Christy-Lynn said nothing, letting the silence stretch.

“Christy-Lynn?”

“I’m here.”

“The thing I should have said—the thing I need to say now—is that I hope you find a way to be happy. I’m sorry I never gave you the kind of life you deserved, sorry I broke my promise to you, sorry about all of it. But please, baby girl, don’t let that stop you from making a life of your own.”

“Mama—”

“I have to hang up now. I’m at the pay phone on the corner, and I don’t want Roger to wake up and find me gone.” There was a brief pause then a jagged breath. “I promised myself I’d never ask you for another thing, including forgiveness, but I’m breaking that promise now and asking you for one thing. Please, Christy-Lynn, let yourself be happy.”

And then she was gone.

Christy-Lynn stared at the blank phone screen, imagining Charlene Parker standing in her housedress at the corner pay phone, not to ask for money as she had initially suspected, but for forgiveness. And to wish her happiness.

I could see what I’d done to you—then and now.

The words seemed to echo in her head—and her heart. Was she such an open book? So glaringly transparent that her mother—a woman she hadn’t seen in twenty years—could see through all the careful layers of veneer to the emptiness beneath? It was a daunting thought, particularly when others seemed to be echoing similar sentiments.

It was time to let herself be happy, to stop closing doors, to make a life of her own.

It must look so easy from the outside.

From the foot of the bed, Tolstoy eyed her quizzically, stretched out like a pasha amid the strewn manuscript pages. She’d managed to get through the last page before passing out. Now, as she began gathering them up, she realized she’d probably never know how the story ended—unless The End of Known Things wound up on a shelf in her store one day. She hoped it would. It was certainly good enough or had the potential to be.

The house was still as she padded to the kitchen with her empty mug, the quiet like a shadow stalking her down the hall. On her way back to bed, she lingered in front of the closed door to the spare room, hand poised above the knob.

All the things we won’t let ourselves have.

The door seemed to open of its own volition. It hadn’t of course. Doors didn’t open on their own. You had to choose to open them, to consciously cross the threshold and glimpse what lay beyond. She flipped on the overhead light, sighing as she scanned the jumble of half-packed boxes and unused furniture she should have donated months ago. But then it wasn’t like she had a real use for the room. Maybe that’s why she’d been dragging her feet, because she didn’t like the idea of it sitting empty, like a great big glaring hole in her life.

On impulse, she dropped to her knees and began picking through the nearest box. They were Carol’s things mostly, items hastily left behind when she moved to Florida: lamps, linens, chipped dishes. She’d held on to most of it—in case Carol changed her mind and wanted it sent. But she hadn’t. Maybe because she’d already taken the things that mattered.

Conspicuously absent from the boxed-up castoffs was any trace of personal memorabilia, no scrapbooks, photographs, or family keepsakes. Nothing that represented Carol Boyer’s real life. Those things she’d been careful to take.

Now, as she thought back to the night she left Clear Harbor, it struck her that the only things she’d been careful to take were an old photograph and a tarnished necklace. That’s what she’d chosen to hold on to, reminders of pain and loss, because there were no happy memories to cherish. She hadn’t bothered making any. Instead, she’d built a careful life with nothing to look back on and even less to look forward to.

The tears came then, like a dam giving way after a storm, as Wade’s words, Missy’s words, even her mother’s words, crowded in on her. It was a moment of terrible clarity, the kind that usually came at the start of the third act, while there was still time for the heroine to save herself. Sadly, that train had left the station. There was already a big hole in her life.

But if she was being honest—and it was well past time for that—she had to acknowledge that the empty places in her life were of her own making. Not her mother’s. Not Stephen’s. Hers. She’d been living in a kind of bubble, playing it safe while the world went by, but somewhere along the way, that had stopped working. She wanted more. Was it too late to change, to salvage something after all the lost years? She honestly didn’t know. She only knew she wanted to try—and she knew exactly which door to open first.

FORTY-SEVEN

Sweetwater, Virginia

September 10, 2017

Christy-Lynn dropped into the deck chair with her phone and her coffee mug, sipping as she checked her messages. So much had happened in the past couple of weeks, so many things she needed to share with Wade, though things on that front didn’t look particularly promising. They hadn’t spoken in weeks—since the morning she’d left him in her bed to drive to Walterboro—and he had completely stopped coming to the store.

Not that she blamed him after the way she’d left it. She’d been very convincing when she said they’d made a mistake. In fact, she had almost convinced herself. But the truth was she missed him, his smile, his sometimes harsh but always well-meaning advice, his presence in her kitchen—and her life.