Chapter Twenty-Nine
In the days following Dylan’s departure, I rotate through the stages of grief in a chaotic medley of anger, depression, bargaining, denial, brief flickers of acceptance, and back again.
I rage-peel wallpaper as I mutter aloud about his cowardice in not even saying goodbye.
I sob in a tight ball on his mattress while drinking too much rum and playing “Iris” on repeat.
I check my phone and email a billion times, telling myself if I’d put more effort into making money this year or if I’d told him I loved him, he wouldn’t be gone. I tell myself he’ll be back.
I type a hundred texts to him. Several say something to the effect of Really? Thankfully, I have the maturity to delete those before sending, though I send others.
Can we talk?
At least tell me you’re ok
What does this mean for the books?
Is there anything I can say that would change things between us?
Please don’t let this be how we end
I miss you
He doesn’t reply. All I’m left with is an ache in my gut, an occasional hangover, and a new awareness of how much black mold has taken over the walls, hiding behind the oversize begonias and dahlias that bloom across some of the worst wallpaper the house has on offer.
When I grow exhausted with the sound of my own thoughts, I get out my phone.
Philippa: Am I being naive about Idaho?
Amelia: . . .
Amelia: . . .
Amelia: Maybe?
Philippa: I’m only committing to two years
Amelia: Remove the “only” if you want to stop gaslighting yourself
Philippa: Fair. Thanks for that
Amelia: They paused the search for “new administrative budgetary procedures.” That sounds like academia-speak for upping already Kafka-esque levels of bureaucracy
Philippa: I’ve always had a soft spot for Kafka
Amelia: They’re making you wait 3 years before applying for tenure, when I guarantee outside the humanities, they’re hiring overconfident white men without making them wait at all
Philippa: Better 3 years than 6?
Amelia: You got the job offer on a Saturday
Philippa: Maybe they make up for working weekends with extra-long summer breaks?
She doesn’t answer right away, and the pause lets me replay Louisa’s question about whether I’ll really have summers off and answer it more honestly.
Because of course I won’t. I was working all the time at my last job—weekends, evenings, summers, holidays—and yes, this job might be better for a lot of reasons, but the demands will be similar, with limited time to visit family and to pay any attention to a house and boat I’m not using.
I definitely won’t have time to write another novel.
I think Dylan knew that, even if he never said the words.
Amelia: Yes, Idaho could be different. But How different?
Philippa: Good question. Damn, you’re smart. Are they paying you enough?
Amelia: Not even close. But I’m in a much bigger department than you were. It’s easier to focus on my research and avoid the politics. Though if a gorgeous man asked me to live on the Maine coast and write pirate romances with him, pretty sure I know what my answer would be
Philippa: Even if you couldn’t afford to do it?
Amelia: I’d find a way
I stare at her texts for a long, long time. Then I blast Patty Griffin singing about living too many miles from the ocean while I clean up the shredded wallpaper I’ve left all over the house.
The following day, I call the contractor Rahul recommended.
After a thorough inspection of the house and its surroundings, he provides me with estimates of the potential costs involved in repairing the damaged foundation, chimneys, and back porch; replacing the worst of the old wiring, the depressingly extensive moldy drywall, the dock, and the carriage house; as well as completing a few other key renovations I hadn’t even considered, like updated fire safety and ventilation.
None of it’s cheap, but I do still like facts, and these are facts I can work with as I plot out two different budgets for the next two years.
One with the house, the boat, and the job.
One without. It’s work I probably should’ve done weeks ago, but it felt premature without an offer on the table. Now, I know what I’m really looking at.
After powering down my laptop in the kitchen hours after I should’ve quit crunching numbers, I trudge up the stairs toward my bedroom, pausing by the photo that struck me so hard when I first returned here in July: my family, connected and full of joy, with me at age twelve, scowling in a world all my own.
This time, I step back and see it not for the isolated moment it captures but as one photo among the many that decorate my grandmother’s wall.
My parents’ wedding, with my dad in a simple suit and my mom in a sweet lace dress and a coronet of pale wildflowers.
Louisa in an adorably homespun grade school production of Frog and Toad.
Riley and Haley riding a tandem bike. Eleanor pregnant, with Frank holding her from behind, his hands on her belly and his chin on her head.
My grandmother swathed in one of her colorful vintage shawls.
