Chapter One Five Years Later . Friday
One
Five Years Later . . .
Friday
If someone had asked Grace Elizabeth Whittaker (née Porter) five years earlier to predict what her life would look like at thirty-seven, she’d have replied with ease.
She’d be married, obviously. A mother, too—the suburban type who baked banana bread and hosted a book club but still knew how to navigate Grand Central when the occasion called.
She’d be a novelist, of course, with an ever-growing list of back titles and more on the way.
Most important? She’d have prophesized that she’d be happy.
More than happy. Fulfilled. Settled—the good kind, when it feels like you’ve finally exhaled after spending far too long holding your breath.
But that was all in her head.
In real life, things don’t always go according to plan.
Breathe, Grace reminds herself. Not for the first time today. This hour. This minute.
Lately, it’s what everyone tells her to do—the whole world newly invested in her oxygen intake.
There’s her therapist, Dr. Anne. The 10women in her grief group.
The authors of the self-help books currently cluttering up her nightstand like a confused shrine.
Even her phone sends her daily reminders to pause, inhale, and reflect.
It’s no use. Her voice, like so many things she thought she’d have forever, is gone.
“Come on, Grace,” she says aloud, as if her creativity just requires some gentle coaxing. “You’ve done this before. You can do it again,” she whispers, but her tone sounds thin.
She shifts her gaze away from the blinking cursor on her computer screen, its electronic pulse a depressing metronome, and over to the collection of wilting houseplants on the corner of her desk.
A podcast she listened to falsely promised that they’d expedite her healing.
She flicks a brittle leaf. Just like all the others this morning, it soundlessly falls.
With a quiet sigh, she sweeps the debris into her hand and tosses it into the wastebasket—a brief moment of productivity before she drags her attention back to her nearly blank document.
“You have until mid-September,” she says. “Four weeks to write a book practically from scratch.” Her fingers hover over the keyboard. They wait like a row of sprinters eager to hear a starting gun. “One last chance to prove you’re still yourself.”
Like always, this is where her pep talk ends. The thought of beginning—of trying again—seems insurmountable. Burdensome. Impossible. Like being handed a boulder and then told to swim upstream.
Once upon a time, writing came organically to Grace.
The whole process was fluid. Easy. Most days, the words poured from her mind and onto the page before she could even process them.
Back in her late twenties, she wrote the first draft of her debut novel, The Tides, in a series of sprints.
On weekend mornings—free from the rigmarole of her full-time copywriting job on Forty-Second Street—she’d peel open her laptop, start to type, and then suddenly find the moon pasted in the 11sky.
Hours vanished in a blink. Characters appeared.
Both in her story and her life, problems were solved.
Now Grace lifts her hands. She adjusts the blanket draped over her shoulders while, inside her mind, a memory stirs.
“You were made for this, Cece,” her mother, a longtime English teacher, used to say.
“You’re a natural.” Birdie was always Grace’s first reader, whether Grace was thirteen or eighteen or twenty-two.
“You have something important to say, my love,” she’d add, her voice certain and warm.
“Promise me you won’t stop until you’ve said it. ”
Those days feel like a long time ago.
Her knee tucked against her chest, Grace looks up at the window.
Outside, the world is a postcard of August. Golden sunlight.
Blue sky. Green trees. Children coasting on bikes, their laughter audible even through the glass.
It’s the type of day that, in a past life, Grace would have darted outside, determined not to waste a second of it.
Presently, her body remains still, as if she’s physically tethered to these feelings—to this whole room.
“So what do you think?” she asks the air.
“Any chance I can get a sign?” A strand of hair comes loose from her ponytail.
“I’ll take anything. A gust of wind. A flickering light.
Just give me something so I know where to take this story.
” She blows the unruly piece away, but it falls again. “Or maybe my entire life.”
Grace grew up in a house where signs mattered.
Seeing a cardinal on the windowsill. Randomly waking up at 3:00 a.m. Hearing certain songs play.
Walking through the surf and discovering whole sand dollars washing up at your feet.
They meant someone was watching over you.
Helping to guide you. That you weren’t alone, even when you felt like it.
“Well?” she presses. “Anything?”
One minute passes. Then two.
She’s met with silence.
Resigned, Grace peers down, as if a blueprint for her future might appear amid the mess that’s taken over her once tidy workspace. 12Crumpled pages. Balled-up sticky notes. Empty mugs. Her monthly planner flipped open to a grid of scribbled-out goals.
“Try not to take that thing so seriously, Cece,” Birdie often reminded Grace when she caught her plotting out her life like it was a book she planned to write.
“You know what they say, sweetheart,” she’d add through her signature red-stained lips, as if she were out on a perpetual date with life.
“We make plans and the universe laughs.” She’d give her daughter’s hand a knowing squeeze. “Leave some space for surprises.”
Back in her small home office, Grace pulls off her blue-light glasses.
Nothing productive will come from her today.
Maybe not ever again. She closes her document and clicks open her email, only to find a wealth of junk.
Newsletters from other authors with better momentum (Big Announcement!).
Bank statements she’d rather not see. Promo codes for end-of-season sales, like she has anything to dress up for these days.
Foolishly, she opens one anyway. Gauzy dresses.
Rattan bags. Models smiling from sunny locales.
