*****
INTERMISSION
DELLA
* * * * * *
DEAR JACOB…
Oh, wait.
I have a question for you, dear reader, before I pen this letter to my son. How do you begin to write something for when you’re dead? How do you compose something when you don’t know when that will happen or how or why?
How did Ren do it?
How did he buy so many trinkets, pen simple notes, and wrap them tightly in pretty paper, all while knowing we wouldn’t open them until he was gone?
That took courage.
That took undying affection.
And I find myself struggling in his position as I have no timeline on my death. I don’t know if I’ll be young or old. I don’t even know if I’ll outlive my son, in which case, this writing exercise is a waste of time.
All I want to do for Jacob is what Ren did for us.
Even gone, he reminds us we are not alone. He found ways to show his love, and even though it hurts—excruciatingly so—it’s also the best thing in the world because even gone we feel cared for, watched over, and protected.
I’m wasting time.
I’m getting off topic.
If I die, I want Jacob to know I love him as much as his father does.
I want to remind him not to be afraid.
I want to force him to stay alive and somehow be happy.
I need your help, dear reader. I need your counsel on how to do such a thing because, in reality, I fear what will truly happen.
I’m afraid that if something happens to me too early, he’ll turn his back on the living. He’ll embrace the hopelessness. He’ll accept the pain and sink into it forever.
So perhaps my letter shouldn’t be about what he should do, or a lecture, or scolding, or guideline.
It should just be what he needs to hear.
I’ll try again.
I’ll keep it short.
I’ll let my love speak instead of me.
Dear Jacob,
You are loved by the living and the dead.
You are watched by the caring and the callous.
You are real for now and for always.
Grief can’t hurt you.
Regret can’t define you.
Only you can do that.
So be who you want to be.
Love, hate, smile, or cry.
Be every emotion or none of them.
But don’t be afraid to survive.
Fight.
Rejoice.
Grow old and happy.
Love.
Please, God, love. There is no other purpose for living.
And when you’re through with this world…we’ll meet again.
And when that day comes, I can tell you just how proud I am of you.
Of how wonderful you are.
Of how much I adore my son.
Until then, Wild One.
I love you.
Mom
xxx
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Hope
* * * * * *
Twenty-One Years Old
I’D GROWN EXTREMELY intimate with the ceiling.
Lying in bed, night after night, struggling to sleep while Michael dreamed soundly beside me, I knew every shadow, imperfection, and discolouration.
It wasn’t that I had a stressful job or crazy deadlines. It wasn’t that Dad had met someone else and was hosting an engagement party in three months. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been on a horse in four very long years—although that probably had something to do with it—and it definitely wasn’t thanks to unfinished business with a man who’d thrown me from his home and then vanished.
Not at all.
Then again…that was the exact reason.
But it shouldn’t be.
Not after four years of nothing.
No letters, no phone calls, no visits.
For the first year, I’d stayed in touch with Cassie almost constantly. I’d ring and ask a thousand questions, all centring around if they’d seen Jacob or heard when he would return.
Each time, the answer was no.
And slowly, my questions dried up to just one.
‘Is he home yet?’
After a while, I didn’t even have to ask. The moment Cassie knew it was me ringing, she’d give me a sad no, then ask about my life as if to distract me from everything I was missing.
They’d hired contractors to run the farm in Jacob’s absence. John Wilson hadn’t bounced back since Della died, and his health was declining. Nina had opted to go to university away from Cherry River to get away from the perpetual grief. And Cassie and Chip were doing their best to stay strong.
It wasn’t fair that sadness had swallowed up such a vibrant, wonderful place.
But that was life, wasn’t it?
It came and went, far too fast and fleeting, leaving the ones not chosen to suffer.
Thanks to Della dying, I returned to my fascination with death.
I studied late into the night, reading research papers and theories that the brain stayed active even after death, which led to nightmares of still-alive cremations.
I trolled every internet site on afterlife, suicide, and soul-mates finding each other in the ether. I tried drinking special teas that forums said would give me dreams that would connect me to some spiritual awareness.
I Googled for any hint of where Jacob might’ve run to.
My internet provider probably had me flagged if Michael ever turned up dead.
And in the end, I had to let it go.
I couldn’t let death drag me into some prison of my own making, and I couldn’t let Jacob steal the future he didn’t want with me.
When I’d returned to Scotland with Dad, I’d accepted the role in the crime drama he said I’d be perfect for and flew to England to begin shooting on location.
At least the cute countryside helped stitch together some of my missing pieces. The rolling paddocks and patchwork prettiness hinted at a different way of life if I’d only been brave enough to make Jacob accept me.
Every time he came into my mind, I resolutely shoved him back out again.
I’d shed enough tears over him.
I’d been broken on the plane ride home.
The way he’d looked at me, so cold and detached, ensured I’d cried myself to sleep for months. Between crying for Della and him, I’d drained myself to the point of having to move on or fade away into sorrow.
