For Lila, Forever

by Winter Renshaw

“Okay, then you have nothing to worry about.”

  I’ll watch her social media accounts the next few days to see if she posts it, and if she does, I’ll file a copyright infringement so it’s taken down immediately. Thank God Lila doesn’t have a computer or internet access on the island, and as far as I know, she doesn’t know Ashlan’s last name, so even if she did have those capabilities, there’s no way she’d see the video.

  Chapter 44

  Lila

  Thirty-one-hundred miles.

  We pull up to a roadside motel outside a little town called Summerton not far from the Oregon coast. Shortly after reaching the Rose Crossing mainland and getting the keys to the shiny economy-sized car Bertram gifted us, we hit the road driving west, stopping first in Pennsylvania for gas, where I bought a prepaid smart phone so we could use the internet for navigation.

  We were halfway across Iowa when I found Summerton on a list of “most desirable places to live in the Pacific Northwest.”

  “Top-rated schools,” I read off the list to them as we drove down I-80. “Twenty thousand people, low unemployment … You want to see the pictures?”

  With all the lush vegetation and evergreens, it almost looked like a West Coast version of Maine, but it was described as being progressive and laidback, which reminded me of California. I showed them both photos on my phone as we drove and an hour later, we’d settled on Summerton.

  “We’re supposed to call Bertram when we get here,” I remind them. All those hours in the car meant I had plenty of time to read over the NDA as well as the little instruction sheet he had typed up for us.

  We were halfway across Pennsylvania when I finally had the nerve to ask my grandparents about my mother and Ari Caldecott and … me. It turns out she was working for Bertram the summer after Ari married Lorelai and as part of their wedding gift, Bertram gifted the newlyweds a housekeeper: a young, naïve Mary Hilliard.

  She was sent to Connecticut to live with Ari and Lorelai, and shortly thereafter Lorelai fell pregnant with the twins and spent nearly four straight months on bedrest. It was during that time Ari became smitten with my mother, pursuing her relentlessly. My mother was pliable and impressionable and made the foolish decision to get involved with a married man. By the time she realized she was pregnant, she was almost three months along and Lorelai was due to give birth any day.

  Shortly after the twins were born, Lorelai asked her father if he’d be willing to swap out a housekeeper for a nanny and he agreed without hesitation, but when my mother returned to the island it wasn’t long before her pregnancy was glaringly obvious.

  She was five months pregnant when Bertram cornered her and got her to tell him everything. He prefaced the conversation as though he was concerned and wanted to help her, only to flip his narrative as soon as she admitted the baby was Ari’s.

  He banished her after that and swore my grandparents to secrecy, holding their jobs over their heads and ruling from his throne of fear and manipulation.

  My grandmother must have gone through half a box of tissues as she told me everything, and my grandfather never let go of her hand once.

  She asked me if I could forgive them, but I assured her it wasn’t necessary.

  None of what happened was their fault.

  I hand my phone to Grandpa and Grandma, and I head into the hotel lobby to see about getting a room for the night.

  Tomorrow we’re supposed to look for housing and when we find the one we like, we’re supposed to send the listing to Bertram to handle the rest.

  Grandpa meets us in the lobby a few minutes later, handing the phone back to me. Later when we’re settled, I’m going to connect to the hotel’s WiFi and see if I can find Thayer on social media.

  I can’t contact him, of course. But I don’t see the harm in sneaking little glimpses of his life, making sure he’s happy and doing well.

  Placing my hand on my lower stomach, I try to look on the bright side—that at least I’ll forever have a piece of him with me.

  Chapter 45

  Thayer

  "Hello, hello!” My mother calls as we head into the Caldecott home in Bridgeport for Thanksgiving dinner.

  “We’re in the kitchen,” Aunt Lorelai calls over the sound of a football game blasting from the family room. “It’s just about ready.”

  “I know, I know. We’re late,” Mom says as she sits a couple of store-bought pies on the counter. “Thayer, you can put the sweet potatoes next to the turkey. Thanks, lovey.”

  I glance into the family room, spotting the back of my grandfather’s balding head as he snoozes in a recliner. Whitley is sprawled out on the loveseat, texting away on her phone.

  I take a seat on the sofa next to Westley.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He turns, jerks away when he realizes it’s me. “Oh, hey. When did you get here?”

  “Like two seconds ago.”

  “Cool.” He turns back to the game.

  “How’s school?” I ask.

  He shrugs, still watching the TV. “Fine.”

  It’s not like him to be so cold, then again, everyone has off days.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  “Of course,” he says, still turned away.

  “You want to throw the football in the back yard later?” I ask. It’s always been our tradition.

  “Eh. We’ll see,” he says. A second later, his phone rings and he takes the call. “Hey, man, what’s up?”

  His tone is noticeably more upbeat than it was a second ago, and he walks away to take the call in the next room. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but by the inflection in his voice, I can tell he’s engaged and happy to be talking to whoever’s on the other line.

  Well, shit.

