Chapter 34
Now
Port of call: Wailea, Maui
Attire: swimsuits, resort casual
The morning after the trip to the beach, I wake up feeling something I haven’t felt in a long time: the itch to write. One that must be scratched immediately.
I untangle myself from Liam, who is still fast asleep beside me, grab my laptop, and settle at the edge of the bed, ready to word-vomit all over the page.
I don’t know where exactly the idea comes from, or at what point it enters my consciousness. But from one moment to the next, it’s just there. And once it is, everything changes.
I wonder if it’s been there all along, hiding in the back of my mind, waiting to be found.
Or if it just fell into my lap, almost out of thin air.
Or perhaps yesterday’s conversation with Liam unclogged the jammed drain of my brain.
But either way, my fingers glide across the keyboard with a kind of fevered urgency I haven’t felt in months.
I can’t say for sure who I’m writing for.
Maybe it’s for my mom, for the stories she loved so much, for the hope they gave her.
Or for Liam and me, for the happily ever after we didn’t get.
Or maybe it’s just for me, to prove I can still do this.
That I still have stories inside me. That even after death and tragedy and pain, there can still be joy and love and hope.
I write furiously for the next two hours, letting the story pour out of me until I can feel a headache coming on from too much screen time, so I shut the laptop and hop into the shower.
As the hot water pours over my head and shoulders, I think about my character, a young widow grieving her late husband while trying to remain open to the possibility of finding love again, and I can’t help but feel a rush of affection for her.
For her story. For the inconvenient chemistry building between her and the curmudgeonly love interest with a secret soft, molten center.
For the hopefulness that continues to burn bright inside her despite everything bad that’s happened.
Maybe that’s what my mom clung to all those years, I think.
Maybe it wasn’t a Hollywood version of happily ever after.
Or foolish optimism. Maybe it was hope. Hope that in spite of a cold, callous world full of heartache and disappointment, she could continue to believe in things like true love and happy endings.
Maybe she was right. Maybe the bravest thing we can be is hopeful.
When I get out of the shower, we are already running late for today’s kayaking excursion, so Liam and I both scramble to get dressed and out of the cabin without exchanging more than a few words.
It’s not until later when we are out on the water, hugging the shoreline, several strokes behind the rest of the family, that Liam asks what I was doing up so early this morning.
“Don’t tell me you actually got up for sunrise yoga with Jonah?” he teases me, paddling his kayak close enough to mine that we keep playing bumper boats.
I drag my gaze from the jagged hulk of black volcanic rock jetting out from shore. “Actually, I was writing,” I admit.
His eyes widen, catching the glare of the light feathering across the water’s surface. “Really?”
I bite my bottom lip and nod, twin pangs of pride and excitement coursing through me. “I woke up and it was like my brain just knew what it wanted to write.”
His mouth kicks into a smile. “I knew you’d do it. What changed?”
I think about our talk at the beach, how it was the first real conversation I’ve had about my mom since her death, the first time I’d felt like my grief was seen. Like I was seen.
“I think it really helped talking about my mom yesterday,” I say, pulling my paddle in and out of the water. “I feel like it released something inside me, something that had been stuck since she died.” I lick my lips, tasting salt and sweat before I quietly add, “And since you left.”
His shoulders drop a notch, a kind of reckoning passing behind his eyes. After a beat, he says, “I’m proud of you.”
Something warm balloons in my chest. “Thank you,” I tell him. “I’m proud too.”
But there’s something else I want to know. Something that’s been tugging at the back of my mind.
“How come you never supported my writing?” It comes out in a rush, like if I don’t say it fast, I’ll swallow the words back down.
He squints against the sun’s rays. “What do you mean? I’ve always supported you. I have a tattoo to prove it,” he adds, pointing to his shoulder.
The words aren’t exactly accusatory, but there’s a stiffness behind them that tells me I’ve struck some kind of nerve.
I wonder if I should drop it. After all, things have been good between us, and I don’t want to ruin that. But the question continues to pull at my chest, and I realize I need to know. I need to know why he’s willing to tell me he’s proud of me, but he can’t do it in front of my family.
“I know. And I appreciate that.” I hesitate, mulling over my next words.
“But when it came to my family, you never spoke up. You never defended me. You always just sat by while they questioned my work and acted like it was this big mistake. And I guess over time I started to believe you agreed with them.”
Liam sets his paddle across the mouth of his kayak and runs a hand through his sandy hair. He looks frustrated, but it’s hard to tell if that’s with me or himself.
