She wanted this night with him to last forever, but even as she wished it, she knew it wasn’t what she truly wanted. Wasn’t how she wanted it, anyway. Maybe it’s what she needed, though, she considers, after all those years, all that pining. But more than that too; maybe after Baxter, after their carefully edited life that she was culpable in creating, maybe she needed this with Colin to recognize that she’d spent twenty years editing him too, choosing the good parts, filtering out the rest.
It was fun.
It was wonderful.
It was what she hoped for after so many years of loving him.
It was different, and he made her feel beautiful and coveted and cherished.
But it was also less than she expected too.
It didn’t feel indelible; it didn’t feel like something she couldn’t rinse away if she tried. She never expected that: to both get what she wanted and also realize it wasn’t what she thought it would be. She’ll have to be OK with this uneasiness, with the gratification of the reward along with the discovery that it wasn’t what she’d hoped. Annie has never quite been OK with this—she’s always too busy chasing the carrot to contemplate whether or not she likes carrots to begin with. So now she’ll have to accept the uncertainty that comes with unexplored territory, of sincere vulnerability, of all the things she ran away from while chasing her carrot.
She falls onto Colin’s bed, the comforter puffing up around her.
She thinks of Lindy tonight, protective and pregnant, and wishes she’d confessed her feelings back then. Even though Annie had her suspicions, it would have been nice to have known the truth. Annie presses her eyes closed: she knows she shouldn’t expect the truth from Lindy when she’s concealed plenty of her own truths from just about everyone. Besides, what would she have done with it anyway? Run from it, probably. Annie ran from a lot of things, another reason she and Lindy probably felt secure with each other. They were both experts, of sorts, in escapism.
She thinks of how Gus went through a phase when he was three, when she was up to, she didn’t know, five or six pills a day. Everything was a haze, her parenting to Gus no exception. She gave him her time, all of her time, but her eyes were glassy, her brain static-y, her attention short and hiccup-y. Seemingly overnight, Gus grew destructive: crayons on their linen wallpaper, food strewn across the walls, epic wailing tantrums in quiet museum observatories. At the time, Annie read posts on CitiMama and worried something might be psychologically wrong; he was so stubborn and so angry and so intent on challenging her that it was almost unbearable. And then, when she finally flushed the pills, he came back to her, her old Gussy, and she realized that maybe he just wanted her attention, the entirety of her.
Annie folds her arms over her face. Maybe that’s all Lindy wanted too. That’s why she took Colin from her. It was the only way to get her attention completely.
She rolls to her side and tugs a pillow over her head. It smells like him, Colin, down here in the basement. It smells like it always did. Like it did twenty years ago. She breathes it in over and over again. She lets herself enjoy this, the easy nostalgia from so long ago, until it’s time to stop.
She pulls her phone from her back pocket, its fake glow the only light in this old cave of love. She scrolls through her photos, all tweaked and highlighted and filtered such that, looking at them now, they’re unrecognizable. Nothing like real life. Nothing like her real life anyway. Probably not anyone else’s either: not Cici Fitzgerald’s, not the PTA president’s, not Lindy’s, or even Catherine’s.
She finds that shot of her and Gus on the beach that day, when he looked constipated and she looked happy. Neither one of those things was particularly true. She wanted Baxter to stay on the beach with them until sunset, but she made it hard for him that day too—all she did was pace the beach looking for people they knew or arranged their blanket and umbrella so they were picture-perfect, or demand that he return to the house with a different set of board shorts (she’d already taken some photos of him in the pair he had on yesterday). It was no wonder he didn’t last until sunset.
Not that this excuses him. He went and fucked Cici Fitzgerald! Years ago, evidently, and then again now. She thinks of Lindy’s strident plea on the stoop, and she nods in the dark. She won’t excuse it. She won’t manipulate herself into believing she’s to blame. But she has plenty to blame herself for too. Like how she didn’t stop taking those pills, couldn’t stop taking those pills, even when Baxter was begging for a second kid. They started trying, but Annie’s heart wasn’t in it. It’s not that she didn’t love Gus—she loved him more than anything. But that first year was so wretched—the darkness, and the self-doubt, and Baxter wasn’t around to help. No one was around to help. The idea of enduring that all over again after the baby came . . . well, she knew she should dump the pills down the toilet, but they felt like home to her then. She couldn’t imagine living without them, how they armed her with more confidence, how they made her shinier, happier, made everything sparkle like an Instagram filter, really. She was taking too many, admittedly.
So it was her own fault when it happened, the miscarriage. They saw the heartbeat at six weeks, and she thought she could pull it off and be all things—the Annie she needed for herself, the dutiful, perfectly pulled-together wife for Baxter, and the mother that Gus and her new baby needed to thrive—and so she didn’t dump those pills down the toilet. And then they didn’t detect the heartbeat at ten weeks. And Annie had a D&C, and Baxter went back to work the next day, and then they halfheartedly tried for another nine months to get pregnant again, but nothing took. Still, she didn’t quit. She knew it was her fault that the baby had died, slipped out of her in her doctor’s office.
