As with most things in her life, it was past time for an update. Everything—house included—needed a refresh. Her childhood home was trapped in a thirty-year-old design style chosen by her flippant mother and her acquiescent father. She had the inheritance money to make changes, but she hadn’t removed a single itemfrom the house for no other reason than she, too, was chained to the past.
Stella cried out when her comb grazed over the golf ball–size lump on the back of her head. She smoothed styling gel through her curls and decided to let her hair air dry. Back in her room, she pulled on a pair of linen shorts and a yellow cotton blouse. Out of nothing but habit, she clasped a daisy pendant necklace around her neck. It had been a gift from her mother on her sixth birthday—a goodbye gift, even though no one in the family knew she was leaving yet. Stella recalled how long the necklace chain had been at the time, more suited for an adult than a child. Her mother said she’d grow into it. Had she also expected Stella to grow into the acceptance that her mother had left their family?
Stella didn’t know why she still wore the necklace like a talisman that might somehow call her mother back to her. So far, it was nothing but an infrequent reminder that her mother had better things to do than raise a family.
In the kitchen, she chased two aspirin with a large glass of water. While the single-cup coffee maker started to brew, she sagged onto the sofa. Barely a minute later, the coffee maker released a hiss of steam and plopped the last few dark drops into her cup. She grabbed it and dumped in two sugar packets and a splash of milk before returning to the sofa.
Summer heat pressed against the window, causing the air conditioner to create condensation like pearls of sparkling dew across the lower half of the panes. A mental image of the strangers in the archives triggered a memory of the vivid purple words rising through the circulation desk. Her chest spasmed, and Stella jolted upright on the couch, nearly spilling her coffee.
“The words,” she blurted. She’d come home half out of it because of the headache and had completely forgotten.
Stella found her journal and purple pen where she’d left them on the kitchen counter. She took a quick sip of her coffee and flipped to the page with the wordsI fell in. She hesitated, remembering the words she needed to add, and then frowned. She uncapped the pen and wrotelove once.
“I fell in love once,” she said to no one, and the lines on her forehead deepened. “And it was a mess.” She slammed the journal shut. “Thanks for the brutal reminder. As if I needed it.”
She stood in the kitchen drinking her coffee, not wanting to relax on the couch because she wouldn’t relax. Not with her mind annoyingly zigzagging between the weird night with Arnie in the archives and the painful purple words that appeared without warning and without clarity. What did they want? What message was she obviously missing?
Toss in the burned journal full of words of love, despair, and loneliness, combined with the realization that she was still hung up on her exon purpose,and could a day start any worse?
Her cell phone dinged with a text from an unknown number.Hi! I heard you were in the market to sell your house. I know we can fetch a great price. Call or text me at this number, and let’s make a deal! Carla
Stella gritted her teeth. Percy. He had to be behind these Realtors sharking around her, intent on selling their home. Why didn’t he care about where they grew up? Why was he so willing to get rid of their memories?Howwas it so easy for him to move on?
She glanced around the outdated kitchen. If she closed her eyes, she could picture her dad sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading yesterday’s paper, giving her the highlights she wasn’t the least bit interested in at the time. Now she’d sell her first edition ofGone with the Windjust to hear his voice again. Loneliness expanded around her, nearly swallowing her. She pressed her hands against her chest, her lungs protesting when she inhaled.
She dumped out her coffee and put the mug in the dishwasher. Then she dropped a few handfuls of Froot Loops into a zip-top plastic bag. She grabbed her purse and noticed her worn copy ofBeyond the Southern Horizonon the counter. Just seeing it swelled her heart again with longing for her dad. It was one of his favorite historical fiction WWII books, and he must have read it a hundred times.
She picked up the book and pressed it against her chest, hugging it because she couldn’t hug her dad. He used to tell Percy and Stella the heroic tale of Jack Mathis as though the American soldier had been a family member. Because of the way her dad described Jack and his achievements, Stella had grown up having a crush on a fictional man. The grainy black-and-white photos of Jack included in the pages to add a more realistic flair to the novel had only cemented her adoration because Jack was undeniably handsome, and he had set the bar for the kind of man Stella was searching for. An impossible hunt so far.