“I’ve always believed in your work,” he says after a moment. “I didn’t realize you wanted me to say something.”
“Of course I did,” I say, a little exasperated. “You’re my husband.”
His jaw stiffens, tight and square, his eyes pinned ahead, and I wonder if it was a mistake bringing this up, if our relationship is too fragile for this kind of reckoning. If maybe we shouldn’t have any kind of reckoning. Not when the end of this arrangement is so near.
“I’m sorry,” he says after a beat. “You’re right. I should have stood up for you.”
My mouth turns dry. I hadn’t actually expected an apology from him, but now that I have one, I’m not sure what to do with it.
“Why didn’t you?” I ask.
He swallows, his gaze shifting to the shoreline, then back to me. “I suppose I didn’t want to upset your grandparents. They’ve done so much for me, and I was worried what they would think of me if I argued with them.”
A part of me feels vindicated. A part that wants to say, I told you so or even I knew it!
You love being their favorite more than you loved me!
But even as the accusation hovers on my lips, I can see from the look on his face that this would be neither helpful nor true. Liam seems genuinely apologetic.
“It’s okay,” I say, the words a reflex. “It’s water under the bridge now, I guess.”
His brows draw together. “No, it’s not. And I want you to know that I’m so fucking proud of you, Ros.
No matter what happens between us, I’m always going to support you.
” His voice is hardened, determined, like he isn’t just making a promise to me, he’s making one to himself.
“And for the record, your family were assholes to you at dinner the first night.”
I look ahead to where Grammy and Gramps are pointing out something underwater to the twins while they shriek with delight. “I thought you loved them,” I say.
“I do.” He hesitates, tilting his chin to catch the sun’s rays. “But sometimes the people you love act like assholes.”
The way he’s looking at me—sharp and intense—makes me wonder if there’s another meaning there.
“Well, thanks,” I say after a pause. “That actually means a lot.”
“That I called your family assholes?” he asks.
I laugh. “That you’re validating my feelings.”
“I’m really sorry for not defending you before,” he says again. “I should have done better. I will do better,” he adds.
As much as I want to tell myself it’s an empty promise, one that comes with the same expiration date this arrangement does, I know it’s not. It’s a genuine apology, one said with weight and purpose, like he wants me to know he means it.
It’s still too late, I tell myself. But the reminder fades against the warmth of his eyes and the ache in my chest.
* * *
We paddle ahead in a silence broken only by the gentle lap of waves against the plastic kayak and the wispy breath of the ocean’s breeze in our ears, until we reach a reef made of black volcanic rock and Bella announces she’s going to do a backflip.
Jonah, Grammy, and Gramps all tell her not to, that she doesn’t know how deep it is, but to the delighted cheers of Henleigh, Jackson, and Riley, she swims to shore, and climbs the reef.
“You better not get yourself killed and give my children lifelong trauma that will cost me thousands in therapy bills,” Jonah warns from his kayak.
Bella pretends to scratch her head, giving him the middle finger, before turning and flipping into the water with a splash.
When she reemerges grinning, Liam turns to me. “Want to jump in?” he asks, his eyes catching the light of the sun reflecting off the water.
“You know I can’t do a backflip,” I tell him. “Well, I can, but we’ll spend the night in the ER. It’s up to you.”
He laughs. “Last I checked, Jonah’s itinerary doesn’t leave room for any ER visits, so how about a regular jump? Feetfirst?”
We carefully climb out of our kayaks, then swim to the rocks, which are much rougher and sharper than they appear from the water.
When we’re standing on top, warm from the day’s sun, Liam holds out his hand to me.
“Ready?” he asks.
I look back over my shoulder at the beach dotted with beach blankets and palm trees swaying in the afternoon breeze, then ahead to the ocean stretching toward the horizon like an infinite expanse of Cool Blue Gatorade.
I know I just saw Bella leap in. But I’m still afraid.
Afraid of jumping into the unknown. What if I land on a rock?
Or smack my head? What if one careless moment lands me in excruciating pain, or worse?
But then I glance up at Liam, the sweep of his mouth, the warm press of his eyes, the way he looks both boyish and manly, a nexus of the young man I first met nine years ago and the sturdy one he’s grown into, the one I’ve been through so much with, and I can’t help but feel a little braver knowing that he’s by my side. That I’m not alone.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I’m ready.”
Then I grasp his hand, and we take the plunge together.