She didn’t know if Baxter blamed her—they didn’t discuss it, really—but she wouldn’t hold it against him if he did.
So it’s not like Baxter’s the only one who’s done something unforgivable. Maybe this is her penance. For not flushing the five-pill-a-day habit when she knew better. Maybe if she’d stopped trying so damn hard, she could have just enjoyed their life, enjoyed her life, and maybe it would have changed everything. Or maybe Baxter would have still e-mailed that penis picture; maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything. But she’ll never know now. She only knows she didn’t quit until she realized she might lose him for good, and that was enough to startle her straight.
She deletes them one by one, all the old photos. Savoring them with a tightened chest, like her heart might actually stop, then unwinding with each click.
She thinks it will feel better than it does. It’s supposed to be an exorcism, after all. Of the years she was someone else, of the memories that weren’t really memories—they were what she projected them to be. That’s not life, that’s not memory. That’s fiction.
What she remembers, honestly, of Baxter, is that once, way back when, he was a good man. Maybe not today. But it wasn’t like this always. She was looking to be saved, after Texas and after Colin and Lindy and Bea, and after the day-to-day life she’d found to be so overwhelming. It wasn’t actually overwhelming, though. It was just life. How did she never see that? Why did she never see that?
Everyone does that, she considers. Everyone should be forgiven for that, at least in their youth. At forty, it’s probably time to start living with your eyes wide-open. At forty, it’s time to stop being rescued.
After a while, her eyelids are heavy and tug her toward sleep. She’s deleted nearly all the images by now.
She’ll wake up tomorrow with the pictures of their old life gone. She can’t go back to that. Baxter drove here tonight thinking he could finally be her white knight. How could either of them have known that she’d finally realize she no longer needed one?
A fresh start.
She’ll rise tomorrow and meet him for breakfast and say, “I’ve erased everything. Maybe you too. Maybe not. I don’t know.”
She’ll say to Lindy, �
�I’ve erased everything. So let’s be OK now.”
She’ll say to Colin, “I’ve erased everything. It’s OK to let it go.”
She’ll say to herself, “I’ve erased everything. But found a piece of myself while doing so.”
She’d forgotten about her letter, that old letter to herself that Bea insisted on salvaging. The next-door neighbor is igniting late-night fireworks, and they shake her from her rocky sleep. She tiptoes through the living room, which still smells a little like Catherine’s French toast. Owen’s passed out on the living-room couch, so she’s careful because she wants to do this alone.
The letter is still in the box, the last one left. The others were gutsier than she was, more willing, more ready to tackle their failed ambitions, the ways their dreams had diverted from reality. (Well, maybe all of Lindy’s had come true.)
Annie removes the letter from the box gently, like delicate heirloom china.
Her hand flies to her throat, the gasp of air audible.
She’s confused at first, turning the frame over, then over again.
She’s certain she’d scratched everything out, that it had been an illegible, amorphous blob of blacked-out aspirations.
But then, gradually, she gets it.
Bea.
Annie runs her fingers over the glass, the heat of her body leaving streaks that are there for a moment, then disappear into nothing.
The letter is blank. The page is blank.
Bea knew from the start. Bea brought her back here because she always knew, always cared, always promised to watch over them.
Annie took a little longer to catch on.
There is only a vast white space onto which Annie can pen her future.
Annie smiles now.
She had to come all the way back here to figure out where she needed to go.
There’d been a time when she’d post those musings online—she had a bookmark on her computer that turned cute little quotes into gorgeous works of art. Annie liked to post them on Instagram. They made her feel wise, made her think others would find her wise too.
Now she keeps this for herself.
Later, when she’s ready, she rests the frame back in the box, back where that blank page belongs. It’s only then that she notices the envelope flattened against the very bottom of the cardboard, nearly undetectable.
Her brow furrows as her fingers graze the bottom of the box, then the envelope, and then she lifts it.
The handwriting is Bea’s.
The letter is Bea’s.
Of course Bea wrote her own letter twenty years ago too.
What did Bea hope for in twenty years? Who would she be? What did she dream of?
Annie stills her shaking hands and then presses the envelope to her chest.
She won’t open it yet, not here, by herself.
They’ll do this together; they’ll do this as one. They’re a six-point star, after all. They’re family.
41
BEA
Dear all of you:
This isn’t the letter to my older self you thought it would be; it’s my letter to you guys, the best parts of who I was back when I could still be it. Maybe it would be more poignant to have included that other letter too, but I’ll be honest—I read it before I wrote this today, and I thought, Oh my God, what did I know back then? Sheesh, I was a little bit of a navel-gazing, self-important idiot!
So this is the letter to your older selves that I’m writing.
I hope you forgive me for not being brave enough to tell you the truth about me, about my illness. I couldn’t face you all when it came down to it; despite all my bravado, my devil-may-care breeziness, I wasn’t brave enough to say good-bye. It was easier not to, to slip quietly away, though I realize it might not have been easier for you. I hope you forgive me for that selfishness too.
