Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
G ale fought the urge to jump into the car and get as far away from Placida, Florida, as quickly as she could. After Roxie drove them back to the blue house with the red shutters and disappeared inside with her son—her face marred with regret for everything that had occurred that afternoon, Gale stood beside her car with her hands in tight fists and her nails digging little crescents into her palms. The Florida sun was menacing, all-encompassing. It was hard to remember that somewhere as gorgeous and breezy as Nantucket existed. It was hard to believe she’d ever sat on a Nantucket beach with a peach and her feet in the sand, letting a warm afternoon unfold.
Suddenly, Lucas’s hand was on her shoulder. She didn’t flinch or pull away. She turned to look at him and couldn’t stop her tears.
Lucas read her mind. “You want to go to the cemetery before we go.”
Gale sniffed. “How did you know?” Even she hadn’t fully been able to verbalize it till he’d said it.
But Lucas didn’t have to explain how. It seemed he understood what it meant to grieve, even when that grieving involved a complicated person.
Gale had begun to suspect that the woman Lucas sometimes spoke about—the woman he’d met at Yale whom he’d eventually married—had died. But she hadn’t dared to ask where his kids came into the equation. Had they died, too? It split her up inside to think of it. She couldn’t believe he was going so far out of his way to help her. She hoped one day, she could repay the favor. She didn’t deserve it. But does anyone deserve anything that happens to them? Did Evelyn deserve to have Johnny cheat on her? Did Lilian deserve to be taken away from her mother? Did I deserve to be kept in the dark?
Lucas said he wanted to drive to the cemetery to give her a break. Gale suggested they get some flowers from a local shop. Gale looked at the lilies, mums, and roses and said, “It’s hard to buy flowers for someone you never knew.” She went with lilies because they looked beautiful and fragile—like life.
Gale and Lucas asked one of the cemetery groundskeepers where Johnny Samson’s grave was located, and he led them directly to the stone. It was simple—two feet tall and two feet wide—with an epitaph that read: Johnny Samson: Beloved Friend and Forever Lover of Nantucket Island. Gale set the lilies in front of the grave and took a photograph. She imagined showing the photo to her daughters one day. How will I ever tell them this story?
“I feel like I should say something,” Gale said. “But I don’t know what.”
Lucas set his jaw and took her hand. This was becoming more and more common: two friends in strange locations, lacing their fingers together. It felt as though they already belonged to one another. Gale remembered Peter and thought about how quickly he’d begun to date Margaret in the open in Providence. Do I care about Peter anymore? I don’t think I care about him at all.
It was remarkable what the heart could go through. It was remarkable that it was wash-and-wear.
“Johnny Samson,” Lucas began, “it’s clear you were a lovable fool. You wronged so many people, yet most of those people continued to love you for years and years. How did you do it?”
Gale giggled nervously. She felt sweat across the back of her shirt. A lovable fool. My father.
“Johnny Samson,” she said. “You were my father, and you left me behind twice. But right now, I can only thank you for not bringing me to Florida. It’s too hot for me. It’s too hot to think clearly.” She paused, scraping through her mind for something more poetic to say. “I wish things would have been different. But I know everything that happened led me here. To Placida, Florida. With Lucas. And I’m grateful.”
Lucas gave her hand a healthy squeeze.
It was clear to Lucas and Gale that their search wasn’t over yet. But Florida was on the opposite end of the country to California. They discussed what to do next over coffee at a diner outside of town. Lucas gave the pros and cons of flying versus driving. But Gale couldn’t imagine them up in a sterile plane.
“This is way too emotional of a story for that,” she told him. “We have to drive all the way.”
Lucas’s eyes sparkled.
“I mean,” Gale hurried to add, “if you can take the vacation days? I shouldn’t force you to miss so much work.”
Lucas waved his hand. “I haven’t taken any vacation days in years. They roll over, so I’m good.”
Lucas ordered them two slices of celebratory pie—the celebration being that they discovered more pieces of the puzzle—while Gale pored over an atlas to see which route they should take. According to Catherine Hahn’s letters to Bethany, Catherine had raised Lily in a little town outside of San Francisco called Walnut Creek. Gale drew a line with her finger along blue highways and across state lines and around major metropolises she’d never even imagined before. Her heart thudded in her throat.
Will Lucas and I kiss in Texas? Will we hold each other in Arizona? Will he finally tell me what happened to his children and wife when we reach the California border?
Looking at a map of the United States with this plan in mind made the country seem all the more mystical. It seemed as though it was about to write Gale the next chapter of her life.
Before they fully planned this next quest, they decided to google Catherine Hahn and Lily Hahn to see if anything came up. It looked like Catherine Hahn had been a professor at Berkeley up until ten years ago. There were thirty-seven Lily Hahns in California, which felt insane. One of them had to be Gale’s twin sister.
According to the internet, Catherine still lived in Walnut Creek. It gave Gale hope.
Lucas opted for apple and cherry pie, which they covered in whipped cream and split down the middle. Gale couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten so much junk with another person.
Lucas said, “That’s what road trips are all about. Right?”
“I’m just a few years from fifty,” Gale said. “And I’m acting sixteen.”
“I think the past few days' events call for a dramatic regression,” Lucas said. “You can act sixteen all you want. We can listen to rock music in the car and scream all the words.”
Gale brightened at the thought.
Oversugared and high on life, Lucas and Gale clambered back into the car and set off for California. There was no telling what would happen next. Gale decided to open her heart to it all.