“Yes.”
Jake was standing so close his hand brushed Faith’s, and her stomach did a little twirl. He didn’t seem to notice their proximity. He took a step toward the door. “Do you need anything else before I go?”
“No, Jake. Thank you so much.”
He offered his perfect smile and said goodbye, his eyes fluttering over to Faith momentarily and then away. Then, he turned around and headed toward the door. She wanted to run after him and ask him to stay but she watched him let himself out instead.
“I was going to look through these photos,” Nan said.
“I want to look at them with you, but I have to check on Casey.”
“Yes. Do that first. You know I’ll still be here,” she said with a wink.
Faith nodded and went down the hall to Casey’s door. She knocked twice and then let herself in. Casey was face down in the pillow, the covers yanked up around her. Gently, Faith lowered herself down onto the edge of the bed. She waited. She waited for Casey to cry a little, sit up, tell her what was bothering her, and get on with the day. That was how Casey operated. But this time, as Faith sat there—the blinds drawn, the room dark, the only light coming from the screensaver on Casey’s laptop—Casey didn’t move. She cried silent sobs—big and heaving—and she didn’t stir one bit.
Faith rubbed her back.
“He sent my list to his attorney,” Casey said into her pillow, the words broken by her sobs. “They want to meet when we get back.” She started to cry again, louder. “I don’t want this,” she said as she sat up and faced Faith. “I want to be with Scott. I miss him.”
“Do you think he misses you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve never asked him?”
“I think the divorce proceedings speak on his behalf. He isn’t interested in being with me.” She sobbed again.
For the first time ever, Casey seemed lost. She didn’t look sure of herself like she always had. She looked nervous, defeated, sad, and vulnerable. It was an unexpected sight, and Faith wasn’t sure how to handle it. The only thing she knew was that she had to be the strong one; she had to work Casey through this. Faith felt the loss deep within her chest. She ached for her sister. She knew what it was like to love Scott, and she knew what it was like to lose him. She could only imagine what it was like to lose him after experiencing his love in return. Casey and Scott had created a family together, they’d made a life, and they’d become one unit. Now that unit was broken. And so was Casey.
Faith couldn’t say it would be okay, because she didn’t know if it would be. She knew there was nothing to do but bear this pain with her sister because there was no way to make it any better. She looked at Casey, tears spilling over the rims of her sister’s eyes. Casey had always been so confident that now, when faced with something like this, she didn’t know how to cope, but Faith did.
“Reach out to him and talk to him. Tell him how you feel. He might not realize you still love him, and I’m sure he wouldn’t throw all of this away if he knew,” she said carefully. She wanted to get the words just right. “But if it doesn’t work out, you’ll learn how to manage without him. Then, you’ll learn how to be happy without him. And, eventually, he will become a memory like one of Nan’s photos—something great that you had for a little while but that you couldn’t keep. Remember our cottage? We had a lot of good memories there, but a storm came—one that wrecked it so badly that it couldn’t recover—and now it’s a memory. The good thing is that we get to keep all those memories and we can think back on them whenever we want to. Life moves forward whether we want it to or not. You are resilient. It hurts. But you’ll figure it out.”
They sat in silence for quite a while. Casey’s sobs subsided, and she sat up. She asked, “Where’s Isabella?”
“Mom’s got her. They’re decorating her sandcastle.”
Casey stood up and ran her fingers through her hair. “I’m going to get myself ready, and then I’ll go down with her. You know what?” she asked as Faith reached for the doorknob. “There is a quiet determination to her. You’ve always had it too; I’d just never taken the time to see it until now. Thank you for being there. I’ve never said that, but thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She shut the door behind her and went to find Nan.
Nan was sitting in her chair where Faith had left her, a pile of photos in her lap. They were sliding around a little on the baby blue afghan she had draped across her legs. She caught a runaway photo with her hand just as Faith sat down on the floor beside her. She turned it around to show Faith.
“This was when I was twenty.”
Faith looked more closely at the photo of two women wearing dresses with fitted waists, heels, and handbags dangling from the crooks of their arms. Their skin was milky white as if it had been airbrushed, both of them so beautiful that she couldn’t believe one of them was actually her nan. She could’ve been a model. Nan had always been lovely, but she saw her differently now. She was a woman with fears, losses, victories… Faith wanted to find out more about the woman Nan had been, what she’d been through in her life, what she’d endured. She realized that she should have done this sooner but there was nothing she could do to change that. She’d just make the most of it now.
“This one’s you, right?” Faith pointed to the woman on the left in the photo.
“Yes. And the other woman is Clara. She was twenty-three. It was the last photo taken of her.”
It was clear that the two women were sisters, not only because they favored each other, but it was the way they were standing together, their affection for one another evident. “What happened?”
“She died in an accident.” Nan shifted in her seat, wincing a little. It seemed to be her hip. She moved around until she looked relaxed. “Her train derailed. We don’t know, to this day, where she was headed. I should’ve known, but I wasn’t speaking to her.”
What must it have been like to lose a sister? “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Why weren’t you speaking to her?”
“She’d told me that she didn’t think John and I were right for each other. He was known as a sort of playboy, you see. What Clara didn’t know, though, was that John told me that the minute he met me, he knew he didn’t want to be with anyone else. We understood each other in a way that many people don’t. It’s a rare thing to find someone who you can spend your years with who makes you so excited every day that you can hardly believe how lucky you are. I found that with John, and the fact that Clara wouldn’t accept him had offended me.”
