In the photo, Callum is standing alone in front of an old, weathered stone wall with greenery growing over it. He’s wearing a brown knitted sweater tucked into loose-fitting grey trousers. His hands are in his pockets as he poses unassuredly, smiling softly at the camera, but looking more so at the person standing behind it with a glint of humour behind his eyes, which appear brown in this photo but seemed more hazel in the other he’d sent over. He has white skin, chestnut curls trimmed to a perfect length, and a five-o’clock shadow.
I can’t justify why I think this, but I get the sense that he would smell of sun-doused libraries with old oak floors and leather-bound editions kept in pristine condition. His smile, the subtle cheekiness of it, lodged itself into the back of my memory in a way that seemed to blur time. I saw the photofor the first time today, and yet it feels far more familiar to me than that, like a memory I can’t quite place. He’s got an old-school sort of charm, a boyish yet angular face with some sort of gravitational pull.
“Who’s this?” Rhett, my brother-in-law, comes into the frame, smiling as he leans over my sister’s shoulder. “Are you back on the dating apps, G?”
“No, this issomuch better,” Phoebe answers for me. “This is Callum, the guy she’s emailing with about Bonnie’s time capsule. The other grandkid.”
Rhett studies the photo in awe. “Damn ... If his grandma washalfas good looking, then—”
“Nope,” Phoebe and I say in tandem, cutting Rhett off. Phoebe shakes her head at him, making her disgust obvious.
“Oh, whatever,” Rhett says, swiping Phoebe’s wineglass.
“He asked her at the end of his last email if she was single,” Phoebe says, waggling her eyes at her husband suggestively while he takes a drink. “He took one look at her sexy little headshot on her school’s website and said,I want some of that.”
“Okay, relax,” I say, laughing. “He asked if I wasMissorMrs.Anderson, to be respectful. He probably wanted to avoid a misnomer,” I argue, for my sanity’s sake.
“He googled you, G. He saw you were hot and told you to continue stalking him. He then complimented you several more times and asked for your star signs, for crying out loud!”
“This has to be Photoshop,” Rhett whispers, leaning closer to the screen. “Right?”
“Has to be,” I agree, reaching across the counter for my mug of tea. I turn away to take a sip, worried that I’ll spill on my pile of quizzes. “Either way, he’s an ocean away. So, it doesn’treallymatter what his intentions areorwhat he looks like.”
“Well, that shouldn’t matter,” Rhett says, his tone awfully pragmatic.
I stare back at him, visibly confused, as I lift the mug to my lips again. “No?”
“You’ve always wanted to live over there,” he informs me, as if I’ve forgotten.
I set my mug down, smirking in response to his ridiculous insinuation. “So I should, what, flirt with him in an attempt to move halfway across the world? Yeah, okay, Rhett.Sure.”
“I’m just saying it shouldn’t stop you. Teachers can work anywhere. It’s not an impossibility.” Rhett is interesting in the way in which helovesto be contradictory but typically does so, or at least in my case, as a form of encouragement. Rhett and Phoebe met in law school, so arguing comes rather naturally to both of them. They hated each other with fiery passion until, after one late night spent together preparing for a mock trial, they suddenly didn’t. “When I first met you, you were determined to finish college, move to England, and teach creepy British children for a living. It’s, like,allyou talked about back then.”
“Not all British children are creepy, darling,” Phoebe says, patting his cheek as she keeps her stare locked on me. “He watchedThe Shiningfar too young and it sort of messed with his head,” she whispers, as if he’d not hear her.
“Parenthood has made you both even more strange.”
“We’re operating on no sleep and one shared brain cell, be nice,” Phoebe says, taking her wineglass back from her husband.
“But, really, why didn’t you move there?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I slide my gaze between them and the papers on my counter. “Life ... happened. I finished college, Grandma got sick, you guys got engaged, then married, and now Mason’s here and—” I shrug one shoulder. “My whole lifeis here. The idea of living in England was a”—I wave my hand dismissively, finding the right word—“blip.”
“You know what you should do?” Rhett says, clearly ready to state his case. “Use some of the money Bonnie left you to go visit.” Phoebe pouts her lips, tilting her face towards the camera as she seems to consider his proposition on my behalf. “You, Phoebe, and Madi could all go together. You can take the box with you, open it there, with Martha’s family too.”
“And perhaps, while there, you could go on a date with a cute Englishman,” Phoebe says, smiling into her glass.
“You’re both ridiculous.”
“I don’t know if you can tell based on thedeep-purple hue under my eyes, but I need a vacation, G. My demon child refuses to sleep longer than two hours at a time.”
“I am going to tell Mason you called him that someday.”
“Tell him. He should know.”
I open my mouth, then shut it, unsure of what to say. Arguing has never been my strong suit, let alone arguing with two lawyers. I pick up my red pen and continue grading quizzes, keeping my eyes on the paper in front of me.
“Oh, see, now she’s mad at us,” Phoebe teases softly. “She’s gone back into her shell.”