I hope that you’ve forgiven each other for the indiscretions of our youth. I hope that you’ve forgiven yourselves for those indiscretions too. Look, and I feel like I can say this now without sounding like someone’s mother, being family doesn’t mean that you don’t hurt each other. It means that you might nick each other from time to time, but you love one another anyway.
I hope you all still love one another anyway.
I wish I could be there to meet Catherine and Owen’s children, to gather around your dinner table for the most mouthwatering meal I’ll ever taste; I wish I could be there when Lindy, on- or off-stage, realizes that she has nothing to prove but what she proves to herself; I wish I could be there to witness Annie discover happiness she doesn’t think she deserves; I wish I could be there for Colin when he forgives himself for coming when I called; when he finds peace. I can’t be. I won’t be; but not because it isn’t my greatest wish.
You were the best part of who I was for twenty-seven years.
That’s all I really want to say.
A five-point star is a symbol of strength.
I’ll carry you with me always, farther than you’d ever imagine.
Your friend,
Bea
They’ve gathered on the roof after Annie wakes them, shakes Colin, then Catherine, then Owen, and finally Lindy, on the shoulders, and says, “Come on, come on, this is important.” Now, they’ve fallen quiet, reverential, I suppose, though I wasn’t asking for reverence.
“She would have been forty. Forty and one day now.” Annie wipes her damp cheeks.
“Oh, Bea.” Catherine’s voice cracks too. “Happy birthday.” In this moment, Owen looks at her like he used to. Catherine doesn’t notice, but I do. Maybe one day soon, she’ll notice too.
“I’m glad she made us come back.” Lindy eases back on the chaise and stares up at the sky. She turns toward Annie, who meets her eyes, neither of them afraid, neither of them angry, old grudges fallen like drawbridges. Then, because she’s Lindy, she adds, “I know, I know, who’d have imagined it? I’m admitting that I’m happy.”
“Holy shit!” Colin says, his palms to his cheeks in mock astonishment.
“Fuck off, Colin.”
Everyone laughs, their tentative mirth spilling out into the Philadelphia night.
Annie, still clutching my letter, beckons Lindy, then the rest of them, over to the roof ledge. From the perch, there’s a sliver of a view of the lights on campus, through the street lamps and the oak tree branches and the haze of memories that color everything.
“She made us come back,” Annie says after a while, “to remind us that remembering where you came from helps clear the path for where you actually need to go.”
Colin grabs her hand, then reconsiders, partly because she doesn’t need him to, partly because he doesn’t need to either. Instead, he smiles at her widely, eyes bright, heart open, and she gamely does the same. They’ll never be more than they are now, on this night, in this heartbeat of time, with the July heat fading and distant stars in hazy view, old gunpowder floating through the air. This night will be enough. This night will be the start of something new.
I was never meant to be here forever. None of us are. I told Colin all this when he came to see me in New York and stayed with me until I was gone. I told him that day, when my throat was sandpaper, and my muscles were anchors, and my skin was fire. Some of our stories are shorter than others. Some last a hundred years. It’s not how long you live; it’s how you do it while you’re lucky enough to have the chance. Not to sound like a cheesy country song. Maybe Lindy will write about me one day, though.
I don’t know. Maybe I would have done some of it differently. Not because I regret death, but I regret that my death didn’t only change my trajectory, it changed theirs too. They cratered after that, detonating any last bonds that could have been salvaged after the wedding. But I couldn’t have known that; I couldn’t foresee everything. I only could ask David Monroe to ensure that they showed up here, present, accounte
d for, under one roof once again, to form a new star.
Tonight, on the Fourth of July, on the evening I would have turned forty—though that was never in my stars, written in my destiny—they stay there on the roof’s ledge for a while, my old friends just staring at the lights of the campus. The neighbors grow bored with their backyard fireworks and retreat inside. The alley settles into quiet again. The night sky no longer bursts with light. The roof falls into total darkness, and then Annie leads them toward the trapdoor when they’re ready, grasping one another, trusting the others to lead them home.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have long wanted to write a reunion book, and I am grateful to Danielle Marshall for seeing the glimmer of potential in my early drafts and recruiting me to the Lake Union family, where I have been nothing short of dazzled. I’m further grateful that she had the wisdom to pair me with Tiffany Yates Martin, editor extraordinaire, whose guidance and insights were joyfully collaborative, and who helped elevate the book from something I was pretty happy with to something that I’m truly proud of. The entire team at Lake Union, including Gabrielle Dumpit, Christy Caldwell, Dennelle Catlett, and Tyler Stoops: thank you for your advocacy and spirit.
My agent, Elisabeth Weed, has been my friend and ally for more than ten years now. I’ve thanked her profusely in each book, and many times in person, and via text and e-mail too. She remains, simply, the best. My publicist, Ann-Marie Nieves, is a true dynamo, and I’m always glad she’s in my corner. Thanks also to Kathleen Zrelak for her enthusiasm, wisdom, and tenacity.
Others without whom I could not have written this book: Christine Pride, for her early excellent and insightful editorial guidance. Laura Dave, for many things. Catherine McKenzie, for her counsel.
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