2
I drop my keys into the bowl on my apartment’s entryway table, beside the withered houseplant that has long since given up
on life, then sink into the sofa and burst into tears—mascara pooling under my eyes like raccoon rings.
SOS , I text to Frankie, our emergency code. She immediately FaceTimes, even though it’s after midnight in New York.
“What’s going on? You okay?”
Through fits of tears, I download the unfortunate events of the evening.
“Maybe this is just a misunderstanding,” she says, in triage mode. “Has he called? Texted?”
“No, not a peep,” I say with a sigh. “And it’s not a misunderstanding.” Stomach growling, I walk to the kitchen, wishing I would have at least ordered an appetizer before my
life imploded. Instead, I stare into my fridge, surveying my options: a pack of raw chicken breasts, spinach, a container
of couscous from the market, yogurt, and a bottle of sauvignon blanc, which I grab from the upper shelf. Nothing sounds good,
nor do I have the energy to cook. I want takeout—stat.
“I know how hard this is for you,” Frankie says. “You really like Kevin, and I see why: He’s successful. He cooks. He likes
dogs. His parents are normal. Don’t they even drink eggnog on Christmas Eve— in matching pajamas ?”
I groan. “Please, don’t rub it in.”
“Honey, listen to me. What happened tonight royally sucks, but... it might be for the best. Yes, Kevin may be great,” she continues, “maybe just not great for you .”
I let out another hiccup of tears and pour the sauv blanc into my glass. “Easy for someone who’s happily married to her soul
mate to say.”
“That may be true, but Christian and I don’t have a perfect marriage—not by a long shot. I mean, sometimes I don’t think he’s
even listening to me—like this morning when he came back from the market with two bags of groceries, none of which were on my list.”
I know that Frankie’s only trying to help, but her situation pales in comparison to mine. So what if Christian missed the
memo on the organic tomatoes! Kevin missed the memo on everything ! I slump back into the sofa, covering my face with a pillow for a long beat before I resurface, Kevin’s words replaying in
my mind.
“There’s something else,” I begin, shaking my head, still trying to make sense of it all. “He had this bizarre... conveyor
belt theory.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
I bite the edge of my lip. “I don’t know. It was something about how... we’re all on this assembly line in life, and that
most people just end up partnering with the person that happens to be next to them.”
“How romantic,” Frankie scoffs.
I nod. “He accused me of only wanting to be with him because, well, right place, right time.”
Frankie’s quiet for a beat, then she lets out a big sigh. “Oh, Lena. I hate to say it, but he might have a point.”
“Hold on—you’re actually taking his side?”
“I love you, but listen. You can’t treat a relationship like a career, and I know how you run your career.”
I cover my face with the pillow again.
“All I’m saying, Lena, is that Kevin was—is—great on paper, but you’re so goal-oriented that maybe you’ve been in a rush to seal the deal. Like, you might have overlooked some of his less-appealing qualities.” Frankie pauses, smirking. “I mean, he’s pretty uptight.”
All I can think of is hiking. I hate hiking, but I could have tried harder. Should I have tried harder?
“Honey, I know this probably won’t be easy for you to hear, but I don’t think Kevin was... your guy.”
“But he was—is,” I rebut, as I peer out of my pillow fort. In this moment, I realize that everything I thought to be true,
everything I banked on to happen, has all just slipped from my grasp. But how? I did all the right things. “Frankie, how did
I get this so wrong?”
“Maybe you were too busy checking the boxes on your list to see that Kevin was just the person next to you on the assembly
line.”
I groan. “Can we please stop talking about assembly lines?”
“Sorry,” Frankie replies with a little laugh. “Hey, why don’t you fly out for a visit? I’ll help you work through this, and
maybe we can spruce up your online dating profile.”
“Honestly, I’d rather become the person who adopts all the stray cats in the Presidio than dip my toe into the online dating
cesspool.”
“Oh no,” she replies with a laugh. “You’re not turning into a cat lady on my watch.”
“Fine,” I say. “But I’m leaving for Seattle tomorrow, remember? Kevin was supposed to meet Rosie.” I sigh. “So much for that.”
“His loss,” Frankie replies without a second thought. “And I’m glad you’re going home—you need that—but, come visit soon.”
“I will. I promise.”
We hang up, and I quickly place an order for Chinese, then crawl into bed to call Rosie.
“Hi,” I say to the only mother figure in my life. “It’s me.”
“Lena!” Rosie sounds the same—bighearted and wise—but also a little tired, which is when I realize it’s after ten, and I’ve
woken her up.
“Sorry, it’s late,” I begin, “but, Rosie, it’s been... a day .”
“Talk to me, dear. What’s going on?”
“It’s Kevin,” I say, wiping away a tear. “We broke up.”
“Oh my goodness,” she replies. “What happened?”
I feel gut-punched and paralyzed. Unlike corporate drama, this isn’t a situation I can fix with a spreadsheet. “I thought
he was going to propose,” I finally say, “but... nope. Literally the opposite.”
“Oh, Lena,” Rosie says, her voice like a salve. “I’m so sorry. This hurts, I know. But you’ll get through it. We’ll figure
it all out when you get home.”
I exhale deeply. Home . I can almost taste the salty air. “I’ll be on the afternoon flight tomorrow—without Kevin, obviously.”
“To hell with Kevin,” Rosie replies. I immediately picture her face—strong and steadfast, with a mischievous twinkle in her
eye. “We’ll have more fun without him.”
