Chapter 2
Lily
Each time I drove this road it felt like I was driving straight back to him. Years had stacked up between us. Miles too, I assumed. I didn’t come home very often, trying to avoid the memories this place stirred up. There was a hole in my heart that nothing could ever fill. My husband hadn’t filled it; my children can’t even fill it. Will had done his best to help me put the pieces of my life back together, and I had been content with the life we’d made. But Will was dead. And I was headed home to start over.
Then, I couldn’t stand to be here.
But now, there was nowhere else for me to be.
I never thought I would lose him, but I did. I never thought I could be with anyone after him, but I had been. Being a thirty-year-old widow running back to her family was never in my life plan. Yet here I sat, watching the same roads I’d traveled as a kid pass by as I drove back to the beginning. Back to the past I had fought so hard to leave behind.
Funny how what should have been a three-hour trip could turn into five. Time had no meaning for first-graders and babies. We’d already had three pee breaks and a HappyMeal break, I was sick of changing diapers in the car, and if I had to take a walk around another rest stop, I would scream.
“Are we there yet?”echoed in my ears and I couldn’t wait to stop driving. Dylan, my six-year-old, stirred awake in the back seat as the speed limit dropped and I slowed to a crawl as the highway led into town. Sweetbriar, Oregon. The gateway to Mount Hood, population 5249. When I was growing up here, the population had been 5197. This meant there were about fifty-two people who didn’t yet know my business. Memories sprouted up in my head as I passed familiar sights. Some were pleasant, but most I wanted to bury again. Some things never changed, and this town was one of them. I felt like a stranger even though this used to be my home.
“Mommy, look! There is Aunt Violet’s coffee shop. Can we go in and have a smoothie and some cookies? Please, please,please. We’ve been driving forever and my butt is so tired,” Dylan complained from the back seat.
“You know what? My butt is tired too. It’s smoothie time, bud.” I laughed as he let out a whoop.
A break was necessary before facing the rest of my family. My big sister Violet was the least intrusive of the whole lot of them. Or maybe she was more subtle about it. When you grow up as one of eight siblings, you learn that privacy is a luxury you will never have. Plus, my mother was the queen of all pushy, in-your-face mothers throughout the land. Luckily, my dad was mellow enough to balance us all out and keep the peace. I turned my SUV into the parking lot and pulled into a spot right in front of Vi’s shop.
Violet spotted me from the window and rushed out, arms waving crazily in the air with her brunette waves flying out behind her.
“Lily, yay! You’re finally here! Where are my babies?” She ran right past me to the back, opened the door before Dylan had even had a chance to unbuckle, and peppered his cheeks with kisses as he giggled. “Dylan! I’ve missed you, little bug.”She pulled him from the car and wrapped him up in a huge hug. “Today is snickerdoodle day, and I have a big one with your name on it. Go on inside. Grandpa is sitting on the big couch, and Finn and Nick are working at the counter.”
Dylan had a major sweet tooth; she didn’t have to tell him twice. He took off like a shot into the store with a huge smile plastered on his face.
“Hey, Vi,” I said as I lifted Calla from her car seat.
“Ooh, Lily! Give me that baby,” she demanded, rushing around the car to snatch her from my arms. Violet had two kids of her own—sixteen-year-old twins, the aforementioned Finn and Nick.
“Aunt Violet has presents for you, you sweet little thing,” she crooned, laughing as Calla wrapped Vi’s hair into her drooly little fist and pulled. “Look how much she’s grown already. It seems like only yesterday we were in the hospital. She has her daddy’s green eyes and your red hair. I bet she’ll get your freckles too. She’s so cute I can’t stand it!” Her face turned wistful. “God, Lily, before you know it, instead of pulling hair and drooling, she’ll be driving around in your car, asking for money and sneaking in after curfew.”
“I missed you, Violet,” I said, pulling her in for a side hug. Nostalgia kicked me in the gut as she wrapped an arm around my shoulder. Hopefully coming home would turn out to be a good thing.
She leaned into me and kissed my cheek with a loud smack. “You’re going to get sick of this face. I want you to work with me here in my shop until summer vacation is over and you start your job at the school. I already asked and Mom will babysit.” She took in my dubious expression. “Don’t bother arguing. You need to get out of the house and get your life back. You need to be social, Lily. It will just be for a few hours in the mornings. Say yes, please?”
Violet’s coffee shop—simply calledViolet’s—was the nexus of this town. Mornings were always chaotic because everyonein Sweetbriar came here for their coffee. In the ten years since she’d bought the place, she’d turned it from an average, nondescript coffee shop into a hotbed of gossip and social activity unparalleled anywhere else in town. Working here would be like diving right back into being “social” on the first morning. Nope. No thanks.
I had a whole lot of brooding and being alone with my thoughts planned for this summer, and I wanted to stick to that. When school started this fall, I would take over as the librarian at Sweetbriar Grade School, the same school I attended as a child. My identical twin sister Rose taught kindergarten there, which was great, but I could already see the privacy I’d enjoyed while living out of town start to disappear.
“What? I can’t work here. I have a baby. I’m nursing.” My argument was halfhearted because I knew it would end up being fruitless... and I also sort of wanted to do it.
Her lips twisted to the side as she scoffed at my attempt at an excuse. “I know you pump too. If Calla needs you, Mom will drive her over. You need to get out of the house. You were cooped up on bed rest for months, then you were all alone living the hermit life up in Tacoma. Calla is six months old. She’ll be fine with Mom. All babies love her, you know that.” She pointed at my face with a cajoling grin. Calla grabbed her finger and giggled. “Plus, it will give us time to chat and catch up. I missed you.”
“Oh, all right.” I caved like I almost always did when it came to my family. Plus, Violet was beautiful and funny and being around her always cheered me up and I needed huge amounts of cheer. I was sick of being sad.
“I’m glad you stopped here first. There’s something we need to tell you, and it will be easier to hear it from just me and Dad first, rather than the whole family.” She chuckled nervously.
Why did that sound so ominous?
I followed her inside to find Dylan perched at one of the high tables near the counter, his face covered in chocolate frosting. I cringed as he dunked a snickerdoodle into a huge glass of chocolate milk with his entire hand. “Finn gave me a brownie and a snickerdoodle. I couldn’t decide, so he gave me both! I love it here!”
I shook my head. “Dylan, your chocolate face matches your chocolate-covered eyeballs.” I always teased him about his big, brown eyes—eyes that look just like his father’s.
“I think he got more frosting on his face than in his mouth, Aunt Lily.” Nick laughed as I hugged him.
“Hey, Finn, come over here and give me hugs too.”
