Annie

I held up the quilt my nana had made for me before I was born, remembering a hundred moments in the span of a second, sparked just by holding that stitched, worn fabric.

“It feels like a lifetime ago,” Elle said quietly.

In her hand was the painting she’d done of the rolling hills, dotted with trees and spring grass that lay behind our house—our old house, the house I’d never wander through again. The painting had hung over our mantel for years and had traveled thousands of miles in a moving pod, a little window into our old lives.

It was almost as hard to bear as it was a homecoming.

Boxes were stacked around the music room where there was plenty of room to spread out and sort through them. There were nonessential clothes and boxes of filed papers. Some were filled with photo albums and some with old schoolwork. And the rest were our own keepsakes.

Elle had arranged for the furniture Daddy had made to be put in a storage unit in Texas in the hopes that someday we would be able to bring it to wherever we were. And everything else had been sold, donated, or packed up in a big wooden box to travel here.

My boxes contained mostly books with some clothes, scrapbooks, and sheet music. I pulled the old Polaroid camera he’d given me when I was little and dozens of albums I’d accumulated over the years. But I had another full box devoted to things Daddy had made.

That box I put in my room to go through another time when there were less eyes to witness.

Susan cleared an entire bookshelf for me; it went all the way up to the ceiling, and I was more than a little excited to get on the ladder to add books to that topmost shelf. They were my old friends—my hardback set of Outlander and Harry Potter, stacks of Harlequin romances, piles of indie romances, the entire collection of Neil Gaiman books, which included one limited edition illustrated copy of Neverwhere, signed. In marker.

Mama came in when I was deep in the organizational throes, Mozart playing from my phone speaker and entire mind turned to the best way to order my books.

“You’re making progress,” she said as she wheeled herself over, stopping when she made it as close as she could with the maze of boxes.

I sighed happily. “It’s so good to have our things. I don’t know why, but it is. I don’t think I could ever be a minimalist. I forget things if I don’t have a touchstone to remind me.”

She chuckled. “Meg’s happy as a lark. She’s got Daddy’s old atlas split open on her bed, and she’s poring over the pages like she’s never seen them before.”

I walked over and sat in an armchair next to her. “And how about you, Mama?”

She took a breath, her fingers winding together in her lap. “I’m not quite sure how I feel. My worlds have collided—the one from before I met your Daddy and the other one, the one from before he died. The third one, I’m not sure about yet. It’s just as alien to me as it was when I woke up in that hospital bed.”

I nodded, knowing there was nothing to say.

Mama glanced at the window. “When I left here, I didn’t think I’d ever come back. And having the remainder of my life with your father here in boxes is comforting and sickening, all at the same time.”

For a moment, she sat, unmoving and quiet.

“You know,” she started softly, “when I met him, I knew. There was something about him, some magic, something in his smile and his eyes and the way his hand fit with mine, like they’d been cast together and split apart, and when they found each other again, there was a note plucked in both of us. And, after that moment, I marked my existence by the moments before and after him. So when my parents didn’t approve, it didn’t matter. There was only one thing I could do; I had to go with him. I had to be with him because I couldn’t see my life without him in it. But I don’t have a choice now either. He’s gone.”

“Mama,” I breathed, emotion pinching my lungs and heart.

Tears slid down her cheeks, but her voice was steady and sure. “What I mean to say is that I chose love, and I’d choose it again. I chose him over everything—family, money, career—because it was the only way for me to be happy, truly happy. Someday, you’ll find a love like that. You’ll find someone you love beyond anything in this world, and when you do, you have to choose that love and let it guide you. It’s all I wish for you girls—to love someone that much and be loved in equal measure.”

“But what about now? Now that it’s gone?”

She smiled, her breath hitching with a silent sob. “Oh, it’s not gone, baby. It lives here.” She touched her chest. “I’ll miss him until I draw my last breath, but his love made my life rich and full and meaningful. His love gave me three beautiful daughters, each who remind me every day of him—your smile and your eyes and your love for beauty in ordinary things, Elle’s quiet nature and care for others above herself, Meg’s laugh and uncanny ability to retain facts.”

A small laugh escaped me, and I brushed tears from my face.

“Anyway,” she said with a sigh that brought her composure, picking up a stack of books on the small table next to her, “I’m glad you have your things. Where are you going to put Lisa Kleypas?”

“Next to Eloisa James and Julia Quinn. Where else?”

She laughed and handed them over, and over the next hour, she helped me sort through it all until the massive shelf was packed ceiling to floor. And all the while, I thought over her admissions, sifting through my feelings and hers.

Deep down, I knew Will wasn’t the kind of man my father was, and I knew that Will and I didn’t have that magic, that awakening or devotion between us. I did have a lot of feelings though, feelings that hung in my mind like a fog, too vague to pinpoint without them disappearing.

I had a lot of feelings, but I didn’t know how I felt.

Part of me wanted to hunt down an answer, but the rest of me said I should take the gift of a beautiful man who went so far out of his way to make me happy.

Greg’s face flashed through my thoughts, my heart skipping a hard beat with a jolt. Because he fit that description just as much as Will did.

The difference was that I didn’t question Greg at all, not once. I trusted him implicitly.

But did I trust Will?

It was a question I couldn’t answer as easily as I would like, especially not after last night. I wondered how Greg would have handled it, handled me, but I only imagined he would have treated me with care and respect and quiet joy.

And I let myself wish for a moment that it could have been him instead.