He wriggled and nudged her away, Rory didn’t resist, even as she wanted to fuse her body with his to keep him. She scrubbed her eyes and cursed hot tears that made her eyes sting and swell and blur what would be her last look at him.
“I’ll go now,” he said quietly against her forehead.
She just nodded and bit her lip as he kissed the top of her head, then looked up at him.
She shouldn’t have done it. Seeing her own anguish reflected in his eyes was enough to tempt her into taking it all back, to tell him she would go anywhere with him, but the damage was done.
Rory closed her eyes as he moved past her towards the parking lot, and when he was gone she felt the full impact of what loving him and saying goodbye to him had done to her. Her chest felt like it was collapsing on her heart. Her head felt like it would swell and explode.
Somewhere she heard the rumble of his car starting. She ached to think that he had packed his things in the short time they were parted. How had he felt, knowing what was coming? Did he hurt as much as she did?
Barely aware of the world around her, she pulled open the service door and stepped inside. Zombie like, shuffling and mindless, she followed the narrow corridor towards the locker room.
“Rory,” her sister’s shrill voice called out, but Rory didn’t stop. “Rory! Come in here. We need to talk. This is the umpteenth time this summer that you’ve waltzed in her like you own the place.”
Francie went on and on, and so did Rory until her sister grasped her arm and turned her.
“Rory, you can’t just--” Through the film of tears that covered her eyes, Rory saw her sister draw back in surprise. “What’s wrong? Is it Pa? Is he okay?”
With a shake of her head, Rory tried to twist away, but Francie clamped both hands on her shoulders.
“He’s fine, it’s nothing, it’s just …” She couldn’t get anything else out, and she couldn’t hold in the agony that wailed up her throat from the very depths of her stomach.
Rory lowered her head and clamped her hand over her mouth, but it didn’t do anything to keep in her sob.
Francie sighed, and for the first time since their mother’s funeral, pulled Rory into a hug. “Oh, Rory.”
Chapter Eight
The day after Noah didn’t deserve to exist.
Rory’s legs and feet burned as she peddled hard down the bike lane. She kept her eyes forward. Driven from sleep by the faint smell of him lingering on her pillow, she left the cottage. She stepped onto the deck, made a phone call, and then hauled out her bike.
She fled the sight of his tire tread on the dirt road. God, why couldn’t it have rained to wash the impression away? She rode hard and fast. She didn’t see the green fields dotted with summer homes to her left, or the panorama of blue ocean and red bluffs to her right.
She would look straight ahead and only see the road in front of her. This was how it was going to be until she left this place. She had been weary of her home at the beginning of summer, but she had never hated it. Now she loathed every inch of soil, every grain of sand, and every blade of grass.
She would turn her head only when she reached the end of the line.
If only she knew where that was.
If only he could be at the end of it.
With that devastating thought, she squeezed the brakes and hunched over the handlebars. She turned to stone and she stared down at her worn tires and waited for that burning feeling beneath her skin to pass, and pass it did.
The hard ache wouldn’t be bullied off so easily. It lodged in her chest and weighed her down as she resumed her ride.
A half an hour and six miles later, she was sticky with sweat and sorry she left her water bottle at the cottage. In the parking lot of Garden View, she left her bike at her grandfather’s bumper.
He didn’t wait for her inside. He stood on the porch with Owl at his feet, hands tucked into his dungaree pockets, and watched her approach.
When she reached the top steps, he opened his arms. That was the end. She pushed against his chest and started to sob again.
He led her around the porch to the terrace overlooking the river. Once Rory had stopped crying and settled down, Dawna appeared with two cups of tea and just as quickly disappeared. Rory wiped the cold remnants of her tears from her lashes, then hugged the china mug close to her chest.
“I need to borrow a few hundred more dollars,” she said, her voice shaking. “I quit The White Tip this morning. I’ve … I’ve had enough of working there. I’ve had enough of not getting enough sleep and Francie and … I’ve had enough of everything. I just want to go home with you and start packing.”
