ELSIE
The painkillers finally kick in,dulling the throb behind my eyes to a manageable hum. I sit on the edge of the bed with my old favorite quilt pooled in my lap. One of the embroidered stars has come loose. I pinch the silver thread between my fingers, wind it tight, then let it go.
Outside the window, the snow glows that too-bright winter white, crusted hard on top and soft underneath. I should stay inside and focus. There are permits to track down, repairs to note, a mountain of things I could check off. Real progress to make.
Instead, I’m pulling on my boots.
Wells Rourke has spent the past two days alternating between helping me and quietly trying to shove me out the door. But he made me breakfast this morning. Handed over his space heater without being asked. There’s some kindness buried under that stubborn edge, and maybe I want to see a little more of it.
I tug my sleeves straight and glance at myself in the dresser mirror. A yellowed photograph of Blue Willow’s fall festival is still pinned to the frame. My under-eyes are blotchy from another restless night. My sweater’s pilling at the hem. I haven’t felt like myself in months.
Back in Florida, I worked as a speech pathologist at a small clinic outside Ocala. Part-time became full-time, then all-consuming. It was the kind of work you carried home long after hours ended.
College had been hard. Grad school was harder. Practicing as a therapist was worse. I burned out early and never shook the feeling.
When Elspeth passed, I told myself I’d take a short leave. Rest. Recalibrate. But weeks turned into months, my inbox filled with messages I didn’t have the energy to answer, and debt kept climbing like ivy up the walls of my brain.
I left this place to prove I could make it in a world that didn’t always understand me. One where magic didn’t matter, and memory couldn’t sneak up on you in the grocery store. I wanted to build something steady, respectable. A real career.
Instead, I burned out trying. My grandmother warned me, and I didn’t want to hear it. I still don’t know if I can forgive her for being right.
Maybe I’m not cut out to be a speech pathologist, not in the way that job demands. Not with the families, the bureaucracy, the heartbreak. I don’t know if I can keep absorbing other people’s grief without losing parts of myself.
But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t still make it. Somewhere. In some version of the world where comfort doesn’t look like lace curtains and violet soap. If I had more time. If I had a little breathing room—enough money to rest, reset, figure it out.
Quietly, I reach for my warmest coat and head downstairs.
Wells is already by the door, shrugging into his canvas jacket. Sand-colored, scuffed at the seams. Practical. Handsome in a way that annoys me more than it should.
“I’m ready,” I say, “unless you changed your mind.”
He glances over, scrunches up one side of his face. “Not yet.”
“You sure this is worth the trip?”
He opens the door. “Guess we’ll find out.”
The path outside is already half-cleared. The snow has settled overnight, thinner and easier to walk through. Wells doesn’t speak, and neither do I, but at least our boots crunch in time.
I tuck my hands into my coat pockets, unsure what else to do with them. Every step has me second-guessing my pace. Too fast? Too slow? Should I start a conversation or wait for him? My brain spins through options, lining up topics like cue cards.
I want to ask about the Motts and the Winslows. About the cider stand and whether they still sell those gingerbread cookies the size of your face. I want to know who’s stayed, who’s come back, and how many of them remember the girl who used to visit for weekends and summers.
But nostalgia edges too easily toward grief, and I’m not ready to open that door.
So, I keep my eyes forward, boots crunching, heart thudding loud enough to fill the silence. This isn’t a homecoming. It’s a layover. I have to remember that.
When Main Street comes into view, I catch my breath. The old storefronts line the square exactly as I left them, though some have new paint and different signs. “Did she still come down here much?”
“She always liked the market on Saturdays,” he says. “And the orchard in spring.”
A gentler memory stirs. Isla crushing lavender between our fingers behind the cider shed, the sharp scent clinging to our skin for hours. Lying under the mulberry trees, pointing out shapes in the clouds until the sky turned gold.
“I know Elspeth drank her fair share of plum wine.”
“She once tried to convince me it counted as a health tonic.” He makes a strange sound, halfway to a laugh, and glances toward the market square ahead.
We fall quiet again. He’s asking about my grandmother, pulling me down memory lanes I never agreed to walk. I feel like there’s a right way to respond, a script I don’t have. I can’t tell what he wants from me.