  I get up from the sofa and head to the kitchen. I wasn’t going to take that personally, but now …

  “Thayer, you want to call everyone to the dining room?” Aunt Lorelai asks. “I think your uncle’s in the garage with your dad.”

  I make my way around the house, telling everyone it’s time to eat, and we all head to Aunt Lorelai’s wallpapered dining room. Granddad takes the seat at the head of the table, in a throne-sized chair that’s always reserved for him, and I take the spot to his right.

  Uncle Ari says grace and my dad carves the turkey.

  “Thayer,” Granddad says as we wait for the food to go around. “How’s the semester going so far?”

  “Great,” I say. “Acing all my classes. Finals are in a couple of weeks. Just trucking along.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful.” He pats my shoulder, his eyes lit with pride.

  “How’s the island life?” I ask. I can’t directly ask about the Hilliards, but I’m hopeful if we start taking about Rose Crossing, they might come up in conversation.

  “Same old,” he says as he takes a roll from a serving platter.

  “Anything new?” I ask.

  He answers me with a laugh, and I know that’s all I’m going to get from him.

  “Westley, pass me the green beans, will you?” Granddad says, pointing toward the middle of the table. “Let’s keep everything moving.”

  After dinner, I help with clean up while Granddad, Uncle Ari, and Westley settle back into the family room. It’s strangely quiet in there. Usually when the three of them are together you can’t get a word in edgewise, they’re usually debating politics or whatever the hot topic of the news is at the time … but they’re just sitting there, staring at the flickering TV screen like zombies.

  “What’s with them?” I ask my aunt, nodding toward the next room.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Of course she’s oblivious.

  “Not used to them being so quiet together.”

  “Ohhh.” Aunt Lorelai laughs as she dries a china plate with a taupe checkered dish towel. “Yeah, good question. Ever since Westley came home for break he’s been quiet, and when Dad got here, he didn’t even get up to say hi. He went up to his room.”

  “Is he depressed?” my mo
m asks, whispering. “You know when people get antisocial or withdrawn, sometimes that can be a sign ...”

  Aunt Lorelai sighs, watching her son from afar. “Yeah, maybe? I’m not sure. I tried to get Whitley to talk to him, but he wouldn’t even open up to her. I’m hoping to have a moment alone with him when all the holiday craziness is over.”

  I think of Westley and the phone call earlier. Maybe he was upbeat because it was regarding a job or internship or someone he was trying to impress? Then again, he referred to the person on the other line as “man,” and that’s not exactly the kind of verbiage you use when trying to sound professional.

  Something’s going on with him.

  Just wish I knew what.

  Chapter 46

  Lila

  “Do you want to know what you’re having?” the ultrasound tech asks as she runs the transducer across my lower stomach. This is only the second ultrasound I’ve had—the first one being back in October. They said everything looked normal and gave me a due date.

  May 8th.

  A year to the day I arrived at Rose Crossing Island.

  “You can tell already?” I ask. I’m only seventeen weeks along and I’m hardly showing.

  “I can,” the woman says with a sweetness in her voice that makes her perfect for a job like this.

  “Yeah. I want to know,” I say. I’ve had enough surprises this year. I don’t know if I can handle another one.

  “All right,” she says as she highlights a fuzzy black and white image on the screen. “You’re having a girl!”

  “A girl? Are you sure?” I ask.

  The woman nods. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure. Our technology is pretty incredible, but every once in a while we get a little one that likes to trick us.”

  She hands me a warm, wet wash cloth, and I wipe the gel from my stomach before climbing down from the bed.

  “I’ll send the doctor in shortly,” she says, printing off a few pictures and placing them in my chart before she leaves.

  I take a seat in one of the guest chairs and wait in the dimly lit room, letting my eyes adjust.

  I hate that Thayer is still in the dark.

  I’d give anything to be able to tell him he’s going to be a dad, that he’s going to have a little girl. I bet he’d be so good with her, and I bet she’d have him wrapped around her finger in no time.

  My OB, Dr. Caraway, makes a quick stop by the room to let me know that everything looks great and to answer any questions, of which I have none. And then she tells me to come back in four weeks for my next appointment.

  I check out at the front and head out to the car I share with my grandparents. It isn’t the most convenient arrangement, but so far it works out. The two of them were recently hired part-time at a retirement home in town, Grandma cooking in the kitchen and Grandpa doing general maintenance around the grounds. The pay isn’t the greatest, but it keeps them busy and supplements the money Bertram sends every month.

  So far we’ve saving almost everything we get.

  Grandpa hates that Bertram owns the house we live in, he hates that it gives him that much more power over us. He hopes in a few years we’ll have enough money to buy a house of our own with cash. Until then, we save, save, save.

  Last week I signed up for classes at the local community college, which I’ll pay for with cash, and when I was finished, they told me to head to the student library to get my laptop. Apparently as long as you’re enrolled here, you get to use one of their laptops.

  My appointment ended early, and I still have another hour before I have to pick up my grandparents from work, so I stop at a local café to grab a coffee and use their WiFi on my new-to-me laptop.