The plane touches down in cloudy Seattle the next day, just as the workday is ending. I gather my things and race to baggage
claim. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to cab downtown in time to catch the 7p.m. ferry to Bainbridge Island. How long has it
been since I visited? Two years? Too long. Yes, work had always been the mitigating factor, but Kevin, too. I feel a pang of regret, recalling the recent holidays I’d
spent with his family instead of making the long-overdue trip home.
When my mother died, I was only twelve. Her absence, especially at that delicate age, knocked the wind out of me in one fell
swoop, but Rosie was there to pick up the pieces—to lift me from my despair. And she did, brilliantly. In some ways, it was
as if she were always meant to be my mother, and I her daughter.
Mom and I had been living with Rosie for almost two years when Mom passed. Before that, I’d never known a consistent home.
We’d shuffled through as many grungy apartments as Mom did boyfriends. I lost track of the number of elementary schools I
attended, always the new kid. Fortunately, I was nothing like her. She was plagued by highs and lows and would spend days
in bed fighting her demons.
While I thrived under Rosie’s care, Mom deteriorated. She tried to work on her art, but without consistency. Half-finished canvases littered the floor of her bedroom. New boyfriends came and went, and when they went, she’d disappear, sometimes for days. When she would finally return, her eyes were vacant and her heart somewhere else.
After a particularly bad heartbreak, she’d been missing for two days when a sheriff knocked on the front door, delivering
the crushing news no young girl should ever receive. A drunk driver going the wrong direction on a freeway off-ramp had plowed
into her.
I remember feeling as if I’d detached from my body—my young soul hovering above, watching the scene play out like a movie:
Rosie weeping, the sheriff offering his awkward condolences, me in the fetal position on the living room rug. It didn’t feel
real. How could it be real? How could she be... gone?
Mom was undeniably complicated, and it took me years of therapy to realize that although she’s sorely missed, her absence
quelled the turbulent waters. In fact, after she was gone, the sea was like glass. Maybe her soul feels that way, too.
As the cab veers off the freeway, dipping toward downtown, my heart contracts. Seattle . Memories seep in, hitting me at all the angles: Pearl Jam at the Showbox, afternoons puttering through hidden corners of
Pike Place Market (in Doc Martens, of course), and all those rainy Saturdays hunkered down in cozy cafés, lingering over foamy
vanilla lattes with friends. In some ways, the city is just as I left it, though I can’t really say the same thing about myself.
I think about Café Vita, tucked beneath the Market. It was a mainstay for me the summer after college, when I interned for a venture capital firm before moving back to New York. I smile, recalling all the hours I spent at the café before and after work. It felt like my second home, and I can still picture the cast of characters: Spencer, the barista, smiling behind the old La Marzocco; Annelise at the cash register with her cat-eye glasses and that whole Lisa Loeb vibe; Vaughn, the creepy/not-creepy regular in the dark trench coat with clunky headphones who ordered a doppio con panna at seven-thirty every morning. I laugh to myself, remembering the time Spencer asked him what he was listening to. We all
assumed it would be heavy metal, but no. “Mozart,” he replied, as if there were no other plausible answers. “Always Mozart.”
At least it wasn’t Vivaldi. I cringe at the memory of last night as I board the ferry. A few minutes later, the captain blares
his horn, the familiar sound like a giant hug as I slip into a seat on the main deck. How many times have I ridden the ferries
to and from the island in my life? A thousand? More? Memories, like old friends, creep out of the corners of my mind—of Rosie
taking me to dentist and doctor appointments in the city and late-night trips home with friends, gliding through the Puget
Sound on vessels that looked like gigantic illuminated layer cakes in the night. I breathe in the familiar scent of sea air,
engine oil, and burnt coffee in the galley. I’m almost home.
Thirty minutes later, when the ferry docks on the island, I wrangle my bags and disembark, flagging down a cab in the terminal
parking lot. The road that leads to Rosie’s waterfront home on Manzanita Bay appears untouched by time—the local farmstand’s
sign for fresh eggs, the blue spruce at the bottom of the hill, my old friend Natalie’s house with the gazebo in front where
Robbie Fenway tried to kiss me the summer I turned fourteen, though I made a quick exit the moment he leaned in with puckered
lips. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him. It was the braces— both of our braces. We’d all heard the rumor about the couple in ninth grade whose orthodontic gear got stuck together during
a make-out session. The fire department had to be called. Yes, Robbie was sweet, but the risk of humiliation loomed large.
It all feels just like yesterday, but also a million years ago. As the cab veers left, passing a quaint Craftsman with a picket fence, I imagine Robbie, all grown up, but with that same goofy smile and acne scars on his cheeks, married, with a couple of kids—a swing set in the backyard and a wife who bakes blueberry muffins. While my life raced on at the speed of light the past ten years since I’ve lived in California, it seems as if Bainbridge Island remained fixed in time, just as I left it.
“Is this the place?” The cabdriver grunts, pulling into the gravel driveway and me from my reverie.
Too overcome with emotion to speak, I nod, pay the fare, and heave my bags from the trunk. As the driver motors away, I gaze
up at the old house perched on the sparkling inlet of Manzanita Bay. Built in 19 and buffered by five wooded acres, the
sprawling white farmhouse has five bedrooms—six, if you count the attic. From the outside, the house looks like something
out of a Bing Crosby Christmas film. The interior is just as charming—with a big open kitchen, expansive windows facing the
sea, and a woodburning fireplace in the nearby living room.
I make my way along the brick walkway leading to the front door. Rosie’s beloved hydrangeas with their enormous lavender and
pink blooms line the path. Why did I stay away so long?
I don’t knock, just turn the knob and let my bags drop to the floor with a thud as I breathe in the familiar scent of the
smoldering fire, Rosie’s sandalwood perfume, and... memories. I’m home.