideshow at a wedding reception.
Joe, showing up when I needed him, stepping in when I was young and stupid, stepping up when my father died.
Wrapping me in his shirt and giving me the confidence to dream again.
Joe, who saw beauty in discarded objects, who found a use for things that other people threw away.
Joe, who was currently glaring at me across the table, his bearded jaw squared with annoyance. “She sat down. We caught up.”
I was breathless. “Okay.”
“You’re mad.”
“I’m not mad. I’m…” Stunned. “Processing.”
I loved Joe Miller. Holy bleep. Not Gilbert Blythe, the swoony object of my girlish adoration. Not Chris, the real-life embodiment of a romance hero. Although maybe I had needed those other loves, those other dreams, to see the reality in front of my nose. Maybe it had always been Joe for me.
I dragged my brain back to the present. Tucked my phone away. “So, here we are.” I gestured broadly around us. “At the Mustang Lounge, where it all began.”
Joe arched one eyebrow. “Or ended.”
Right. Because I’d left for college three months later. I flushed.
Stay in the moment, I told myself. No living in the past, no projecting into the future.
“No, yeah.” I took a deep breath, reaching for my earlier enthusiasm.
“That’s sort of what I wanted to talk with you about.
My big news. The school here on Mackinac is looking for a substitute teacher.
I have an interview with Principal Olson next week, but according to Beverly Powell, I’m in.
The interview is basically a formality.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” My grin bloomed inside me, spreading to my face. “I’m staying.”
I could see him turning the news over in his mind like a piece of wood, studying the shape and the weight, deciding what to make of it. I loved how deliberate he was, how careful, but…Heck, a little more enthusiasm would have been nice.
“And then what?” he asked.
A splinter of irritation worked under my skin. This was Joe, I reminded myself. Everything he built was solid and lasting. Of course he wanted everything buttoned up and nailed down.
“I’m not sure.” I’d only just figured out I was in love with him.
I wasn’t pressing for a commitment, not after five weeks of sleeping together.
“This isn’t a full-time, permanent position.
Which could be a good thing. Mom can use the help at the shop, and I can use the extra time to focus on my writing.
Anyway…” I blew out my breath. “I have a lot to figure out.”
“Sounds like it.”
The splinter twinged. It was obvious that for Joe, the heavens had not suddenly opened, bathing him in the sunlit glow of our love. But he didn’t need to rain on my parade. “Can’t you just be happy for me? For us?”
“I am happy.”
“Are you sure? Because you’re awfully quiet. If you have something to say, say it.”
“I’ve got plenty to say. I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it.”
“Try me,” I said brightly.
“You like to make plans.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m just wondering how long you can stick with it, that’s all.”
What was the matter with him? “Until the end of the school year, at least.”
“That’s your commitment.”
“That’s my contract. Maybe when Beverly retires…But that’s the best I can do right now.”
“I thought you didn’t want to settle.”
“I’m not settling. This gives me time to figure out what I really want. Circumstances change. Feelings change.”
“Exactly.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What—exactly—are you getting at?”
He moved his beer bottle a precise half turn to the right. “Two months ago, you were in love with some other guy.”
My thigh jiggled under the table. “And I broke up with him. You were there.”
Joe nodded toward my phone. “He’s still messaging you.”
So he had seen the lock screen.
“Are we really doing this while your ex-wife is serving us drinks?” I asked.
Joe’s jaw set. “What does he want?”
I spread my hands in frustration. “I don’t know. To be friends? To be forgiven? Closure? It doesn’t matter. I’m with you now.”
“Until the end of the school year, you said.” Joe crossed his arms. “Until something better comes along.”
Obviously, I’d touched a sore spot.
“I’m not looking for better.” My heart beat in my throat, threatening to choke me. “I love you.”
For a moment, his face was dazed, open, vulnerable, before his expression closed, shutting me out. “No, you don’t.”
I gaped. Definitely not the response I was hoping for.
But the words were out there. I wouldn’t take them back.
“You don’t get to tell me how I feel,” I said, my face hot.
“I’ve been with somebody who did that, and I’m done.
I’m sorry I don’t have my whole life figured out yet.
Maybe I don’t have a final destination, maybe I don’t know exactly how to get there, but at least I’m moving on. And you’re not.”
“We’re not talking about me.”
“Maybe we should. I want to stay here. I want to be with you. But whatever I say, whatever I do, that’s not enough.
” My eyes were burning. “Because as long as you can make this about me, about me leaving, you don’t have to take responsibility.
You don’t have to take the risk. The problem is, you won’t admit what you want. What do you want, Joe?”
Tell me you want me, I begged silently. Tell me you love me.
“I don’t want to be somebody’s backup plan. Mr. Good Enough. The guy who will do for now because you miss somebody else.”
“You are not a substitute for Chris,” I snapped.
“Not your boyfriend. Your dad.”
Two words, aimed right at my heart. He might as well have stabbed me. Because he was taking something I’d trusted him with, a grief we shared, and using it as a weapon.
My hurt bubbled, boiled, spilled out in words.
“You know what? You’re right. I do miss my dad.
Because he gave me something, okay? He saw me.
He valued me. He loved me unconditionally.
Whenever I screwed up, every time I wasn’t enough or I was too much, too extra, everybody on the island would say, ‘That’s just Annie.
’ Like an excuse. But Dad always said, ‘That’s my Anne.
’ Like he was proud of me, proud of what I did. ”
My voice was rising. People were turning to look. Let them.
“Anne…” Joe’s voice had softened. His ears were red. He must hate this.
Too bad. I was past hearing. Past caring. “Nobody can live up to the memory of my father,” I said fiercely.
“I know.”