Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“Oh, she’s just talking about the story I’m best known for.
Back when I was at the Post, someone tipped me off about a major pharmaceutical manufacturer dumping toxic chemicals into Illinois’s waterways.
It didn’t take a whole lot of digging to figure out that officials knew and were looking the other way.
Jon helped me sort through their corporate records and evaluate the water samples.
We caught them red-handed. But that was a lifetime ago, or so it feels. ”
“Wait.” Miguel leans back and eyes her. “You’re that woman? Like the Erin Brockovich of the Great Lakes water system?” I have no idea who he’s talking about, but it must be someone important because the man looks like he finally met JMB himself. “I had no idea.”
“I don’t usually talk about it,” says Fiona, smiling.
He shakes his head. “You should—I’m seriously impressed.”
She beams. “Thank you. Most people don’t seem to think it’s a big deal, so I rarely mention it.”
“Idiots,” he says, and her grin widens. “But how did you go from uncovering a public health crisis to working for your brother?”
Good questions are how you make friends; good listening is how you keep them. That’s what Amelia said. She’d be proud of him right now.
“Well, Jon’s career took flight right around the time I had Amelia Mae, and…”
“My dad’s a bum who flew the coop when I was a baby,” Amelia Mae supplies.
Fiona’s smile tightens. “Sadly, that’s accurate.
What’s more, I got laid off the minute my pregnancy became obvious.
Jon and I were already used to being a team, as you know, so he stepped in to help me raise Amelia Mae, and I helped him navigate his career.
I guess nothing much has changed, since we live right down the block from each other.
Though given his surprise European vacation… ” She trails off.
“I don’t mean to pry,” says Miguel.
“As a former journalist, I can say with certainty that it’s only prying if the other person doesn’t want to disclose. It’s obvious that I’m happy to yap your ear off,” she says, and they smile at each other before finally turning their attention to their food.
Amelia Mae rolls her eyes at me, but I can tell she’s happy, too.
Between bites, Fiona and Miguel talk about nothing at all, which is a rare human skill I’m not envious of. They’re nearly finished when Amelia Mae, who’s back on the ground beside me, looks up at Miguel. “Hey, you have a car, right?”
He nods.
“Can you give us a tour of the town before it gets too dark? We’ve never been to West Haven before. Mom and I want to see everything. Or at least I do.”
He frowns. “Aside from the lake, there’s not a whole lot to check out.”
Even if that’s true—which it isn’t—why wouldn’t he take the opportunity to spend more time with Fiona? But then he surprises me and says, “I suppose I do live here on purpose. I’d be glad to drive you both around and let you form your own opinion.”
“Thanks! Harry’s coming, right?” she says, and Fiona laughs nervously.
Miguel looks down at me, then back at Fiona. “He’ll grow on you,” he assures her.
“I don’t know about that, but he does seem sweet,” she says, regarding me.
I am! And it’s extra easy to be that way on a day like today, when I get to ride around in the back seat beside Amelia Mae and listen to Miguel chitchat with Fiona, still talking about little of importance yet sounding more like himself than he has since Before.
If only life could be like this all the time, I think, sticking my head out the window as Miguel drives us down Main Street, then loops over to the road that leads to Lake Michigan and shows them all the big houses along the lakeshore.
“Aren’t these weird old homes the best?” says Amelia Mae, who’s stuck her head out the other window.
“Some of them are practically haunted! It’s like the entire town is set up like a horror movie—you know, the part when the kids are still riding their bikes under tree-lined streets and the guy with the knife hasn’t shown up to murder everyone yet. ”
“Well…” says Miguel, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
“It’s a compliment,” she assures him. “Mom, this is way better than Chicago, and it’s probably safer, too—I was totally kidding about the serial killer. I bet the kids are nicer than they are at my school.”
Unfortunately, it’s not that hard for me to imagine some students being unkind to her. My Amelia said that growing up, all her best friends were books, because childhood is hardest for those who don’t seem like everyone else.
“And imagine all the writing I could do if we lived in a house with a turret!” she adds.
Fiona twists around to face her daughter. “I don’t think we’re moving anytime soon, but I do like the idea of you writing. You take after your uncle that way.” To Miguel, she adds, “How’d you end up here?”
“Amelia,” he says quietly.
Fiona doesn’t ask him to elaborate, but maybe one day he’ll tell her that this is where my Amelia was born and raised.
When she was young, she dreamed that eventually her little town would have a bookstore where people like her would be able to find the books they loved—even the ones that others stuck their noses up at or tossed in the trash, like her parents did when they found her stash of romance novels under her bed.
They met in Ann Arbor, where Miguel had moved to attend college and never left; she’d arrived there to work as a copyeditor at a local paper.
A few years later, after her parents had moved farther north, she and Miguel packed up and headed across the state to West Haven.
“We found the perfect place for our happy ending,” my Amelia would sometimes say when she told others about the store’s origins.
That was one of the only things she was wrong about. Endings can’t be happy, because they’re the opposite of forever—and no one wants to spend the rest of time without the one they love.
“Well, here we are,” says Miguel, pulling up in front of the bed-and-breakfast. It’s a big house, not unlike the spooky ones Amelia Mae pointed to on our drive, with dark paint that’s peeling in places and vines creeping up the sides.
“Already? That was too fast,” Amelia Mae pouts.
“I wasn’t kidding when I said there wasn’t much to see.”
“Love, you’ve had a very long day. It’s time to wind down and get some sleep,” Fiona tells her. She turns to him. “That was lovely—thank you. But we never did talk shop.”
“That’s okay,” he says. “This was nice, too.”
“Well, I’d still like to if you’re game. We’re free tomorrow if you want to get together to discuss it,” she says, climbing out of the car.
He opens his mouth, but no words come out.
We’d like to get together! I think, slobbering on Amelia Mae to make sure she gets the message. She giggles and wipes her cheek before stepping onto the sidewalk.
The passenger door’s still ajar, and Fiona leans in to address Miguel. “Just give me a call if you feel up to it, okay?”
“Will do,” he says, and if that’s not a lingering gaze he’s giving her, then I’m an overgrown ferret.
“Bye, Harry!” Amelia Mae calls, walking backward as she waves. “I had the best time with you today!”
I did, too.
She and Fiona disappear into the bed-and-breakfast, but Miguel doesn’t drive away. Instead, he grips the steering wheel and stares at the lake in the distance.
Finally, he glances back at me and mutters, “Harold, if only feeling good for a change didn’t make me feel so bad.”
I know, Miguel, I think. I know.