“I’ll see you then,” I say.
She joins Gilcrest and clasps his hand in hers, dragging him toward the door. He catches my eye. “Charlie Kilgore,” he shouts. “My man!”
I hate to admit it, but something tells me Gilcrest and I might wind up being friends.
My father pats my back. “Freya’s like me,” he says. “In the third act, looking backward, wondering what she could have done differently, asking what she still has time to accomplish. You have your whole life in front of you, with plenty of room to make mistakes. Find someone to make those mistakes with.”
It takes a moment for me to realize my father’s offering advice on my love life, that he thinks Freya’s left me brokenhearted. I don’t correct him. There’s a comfort in his offer. The advice feels fatherly and honest, as though we’re both on the inside being seen.
I could get used to this.
When I get home to Idlewood, Seton waits for me in one of the Adirondack chairs on the dock. She wears that same boxy uniform I saw her in the first day I drove into town. I slide onto the chair next to her.
“Want a drink?” I ask, resting a hand over hers.
“I’m on duty, you idiot,” she says, but she doesn’t take her hand from mine.
“Are you here to arrest me?” I ask.
“Consider this a wellness check. You’re out here all by yourself. Why not ask your dad to stay with you?”
“Soon,” I say. “Once we know each other better.”
Seton scans the cove. “What will you do with Idlewood now?” she asks.
“I can’t afford to keep it.”
“You’re selling?”
“Not in a million years. I’m donating it to the town. I’ll hang on to this dock so I have a place to keep the boat, and enough property to, I don’t know, have a firepit. Otherwise, I’ll stay in the bungalow.”
“It’s not a bungalow!” Seton says. “And that’s a lot of money to pass on.”
“Who needs money?”
Seton squeezes my hand. “I’m glad you figured out what happened to my dad. I didn’t realize I needed closure till I had it. The whole thing has been healing, in a way I never could have imagined. Thanks for pushing when I told you not to.”
In the two weeks since Paul’s arrest, that imaginary wall between us has begun to dissolve. What’s on the other side is taking shape, but I’m looking forward to finding out what’s there. For that to happen, I need to be honest about the side of myself I saw on that mountaintop, a side that scared me. “I almost shot Paul that night,” I say.
“You didn’t, though,” Seton says.
“If you hadn’t shown up—”
She takes my hand to her mouth and kisses my fingers. “Do you mind?” she asks.
I close my eyes and rest my forehead on hers. Our lips nearly brush. “Not at all,” I say.
“I did show up, though,” she says, her voice soft, “and once I was there, I’d have shot you in the leg before I’d have let you do anything to ruin your life. But I didn’t need to be there to save you. There’s a difference between wanting to kill someone and following through. I want to shoot my mom ten times a day, but I wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t kill anyone, either. You don’t have it in you.”
The radio on her shoulder chirps, something about two free-roaming Rhodesian ridgebacks out on Sheridan Road. “That’s Juna and Autumn,” she says. “Off on an adventure.”
I take her hand to my lips and kiss each of her fingers. “You should probably find out where they went.”
“I should,” Seton says without moving, but I sense her pulling away.
“Are we back to the friend zone?” I ask.
She turns to face the water, her body hunched forward. “I came here for another reason. I had the DNA from the pint glass tested.”
