Cece,
Happy birthday, my beautiful girl! I’m writing this to you from a bench outside the pharmacy while you soak up a bit more sun at the beach. It’s hard to blame you—what a gorgeous week we’ve had down here this year!
Sixteen. Can you believe it? Not quite a child anymore, but not quite a grown-up yet, either. Just ... you. Which, if you ask me, is the most perfect thing for you to be. I hope that no matter what life hands you, my love, that you’ll always remember the happy, curious, endlessly empathetic, and intuitive person you are today and try as best you can to keep her close. She’s someone special and worth knowing. Someone who, even as you get older, is worth keeping around as a friend.
My wish for you this year is a simple one: that you always find a way to stay as happy as you are today. Not because life will always be kind to you (it won’t be), but because you can always be kind to yourself ... even on the hard days.
I hope you like your gift. It’s small, nothing fancy. I had it made for you at that shop we love. You know the place, the one with all the shells and wind chimes. Just a little something for you to wear as a reminder of the individual you are today.
Happiest of birthdays, my girl. May all your dreams come true today, next year, and always.
My love forever,
Mom
Grace reads the letter a second and then a third time, letting the words echo in her mind until she’s nearly committed them to memory. When she’s ready, instead of sliding it back into the envelope and putting it inside a box, she keeps it out, leaving it propped open on an end table, just like she would have if Birdie were here to give her a new birthday card this year.
She’s done enough for today. Grace picks up the remote and allows herself to sink deeper into the couch. She clicks up the volume and then watches the movie, even though it’s already halfway through. On thescreen, two people kiss on a snowy street, the town twinkling, like the world dressed itself up just for them.
As always, Grace already knows the ending. There’ll be a fight. A big obstacle. A crossroads. A bakery or a town fundraiser or a Christmas tree farm in peril. A necessary choice. Before the final credits roll onto the screen, they’ll figure out a way to make things work. The whole plot will tie up neat and tidy. The actors will all wear smiles on their faces in the final scene. Grace laughs softly to herself as she watches it, not because the movie is any good, but because it’s familiar.
The music swells. There’s a big, dramatic moment.
Don’t worry. They’ll find their happily ever after,she can almost hear her mother say.Just wait and watch until the end.
And even though there’s no one else here in this house with her—at least, no one that she can see—for the first time in as long as she can remember, Grace is alone but not lonely.
She’s content just to sit in the quiet of it.
Thirty-Two
One Week Later
The restaurant is flooded with sunlight. Pools of it pour through the large industrial windows that look out onto Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood and cast shapes across the tiled floor. It’s midday on a Wednesday, though most of the tables are empty. Tomorrow marks the start of the long holiday weekend, the last leisurely stretch of summer before a new season begins.
“I don’t understand.” Mollie’s lips are tight. “Are we talking a few pages?” She tilts her face. “A couple chapters?” She holds her water glass, like she needs to physically touch something cold to cool herself down. “How much do you still need to write?”
“All of it.” Grace’s tone is neither emotional nor smug. For once, she just states it for what it is: the truth. “The whole thing.”
Mollie sets down her glass. “This is bad, Grace,” she states, as if this fact needs to be stated, like her comment is a nice wine that requires a bit of time out in the air so it can breathe. “You’re under contract. There are production schedules. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that you’ve already been paid. They were pretty clear the last time around that they couldn’t just keep pushing the deadline back.”
“I know,” Grace says as their waiter approaches the table and offers them each a leatherbound menu. “I’m fully aware of the consequences.”
“Then I’m confused.” Mollie sets down her menu, not even bothering to open it. “What are you asking for? Do you need more time or—”
“Nothing,” Grace admits. “I’m genuinely not asking for anything.” She smooths the front of her maxi dress, the fabric noticeably a bit tighter near her waist than it was a few seasons ago. “I’m going to walk away from the contract. Start over. I’ll pay everything back.”
Mollie pinches the bridge of her nose, then briefly closes and reopens her eyes. “Grace, you know if you do this, they’re not going to work with you again in the future, right?”
Grace nods. Over the last few days, she’s reminded herself of this most important detail numerous times. “I do.” She sets her palms on her thighs like they’re anchors. “And I also understand that, after a move like this, it’s more than likely that you’ll choose to part ways with me, too.”
Mollie sighs heavily. “Look. I know the past year hasn’t been kind to you—these last few months especially. But business is business. Once I put the wheels on this in motion, Grace, I’m not going to be able to go back.”
“I know.” Grace straightens her posture, sure to say this next part with all the certainty and confidence she feels surrounding it. “But even if they gave me another extension—gave me another year or all the time in the world—I still wouldn’t be able to write it for them.” The waiter sets down a breadbasket no one will touch, Grace already aware that their meal is coming to an end before it’s had a chance to start. “I’m not the same person I was the day I signed that contract, Mollie. The story I wanted to tell back then, it just doesn’t work anymore.”
“Well, what story is it you want to write today?” Mollie asks, her expression suggesting that she’s genuinely interested in Grace’s response. “Do you have something else in mind that you can put together quickly and maybe we can try to spin into—”
“I don’t,” Grace tells her, the thought both scary and freeing. To not have a plan. A vision. A mental blueprint. A neat and tidy picturein mind for how everything’s supposed to go. “I’m not sure that I will for a little while.”