The beauty of Cecil Coady was that he just absorbed things. Once Rory finished speaking, he got up from the table and went to the truck. She sat there scratching Owl’s ears, and he returned less than a minute later with the check book he kept in the glove compartment.
“I’ll give it to you. You know I’ll give it to you,” he said as he started to scribble.
She didn’t give him a number. Even if she gave him what she expected to need down to the last penny, he’d still write five-hundred dollars.
When he was finished, he tore the check free and handed it to her, and as she’d stuffed it into her pocket, he sat back and folded his hands across his gut.
Seeing him like that, she suddenly couldn’t wait to be back at his little house just outside of town where he would sit just like that on his own porch and watch the cars passing through.
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
The tears came back instantly. Rory clasped her hands in front of her and pressed her forehead against her knuckles. He said nothing as she sniffled and fought to get her voice back.
She felt unbearably tired as she spoke. “It would be stupid to uproot everything for a man.”
“School in Halifax is as good as school in Moncton.”
“But what if it doesn’t work out? I’ll be there on my own.”
“Since when are you scared of anything? Besides, you’ll be alone in Moncton. What if you hate doing this--what is it?”
“It’s just a course, and what if I do? I can just change to something else, or change my mind and come home.”
“How’s that different from going four hours to Halifax to be with this Noah fellow? You go there, you hate it, you come home, you start all over again. That’s what the boys do when they have to go out west to work. If they don’t like it, they come back. No harm done.”
Rory closed her eyes to keep from rolling them. “Pa, I know what you’re saying, but it’s different having to come home because I pulled up stakes and went to live with my boyfriend in another city. I’d be sick whenever I thought of how stupid I had been.”
He snorted. “Christ, you’re going to make a hell of a lot of stupid mistakes in your life. Every single one is going to make you feel useless. Maybe he’ll turn out to be an arsehole. Maybe not. You won’t know sitting by yourself in a shitty studio apartment in Moncton. You’ll know in Halifax, where he is.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” she croaked and took a gulp of her tea.
“Is it his money?”
“No. It was, when we first met, in a way, but now it’s not. It’s just … you know how it works out here, Pa. Guys like him come up here for the summer, and then when September hits they leave. They go back to their real friends with a bunch of drinking stories and forget all about his place for another year.”
He snorted again. “He spent two hours talking about what he wanted to do with that little spot he bought. Cottages. Vacation houses. Bike tours. Little restaurant. Big plans. Little plans. He could do it anywhere but he’s determined to come back here.
Here
is where he wants to be, and he wants to be
here
because of you.”
“I don’t even know if I want to be here,” she mumbled. “Seems like all I’ve done for the last few years is think about ways to leave. I don’t want to end up like Mom. She got pregnant in high school and that was that.”
“Your mother was a smart cookie.”
“But didn’t she ever want something for herself? When she was little, didn’t she want to be something? And look at Francie. She was going to go to university.”
“You know why Francie’s still here when she could have gone somewhere else?”
“She got knocked up?”
“Why’d she get knocked up? Because she met Linden and decided she wanted to be a family with him. Your sister is a pain in the ass but she’s a hell of a wife and mother. She didn’t do it because she had to, she did it because she wanted to. You think she’s sorry? She’s not sorry. She’s a hard case to deal with, but it’s not because she’s unhappy. She’s where she wants to be. Your mother was where she wanted to be, too. Your father was a fool who got himself killed, but he was a good man and he made her happy for fifteen years. He gave her two daughters, and when she had the two of you she was happier than she’d ever been. She was where she wanted to be.
“My mother was a war bride. She met my father over in England and knew after a day that she’d marry him and come to Canada. She was happy. There’s nothing wrong with following your heart. There’s nothing wrong with being where you want to be, with someone you want more than anything else in the world.” He brought his mug up to his chin. “Where is it you want to be, missy?”