So I threw myself into acting and, although I did my best, I wasn’t good enough. The script was awful and the directing subpar—a trifecta of disaster.
Reviews were scathing, and the show wasn’t renewed, which meant after a year of being the actress I never wanted to be, I had a choice.
At eighteen, I was still so young, but I knew what I wanted to do, and thanks to Keeko’s diligent teaching, I had eloquent writing skills and an imagination full of happy and sad things.
I couldn’t be a farmer’s girl.
But I would be the next best thing.
I bought myself a laptop with a long battery life and, for most of that year, I stayed in England, writing in open fields of farms I wasn’t invited on. Watching men and women toil the land, rubbing my heart as it swelled with jealousy.
And slowly, that jealousy transmuted into a script.
Once it was finished, I asked Keeko to edit it for me, then grew enough balls to show it to a producer Dad put me in touch with.
The guy hated it.
Despised it.
And wasn’t shy about telling me how atrocious it was.
I’d nodded and accepted yet another dream dashed but he’d patted my hand after tearing my work to shreds and said my story might be terrible, but my writing was not. He needed a co-writer on a TV show called Rogue Rascal—a simple plot of a morgue director who took it upon himself to hunt and kill those who murdered the clients he was hired to bury—and offered me a job.
It appealed to my morbid side, and the co-w
riter, Ashley Sleugh, was witty and smart, ensuring the script had punchy dialogue and imaginative ways of extermination.
I accepted.
And life crept forward.
Eighteen became nineteen.
Nineteen became twenty.
During the waking hours, I was totally fine. I’d schooled myself enough to forget about Jacob Wild. But during the witching hours? My heart was louder than my mind, and it opened dusty drawers where memories stayed hidden, tormenting me with everything I’d loved and lost.
I’d found who I wanted to be at Cherry River.
I’d found who I wanted to be with.
And both were ripped away the day Della died.
Despite my heartaches, Rogue Rascal was a hit and I stayed on for each new season. I spent more and more time on set doing last-minute line changes.
And that was how I met Michael.
Sweet, funny Michael who played a cadaver who’d been murdered by a man-hating prostitute. He had no lines, and the make-up department made him look like a decomposing throttle victim who happened to love cream cheese bagels at lunchtime.
We’d bumped into each other in some cliché meet-cute that another scriptwriter would’ve rolled their eyes at penning. He reached for the same bagel I did. Our fingers touched. Something sparked.
He’d flirted.
I’d laughed.
He’d asked me out.
I couldn’t find a reason to say no.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say our first date had a third wheel in the shadows. My heart clung to Jacob, sending silent messages to wherever he was to come claim me before another did.
But he never came.
And Michael fell for me.
One date turned to two, then three, then four.
And on the sixth one, I had a choice to make.
A choice I’d hoped would always sort itself out.
My virginity.
For so long, I’d clutched to the stupid hope that Jacob would come back before it was too late. He’d grieve for his parents. He’d shut himself off for a while. And then he’d return, not as broken, and ready to embrace a new life…with me.
My virginity was his.
But in the end, Michael took it.
It’d been the perfect end to my desire for Jacob.
Michael hired a hotel room, took me dancing, and booked in a day spa where we were pampered and relaxed until we fell together sleepily, softly in an over-pillowed bed and made love for the first time.
Not rough. Not explosive. Not crazed.
Just sweet and beautiful…just like my dark-haired, blue-eyed boy who’d played a cadaver.
Scrunching the covers up to my chin, I sighed in the darkness, looking over to that sweet, beautiful blue-eyed boy. His face was soft and slumbering. His forehead smooth. At twenty-five, Michael was the same age Jacob would be, yet he seemed so much younger.
Even at seventeen, Jacob had seemed more man than a lot of kids that age. He had the weight of acreage and seasons pressing on him to be responsible and reliable.
Michael didn’t have that type of pressure, which left him unruffled around the edges. He stayed in work with small TV parts here and there, but he wasn’t well off. But that didn’t matter because he was good to me.
I genuinely liked him.
A lot.
Cared deeply enough that we’d been going strong for a year, and most nights I spent at his one-bedroom apartment above a fish and chip shop. The English accents of people placing orders and the fried aroma of their dinner drifted through his window; a quintessential part to the new life I now led.
Staying with him was convenient as I hadn’t put down roots of my own. I missed Cherry River’s depthless peace with every fibre of my body, which stopped me from finding my own home.
On the nights where I missed the farm that was never mine, tears leaked silently in the dark, and I’d have to remind myself all over again that I was with a wonderful guy. I had a great job. I was set for life.
I was unbelievably lucky.
Eventually, I would buy my own piece of paradise. I would live a new dream somewhere else. With someone else.
With Michael?
I didn’t know and that was what made guilt a constant companion.
Snuggling deeper into my pillows, I closed my eyes and did my best to fall asleep.
Michael rolled over, pulling the covers from my legs.