Another of her with my mom as a child, around seven or eight, looking not unlike I do in the photo at the beach, a little awkward and a little lost. There’s even one of my grandmother’s parents standing in front of their first house, a tiny bungalow in Scarborough where my great-grandfather worked as a shipbuilder and my great-grandmother ran a day care.
The history of my family has always been so much bigger than the image with me in my braids and my scowl.
It’s in all of these photos. It’s in every memory we made in this house, and in countless other places besides, memories that will carry on if these walls ever have to come down.
It’s in the ocean we all grew up near. It’s in the details my grandmother worked into her stories, and in the stories we continue to tell each other.
It’s in Haley’s tattoos, Louisa’s laugh, and Riley’s cowlicks.
It’s in the big brown eyes Eleanor shares with all three of her children.
It’s in the love I have for my grandmother, always and forever, and the grief that might soften with time but that will never fully go away, making me hold tight to the home she gave me, knowing I needed it long before I’d come to understand everything it meant to me.
It’s in the surname my mom kept and passed on to her children, because she has her ways of holding on, too.
With that thought, I climb the rest of the stairs in my too-lonely house to my too-lonely bedroom, where I open the window wide and fall asleep to the sound of waves lapping the shore.
On a rainy morning during the second week after Dylan’s departure, when I’ve finally showered and gotten past what I hope is the worst of my resentment and self-pity, I gather the pages of his manuscript and put them in order, grateful he numbered them before I sent them flying.
I make myself a giant pot of tea, I sit at the kitchen table opposite the empty chair I still think of as his, and I read The Curious Tale of Bartholomew Kilderkin.
Dylan’s unpublished novel is a darkly comedic tale set in a fictionalized, early-1900s middle America, about a neglected farm kid whose beloved horse dies and gets sent to the glue factory.
The boy is heartbroken at first, but upon visiting the factory, he becomes obsessed with glue—how it’s made, how to improve it, how to market it.
He grows up to become the head of the biggest glue company in America, inventing adhesives that change both household and industrial life.
He markets them through outrageous stunts like gluing himself to the top of a moving steam train, the underside of a trestle bridge, the roof of a skyscraper, and the wing of an airplane.
He proves he can permanently attach himself to anything, while in his personal life, he can’t hold on to anything or anyone at all.
It’s beautifully written and emotionally devastating.
Even more devastating? Knowing I’m the only one to read it in almost fifteen years.
Philippa: I finally read it
Louisa: And?!?!?!?!?!?!??!
Philippa: It’s about a lonely kid and his dead horse
Haley: Please tell me you’re joking
Philippa: It’s about his fear of abandonment
Haley: That makes more sense
Eleanor: Did it make you feel worse or better?
Philippa: Neither. Both. I don’t know
Louisa: I still bet he’ll be back
Philippa: See above, RE: an entire novel about his fear of abandonment
Louisa: A novel he wouldn’t have shared with you if he wanted to cut ties
Philippa: He needed to give me a truth so he could challenge me with a dare
Louisa: Did he though? Did He?????
Philippa: At least I understand why he didn’t want to stretch out a long goodbye
Eleanor: You sure you still want to be alone?
Haley: Echoing El here. Our spare room’s available anytime
Philippa: Thanks. I’ll think about it
Haley: Heartbreak and a hundred bottles of rum do not a good combination make
Riley: Dylan wrote a book about a dead horse?
Louisa: Seriously, Ri? At least read the entire thread when you jump in late
Riley: He wrote a book about an abandoned horse?
Louisa: You are so not helping here
Eleanor: Just take care of yourself, Phil. We’re here anytime
Philippa: Thanks. I love you guys
My siblings all respond with love and heart emojis. I take comfort in knowing they’ll be there for me no matter where I end up in five weeks, five months, or five years.
I get up to rinse out my mug, catching a glimpse of the sea through the window above the sink.
The sun is setting, and pink-limned clouds streak across a periwinkle sky, reflected in the waves below and turning the tree-covered islands rosy.
From here, I can see the last few feet of the dock peeking out below the edge of the rocky outcropping, waiting for a ship that belongs there, one that’ll be ready to sail here from the shipyard in only a few weeks.
Setting aside my mug, I turn to look at the fridge, where I’ve left up Dylan’s dare.
Be braver than I am.
Maybe, I think. Maybe. Then I make myself some shitty pasta and eat it outside while watching the stars appear from a wicker chair I now know is better suited for two.