A curated vision of the summer she’s missed.
For an instant, she closes her eyes and lets herself picture it.
The chance for an escape. A break in this awful routine.
Warm sun on her skin. An ice-cold soda in her grip.
The distant sound of waves. A fantasy. Even so, when her lids lift, she can’t help what comes next.
It’s automatic. Something she’s done so often these last few months she’s lost count.
A few keystrokes later, the listing appears.
116 Surf Street. Sea Drift. Her and Birdie’s favorite place on the Jersey Shore.
The house looks the same. No surprise. Cedar shingles.
Turquoise door. Pea gravel driveway. She scrolls through the rental calendar, plugging in dates for the solidly booked property, just to see, as if she’s planning a joy-filled trip and not daydreaming about better times.
It’s silly, this habit, like searching online for a profile of an ex.
It’s not like she intends to book anything.
If forced, she could provide a list of 13reasons to never go back.
Even so, she needs to see that it’s still there.
Something—somewhere—to keep her anchored.
Proof that at least certain parts of her past were real.
Ding.
Her inbox. A new email.
Instantly, her stomach tightens. Her pulse quickens. Every part of her body thrums with dread. Without the need to look, she’s certain what new message awaits.
Subject: Checking in!
Sender: Mollie Grey, Chapter One Literary Agency
Hey Grace,
Hope you’re doing well since we last spoke!
Wanted to see if you have any new pages for me to look at yet.
No pressure! But considering how things went with your last draft, might be a good idea for me to take a fast peek?
I’m heading out of town later today and will have limited access to email for the next week, so feel free to send soon! Would love to read them on the drive!
Should we plan a lunch in the city for when I get back? Something to toast your anticipated success? September 15th will be here before we know it.
xx,
M
A nauseous taste fills Grace’s mouth as she skims back through the message. Four exclamation points (five if she counted the subject) and a smiley face. Professional urgency disguised as cheer.
During their lunch in June, at an airy Italian restaurant in lower Manhattan, Grace assured Mollie—her literary agent of nearly a decade—that her new manuscript was progressing smoothly.
No issues! 14No worries! No stress! She swore this new version of her next book was the one, then assured her she’d pass along chapters once they were ready. Weeks later, they’re not.
At that meeting, despite the breeziness of their conversation, there was something neither party explicitly stated but both privately understood: that this final round of edits was Grace’s last chance. Her first book? A huge success. Her second? A flop. Her third? Still unfinished.
She’d submitted the original draft for it in January.
Grace knew it wasn’t her best. The months she’d spent writing it were weighed down by such heavy things.
Even so, she hoped that with some finessing, it could work.
Her editor sent a note a few days later, expressing that she didn’t love the direction.
Publishing speak for Start again. She was assigned a new deadline, which had since been bumped back three times.
The September delivery date was the final straw.
Her hands shaking, Grace exhales and types a fast reply.
Subject: Re: Checking in!
Sender: Grace Whittaker, Grace Whittaker Books
Hi Mollie,
You must have read my mind! Happy to send along some pages when you’re back (hopefully from somewhere with fun cocktails and water views). Just polishing a few last bits!
Thanks for reaching out! Should be a-okay for next month’s updated deadline. Exciting!
xx,
Grace
There. Four exclamation points. Enough to sound enthusiastic but not unhinged.
15
She presses send. The lie hangs heavy in her chest. Why is she pretending? Acting as if everything’s fine? Like she’s in control? Grace doesn’t want to be this person. Overpromising. Underdelivering. Adrift, both creatively and personally. A woman who’s stuck.
Outside, a car door slams.
“Shoot,” she mumbles, as if whispering might make them—this whole situation—go away.
“They’re early.” A minute passes. The thud of her heart blends with the sound of their voices.
She leans across her desk to look. Beyond the window, the white moving truck is parked in the driveway next to Birdie’s old green Jeep.
“Great.” A sigh—long and sad, like the final balloon deflated at the conclusion of a party no one wanted to end. “So this is really happening.”
She rises slowly. Her limbs feel like lead.
As she moves toward the door to go change out of her pajamas, her gaze drifts to a framed photograph on a bookshelf.
Birdie. Early thirties. Standing on the sandy crest of a dune.
A straw bucket hat and classic one-piece.
Her long hair, which had just begun to turn from blond to a premature gray, blowing in the breeze.
Three-year-old Grace expertly perched on her hip. They’re both smiling.
The doorbell rings.
Grace turns. A glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror catches her off guard. The person in the reflection—messy, visibly tired, her brightness dulled—hardly resembles her. She looks like someone who wandered off the set of her own story and then got lost on her way back.
“Oh, one other thing,” Grace says out loud. “I miss you, Mom. Even more than I can describe.” She glances over her shoulder, like someone might be there. Waiting. Listening. Ready to offer advice. “I don’t even know who I am anymore without you here,” she says.
For a long moment, she waits—breath held—as if an answer will arrive.
There’s only quiet.
16
Finally, Grace pulls in an inhalation, even though it doesn’t change anything.
Then, not wanting to face this day but knowing she doesn’t have a choice, she takes a step forward. Into a future she never planned. Toward a life she didn’t choose.
Unsure what comes next, she leaves the room.