Jack Mathis’s fictional story had been inspired by a real-life, local war hero born in 1919 in Blue Sky Valley who died in the Second World War during the Battle of the Bulge. The real soldier was said to have been named Johnny Moore, and he had sacrificed himself to save four soldiers in his unit when they were attacked by a German spy hiding in their ranks.
The author ofBeyond the Southern Horizonhad taken quite a bit of creative license with his version of the events. Jack Mathis had cataloged his squad’s journey, written about their highs and lows, detailed their loves and fears, and penned his own poetry in journals while he was stationed overseas. The story went that after Jack’s untimely death, one of his men retrieved his journals and took them back to the States upon his return. Afterward, a historian happened upon the journals and crafted a detailed novel about a hero he never wanted forgotten.
Stella understood that the few photographs inside the book weren’t authentic and were most likely of a model dressed in period garb. But to Stella, the soldier in the photos was the ideal man, a swoon-worthy hero. Jack watched the world with his steady gaze and pale eyes, and Stella had often daydreamed about his eyes looking toward her.
She flipped open the book to a photograph and rubbed her thumb over the image. When had she stopped believing that finding a man like Jack was realistic? Years ago, probably. Long before Wade. Even though it presently annoyed her, she couldn’t deny there was still a tiny whisper of hope that real love could be found. The stack of happily-ever-after novels on her TBR proved she hadn’t quite given up. Could she find a man like Jack one day? Someone who would make promises and keep them?
Stella could blame her dad for introducing her to a fictional man with no equal in the real world, but lovingBeyond the Southern Horizonand Jack connected her with her dad, and that bond was life-giving. She slipped the book into her purse and grabbed the half-filled journal and pen before she drove across town to the library.
Blue Sky Valley bustled with early morning activity. Kids dressed in brightly colored bathing suits leaped in and out of a lawn sprinkler that waved through the air like a rainbow of water. She envied their freedom, their laughter. When was the last time she laughed so easily, the last time she didn’t feel weighed down by her own heaviness? Frost Bites, the downtown ice cream shop, turned on its neon-pink Open sign, and Beau Anderson stepped out on the sidewalk to roll out the blue-and-white-striped awning. The temperature already soared above ninety degrees, and the shop would be full of patrons by midmorning.
Once she arrived at the library, Stella tossed her purse into a bottom drawer tucked beneath the circulation desk. She willed herselfout of the lingering funk. This pattern of dragging herself through life, living the same day on repeat with Eeyore-worthy gloom always threatening, was tiresome.
A wholly more interesting way to spend the day was to start figuring out what was going on. She wondered if there would be an opening to talk to Arnie about what happened last night in the archives. Even though he insisted she’d knocked herself silly, the “vision” seemed too real, too authentic to be a hallucination or dream. As Stella walked the main floor, popping Froot Loops into her mouth, she found Arnie in the folk and fairy tales section near the front of the library.
His blue button-down shirt was neatly pressed and tucked into gray slacks. His gray-white hair was neatly combed and parted, and his black glasses matched his polished shoes that shone in the morning light. Arnie dressed like a man better suited for a lawyer’s office or a corporate job. He had told Stella on numerous occasions that one secret to not looking like a frail old man was not to dress like one. No one would call Arnie frail or old. For a sixty-eight-year-old head librarian, Arnie looked anything but worn out and feeble, and he was the best-dressed man she knew. He was also the most intelligent.
He shelved an oversize copy of Edith Hamilton’sMythologybound in navy-blue leather. “Morning, sunshine. How’s the concussion?” He cocked his head at her as if daring her to lie about how she really felt.
Stella shrugged and avoided his steady gaze. “I’ve had worse days, but it hurts like the dickens.” She motioned toward the back of her head.
“No permanent damage, I hope?”
She pushed her damp hair behind her shoulders and rubbed the back of her neck. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
“How’s the heart?” he asked, his voice gentle and wrapped in kindness.
So much for avoiding conversations that rekindled the sadness. Arnie’s concern was sincere and valid. Her heart had taken more of a beating than the cracking she’d given her skull. “Still there, but wishing it was shriveled and charred and lifeless.”