As he took a sip, he gave her the same long sort of look he had given her when she’d refused to let him pay for her entire schooling. It was a look that said he thought she was making a mistake.
God, there were some days that old man made her crazy.
Having it put in simplest terms by an old man in a trucker hat and an arthritic dog at his feet made her feel like a fool. Deep down, this whole scheme of working two jobs and taking off for the mainland had been partially because she didn’t want to end up like Francie or her mother.
It had never occurred to her that Francie was where she wanted to be.
It never occurred to her that her mother had died a happy woman.
As they had sipped their tea in silence, Rory slipped into scatter of thoughts in her head.
Go to Halifax with Noah, face the impending implosion of a heavenly summer fling turned real gritty relationship.
Move in with a guy you’ve known for less than two months.
Take everything you’ve been working for apart and put it back the hard way.
And right there, frothing at the top of this whole bubbling cauldron of what-ifs was the most important question of all that her grandfather tossed in.
Where is it you want to be, missy?
Christ, she knew where she wanted to be. There was never any question of that. With Noah.
The real question was where she should be.
She just didn’t know any more.
“You know,” her grandfather said, rubbing the top of Owl’s head, “for a girl as book smart as you, you can be awfully fucking dumb when it comes to doing things the easy way when you can.”
She stared at him a moment, torn between coming back at him with a retort and accepting his verdict with laughter. The latter won out, and she buried her face in her hand and gave in until her palm was wet with tears.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Your phone broken?”
“I can’t just call him. Besides, he’s already gone.”
He grunted. “Four hours away? The cottage owners do it every weekend. If he can’t come back, you take the bus to him.”
Under the table, she placed her hand over the bump in her pocket where her phone was tucked alongside the check he had given her.
Could it really be as simple as a phone call?
She refused his offer to take her home. She needed the long ride to think things through.
Her mind was one big jumble. All summer she had rigidly clung to her plan of working and then leaving. Beyond that, she had no idea what she had planned for her life. Work her way up in her profession? Meet someone and settle down? Don’t fuck up.
And now, even before she had started, she had the sense that she’d made the biggest fuck-up of all in letting Noah go. She’d known it the moment he told her he was leaving, but she still hadn’t allowed herself to say it.
She still wasn’t sure she could accept it. He said they were different, but he could he know?
How could she know they weren’t?
She didn’t. She was so scared she’d end up somewhere she didn’t want to be that she’d blocked out all other possibilities, including the prospect of being happy with Noah.
Young and stupid, that’s what she was, but she could be young and stupid with him, or just plain young and stupid with a bit of misery thrown in.
She got as far as a set of skid marks on the road. Just two fat lines marking the pavement, but it marked so much more than just that. The day they’d been made, when the driver slammed on his brakes to avoid flattening a bicyclist, everything she thought she knew had changed.
There seemed to be energy in this spot. She could feel it as she sat astride her bike and stared down at them. It was as though a dent had been made in the atmosphere. It was as though this was where clarity was found.
Straddling the bike on her toes, Rory pulled out her phone and dialed. She didn’t know what she wanted to say, except “I love you, and I was wrong.”
It was equal parts frustrating and relieving when his voice mail picked up, not his voice but an automated greeting. The sound of his voice probably would have thrown her completely off balance. When the spiel ended, when the beep alerted her that her time was up, she clutched the phone to her ear and prayed he couldn’t hear the sound of her heart hammering in her chest.
“Hi, it’s Rory. I … I … you’re probably on the road right now or something. The thing is, I need you to call me back as soon as you can.”
She pressed her lips together, speechless until the paralyzing rush of adrenaline left her system. She sucked in a deep breath and just said it.
“I need to be with you. You’re right. Everything else is just details we can work out, but this is … well, you know what this is. I love you, and I want to be with you. Call me. Just, call me.”