Ugh, I give up.
Sitting up, I slid from the sheets and reached for my phone. Carrying it into the small lounge in my purple pyjamas, I sat on the couch, pulled a fluffy blanket over me, and tapped the screen.
The device instantly lit up as if it’d been waiting impatiently.
I turned my sound off at night so I wouldn’t be disturbed.
I really shouldn’t have.
Three missed calls.
All from Cassie.
“Oh, no.” My hands shook as I punched in the number for Cherry River. I bit my lip as it connected, ringing on the other phone. There was something fundamentally wrong about calling someone at four a.m., but this was an emergency.
This was life or death.
“Hello?” Cassie mumbled.
“Are you okay? Is John okay?” I blurted. “Do you need anything? What about Nina or Chip? I can fly over right away if you need—”
“Whoa, Hope. Slow down.” Her voice lost its fuzziness. “I called you three hours ago. I figured you might still be up writing.”
Ever since leaving Cherry River, my morning routines had become more like night owl habits and bedtime was late. Sometimes, I’d be going to bed at the same time Jacob would wake to go to work.
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to do with my excess adrenaline. “So, you’re saying everything is fine?” My stupid heart wouldn’t calm down, racing, racing, racing. “Everyone is okay.”
Cassie took her time replying. “You could say that.”
“You said that weird.”
She laughed softly. “Can’t get anything past you, huh?”
“What is it? Why did you call me three times?”
“I heard from Jacob.”
I bolted upright on the couch. The blanket tumbled from my legs to the carpet. “You did?”
“He sent us a letter.”
“Wh-where is he?” I couldn’t swallow. My throat closed up. It wasn’t the first letter he’d sent. He wasn’t totally heartless to leave his family without a goodbye or a heads-up that he was still alive. There hadn’t been many—four in total. But at least he still thought about his aunt, uncle, and grandfather, even if he didn’t think of me.
“He’s in Indonesia.”
“Indonesia? What on earth is he doing there?”
Cassie sighed. “Wandering.”
“Do you have an address?” I plucked the cotton of my pyjamas. The other letters didn’t have return addresses. He’d been in Thailand for one of them and New Zealand for another, followed by Australia and Finland. He’d travelled the world all while I wondered if he was okay.
“The envelope is from some cheap hotel stationery with their address printed on. I don’t know if he’s staying there or just used it passing through. But…it’s the first concrete location we’ve had.” Her voice dropped, rustling sounded as if she was leaving the bedroom so as not to disturb Chip. “Look, I can’t leave. My horse business can’t be run by just anyone. I need to oversee the contractors, and the recent rescues we’ve taken in are a handful.”
I flinched.
As much as I appreciated Cassie taking in more rescues, the fear that she’d be killed like Della hissed in the back of my mind. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t really know.” She groaned. “I shouldn’t be asking this of you. You don’t have any obligation to my family and after all the time that’s passed after…after Della dying and Jacob leaving…I don’t feel right. But…” Tears caught in her throat. “My dad isn’t doing well. He’s frail, Hope. He’s no longer the big bear we all know and
love. I’m so afraid he’s going to pass before Jacob gets home. Jacob needs to say goodbye to his grandfather. Otherwise, it will chew him alive. It might be the last straw he needs before going completely crazy.”
Tears welled. “You want me to find him.”
“Yes.”
“But…he doesn’t want to see me. Not after—”
“His mother had just died, and you had a cough. Two things he couldn’t cope with. Lots of time has passed. If you find him, I have no doubt he’ll be happy to see you.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“I am.” She paused, before saying softly, “He needs you, Hope. He needed you right from the start.”
My eyes trailed to the bedroom where Michael slept peacefully. He trusted I was his girl. That he had my heart just as I had his. What sort of person was I if I contemplated running around the world to find a boy who’d shattered me instead of staying with the one who cared?
“I can tell him about John for you, but…I’ve moved on. There isn’t room for an us anymore. I’m with Michael. I can’t hurt or betray him.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
I had no reply.
“I understand this isn’t easy.” Cassie sighed. “I know how much you cared for Jacob. And I understand he pushed you away too much to earn a second chance. Just…find him and tell him to come home. That’s all.”
That’s all?
That wasn’t all.
That was just the beginning.
Say no.
Don’t do it.
But Della wasn’t here to save her son.
And I was.
My heart pounded as I whispered, “Okay, Cassie. I’ll try.”
“Oh, thank you, Hope. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“Send me the address, and I’ll fly there.”
“You’re an angel.”
“I’m not an angel. Far from it.”
“Well, you are to me. And to Della and Ren who will be watching their son ruin his life somewhere on a tropical island.”
“What if he’s found happiness? He might be with someone and living contentedly on a beach somewhere for all you know.”
“He’s not,” Cassie muttered. “His letters are dripping in pain. It’s what he doesn’t write that tells the truth and…”
The Son & His Hope Page 39