  The internet on my prepaid phone is infuriatingly slow and the screen is temperamental. Every time I wanted to check up on Thayer, I ended up throwing in the towel because I could never get anything to load half the time, and when it did load, it was so tiny I was afraid of accidentally clicking on a “like” or a “follow” or something.

  Five minutes later, I’m seated in a two-person booth in the front of The Mocha Bean on Summerton’s downtown square, sipping a peppermint latte and connecting to their lightning-fast Wi-Fi.

  As soon as I’m on, I log into my fake Facebook account and do a search for Thayer Ainsworth.

  He shows up as the top—and only—result, and my stomach flips when I click on his profile picture. I zoom in, making it fill my screen like I’m some kind of creepy stalker girl, but I don’t care. It feels so good to see him again. The picture says it was uploaded two weeks ago, so I know it’s current. The only thing different about him is his lack of a suntan, but he still looks as gorgeous as before.

  I zoom out and scroll down his page, which is unfortunately under lock and key. I can’t see a single status update. And his current profile picture is the only one made public.

  I’ve hit a wall.

  Clicking on his friends’ list, I scroll through to see if I can find Ashlan. I know he mentioned they went to school together, and she seems like the kind of person who’d have their entire profile wide open for the entire world to see, so I’m hopeful I might be able to find Thayer in some pictures or tagged posts.

  I just want to know what he’s been up to.

  And I want to see that he’s having fun, enjoying his life, living it up.

  I type the name “Ashlan” into the search bar above Thayer’s friends’ list and the only result that comes up is for an “Ashlan Potthoff.” Clicking on her picture confirms I’ve got the right girl, and scrolling through her page proves my assumption correct—this thing is an open book.

  I start with the most recent post—one of Ashlan taking a selfie and posting about her “Thanksgiving food baby,” which is non-existent because her stomach is flat as a board. It’s nothing more than an attention grab, and the comments section is filled with a half a dozen other girls telling her how wrong she is and how amazing she looks.

  Yawn.

  I keep going, scrolling faster and faster because none of these pictures contain anyone who looks remotely like Thayer. Ninety-nine percent of them are selfies or huge group pictures that turn blurry when you try to zoom in too much.

  Not only that, but she posts at least four times a day.

  It’s almost time to go pick up my grandparents when I make it to September.

  There’s a video posted on September fifteenth. I fish my earbuds from my bag and stick them in the jack on the laptop before hitting play.

  The sound of Ashlan’s nasally voice precedes the camera coming into focus. It looks like she’s filming Thayer, only he’s at his computer so all I can see is the back of him.

  “I’m still mad at you about last summer,” Ashlan says.

  “Mad at me for what?” Thayer asks.

  “I came all the way to the island to visit you for five days and you barely gave me the time of day. You were all hung up on that blonde girl. That maid. What was her name again?”

  “Lila.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. You totally had the hots for her.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asks.

  “You were always checking her out when you thought no one was paying attention,” she says.

  “Yeah, well, she was pretty. And I’m a red-blooded American male. That’s kind of what happens when you put those two things together. She’s not my type though.”

  “Obviously. She was kind of weird.”

  “Definitely,” he says, his tone so convincing it stings.

  “Did you guys ever hook up?”

  “God, no. I’m not that desperate.”

  “Okay, now answer this: who’s hotter? Me or her?” Ashlan asks.

  “You. Hands down. All the way.”

  “Aww, I love you so much,” she says, singsong-y. “Do you love me?”

  “Of course I love you.”

  I slam the lid down, eyes welling with tears, and I pack up my things and dash to my car.

  I knew it.


  PART FOUR [present]

  May 2019

  Chapter 47

  Thayer

  I corner Westley outside The Caldecott the moment I set foot on the island that night. I spent the entire plane ride home trying to piece everything together, trying to rectify what I thought I knew with this new information. If MJ was born in May, that means Lila would’ve been pregnant in August—when we were still together. And if Lila told MJ the ring was from her daddy …

  “Tell me everything,” I say as I charge him. “Now.”

  Westley’s hands lift in the air. “Thayer, come on. Don’t make a scene.”

  “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me everything.”

  Westley glances around. The island’s been full of various vendors and contractors all week, setting up for his sister’s wedding and ensuring everything’s going to go off without a hitch.

  “Lila’s daughter,” I say. “Is she yours or is she mine?”

  Westley hooks his arm into mine and pulls me to the east side of his house, away from the hustle and bustle.

  “Lila’s daughter is yours,” he says.

  “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t she have told me? Why keep it this secret and disappear?” I think about all the things I’ve missed. Milestones. Celebrations. The birth of my first child...

  How could she?

  “She found out she was pregnant in the middle of September,” he says. “She confided in me and as we were trying to figure out what she should do, we realized that she was going to lose her job regardless … but she didn’t want you to lose your education. I didn’t either. We figured I had less to lose than you, so I told her I’d take credit for her … predicament.” He draws in a breath, hands on his hips. “But our little plan backfired because it turns out, Lila’s my half-sister.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “My dad and Lila’s mom,” he explains.