I see nothing else.
This is your existence, Ellen told me.You belong on this stage.Nowhere else.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, the thought doesn’t intimidate me.
I really have needed Iris. Ellen’s been right about that too. I was numb when I arrived here, afraid to let myself feel anything, but in Iris, I’vefelt –fear, grief, happiness, desire, love,so much love– and it’s opened me back up, crumbledmywalls.
Silently, I thank her.
I thank all of them: these ghosts who will never be ghosts, all of them living their own eternity of lifetimes.
Closing my eyes, I place my fingers to the cold window, picturing a dark head, a polka-dot sleeve, and feel a brush of warmth encircling me.
And, in the distance, over above the woods, I hear that hawk, calling.
One final time.
I hadn’t intended to come to the cottage again.
Just as with the attic, it’s felt too hard.
It’s been more than a week since I last sat by this gatepost I crouch beside now. Then, I was still frantically grappling for a way to change the unchangeable, and I had no suspicion when I got up to go that I might be doing it for the last time. I thought I preferred to leave it that way: to have farewelled this place as I found it, without plan, or ceremony.
But I’m happy, now I’m here again, that I gave in to my instinct to come. I’ve grown to love this beautiful, wild, ageless place.
I love it most this morning.
I saw this piece of paper by the gatepost, weighted by a rock, the moment I entered the clearing, and knew instantly who it was from.
I trembled as I bent to pick it up.
I’m trembling now as I read it.
I’ve known about this place for a while,Nick’s written.I came looking for you when you were out walking, a couple of days after everything broke about our son – who, by the way, will always be Louis to me, just like we said we’d call him if he was a boy. I’ve wanted to tell you that, but I’ve been afraid it would make you sad. When I saw you here, crying, all I wanted was to comfort you, but I was afraid then of making you sadder too.
I’ve come here a lot now myself. Done a lot of thinking. I think you’ll come back here today, and if I’m wrong, then you’ll be upset that I left like this, so I’ll call later to explain. But I don’t think I’m wrong. And I didn’t want to talk this morning. We’ve tried talking, and it keeps not working, so I thought it would be easier to write.
Look where that got you with Tim.
I’m not walking away from us. All this week, we’ve been giving Iris and Robbie a second chance, and I’m not about to give up on the possibility of ours. It’s like I keep saying, I’m not interested in easy. Just because something’s hard, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. But you need a rest. We both do. So, can we please take one, pause to breathe, and see where it takes us?
We’ve got time. As much as we want.
Let’s use it.
Shakily, I reach for my phone, and really do need to get back to the house for Phil, but I want to do this first.
I want to do it here.
I don’t call Nick.
Like him, I write.
I’m not giving up either,I tell him, just as I intended to when I raced down from our room to catch him earlier.And I want to be able to breathe again. I want to breathe with you. Let’s take ourselves somewhere good.
It’s a minute before he replies.
I watch my phone, imagining him pulling over, looking down at his screen, not frowning, like I’ve seen him frown at his phone so often lately, but smiling: a slow, warm smile that lifts his face that I love, more than any other.
