I didn’t linger. My driver, a lovely old man called Joseph who held his belly when he laughed and talked just like my Uncle Vern used to, took me to all the places on the list, plus some extras I asked to see along the way. The apartment building Mama and I used to live in was gone, turned into fancy offices now. But the library was still there. My favorite fish and chip shop stood just as I remembered, though it looked smaller by half.
Finally, we stopped at the cemetery outside town, where I stood, for the first time, at Mama’s grave. There were flowers there, fresh and crisp roses. Two dozen of them, at least.
Mitchell.
Joseph had given me a folding chair, a thermal blanket, and a thermos of hot chocolate he said he’d been saving for this stop. After I was able to find my voice again, I thanked him, and said he could come back to get me in a couple of hours.
I stayed there all afternoon. And I told Mama everything.
I told her all about Quince Valley, about her sons Ryan and Calvin and how grown up they were now. How they’d come home for Christmas just a few weeks ago and they did all the cooking for me.
I told her I was going to see Uncle Vern tomorrow at his care home, and I told her one day, I’d tell her all about the man I’d met who brought me here.
“His name is Mitchell, Mama, and he’s one of the good ones. I think you’d actually love him.” I swallowed. “I just didn’t get to keep him, that was all.”
I thought of the phone call we’d had on Christmas Eve, how I thought we could keep up a friendship, but the pain of it was too much to bear. “Just take the trip,” Mitchell told me. “And if you don’t want to talk to me after that, I’ll respect your decision.”
A wind whirled through the naked branches of the trees dotting the cemetery, whipping up snow into dazzling stars. While I knew it was the season for it, I thought, for a moment, it was her.
It wasn’t until I was in the car going back into town that I cried.
After freshening up in the hotel, my last stop was a restaurant down by the waterfront, with a view onto St. John’s harbor. I’d put on a green dress I’d found hanging in the closet. Another one of the gifts left for me; the color of Mitchell’s eyes.
My chest had gone tight when I tried it on, and I thought stupid thoughts likeMitchell never saw me in a green dress. But I wore it anyway, feeling in some small part like he was here with me just like Mama had been.
Just for tonight.
The rain had held off all day, but began to come down now, pecking at the glass as I sat at a seat by the plate glass window. The server came by to light the candle on my table.
“Thank you,” I said, looking outside, where cars and people passed like this was an ordinary day, when for me I’d both had my soul wrecked and filled at once.
When I turned back inside, intending to pull out a book, I froze. There was an envelope on the table before me, my name on the cream-colored paper in a familiar looped script.
My heart pitched.
For a moment, I searched the restaurant, scanning all the tables, breathless, before remembering just as quickly that he knew my itinerary, start to finish.
My heart settled down, but only a little as I flipped the envelope around. As I tore the seal, I couldn’t helpremember that moment in the woods, when my heart had beat with anticipation so taut I could hardly breathe. I felt almost the same, even though tonight would bring me only a beautiful meal and a soft bed on my own.
The card was clearly made by the same artist as the one in the woods. Just like the one before, it was an intricately-carved woodcut of a castle. Only this time, the image looked not menacing, but bright and full of promise. The sun rose in the hills behind the turrets, and a rosebush bloomed.
My heart squeezed almost painfully.
I flipped the card open. Just like the last one, the words were sparse.
This time, there were two words.
Look up.
I jerked my face up, looking around the room once more. There were couples everywhere, diners chatting, the clinking of forks and knives, but no serious-looking men sitting alone, not even up at the bar.
My heart thundered. I willed myself to remember this could be something else. A bouquet somewhere maybe. Another gift that was sweet and thoughtful but paled when compared to what I really wanted, with my whole being.
WhoI really wanted.
Giggles erupted from the table next to me. “Oh my God,” said one of the women there. “I think he’s the guy from that show!”
I followed their gaze out the window, across the street. There, a man in a suit leaned against the door of a shiny black car. He was impossibly gorgeous. He wore a trimmed beard, and his hair was slicked back. He wasn’t smiling—he looked serious. Anxious.
