“Take your time.” She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “But Delilah? Don’t take too much time. That boy has waited twenty years. It might be nice if he didn’t have to wait much longer.”
“How did you know?” I ask. “That he waited?”
Mom’s smile goes soft. “Because he came into the shop, you know. Every few years. Bought flowers for his father’s grave—lilies, always lilies. And every single time, he asked about you. Where you were. How you were doing. If you were happy.”
My chest aches. “What did you tell him?”
“The truth. That you were in Asheville. That you were working. That I didn’t know if you were happy because you never stayed on the phone long enough for me to ask.” She pauses. “I never told you he came by. I thought it would make things harder. You were trying so hard to move forward,and every time that boy walked through my door with those lilies, I could see he hadn’t moved forward at all.”
“You should have told me.”
“Maybe.” She looks at her hands. “I’ve made a lot of choices I thought were protecting you. Not all of them were right.”
“But you kept the time capsule.”
“I kept the time capsule.” She squeezes my hand again. “Because some stories aren’t over just because someone runs away. Some are just waiting for the right moment to continue.”
I look at the photo strip. At seventeen-year-old me, laughing and in love and so sure that life would be simple.
“Penelope knows,” I say quietly. “About why I left. I told her, back then. She’s going to tell Levi.”
“Then maybe you should tell him first.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“Most brave things are.”
I help Mom unpack her suitcase—she’s staying in the guest room “for a few weeks,” which we both know means until the wedding—and we make dinner together, and we don’t talk about the time capsule or the letters or the tape I haven’t listened to yet.
But later, after she’s gone to bed and Ruffy is snoring atmy feet, I pull out my phone.
My finger hovers over Levi’s name.
I need to tell you something,I type. Then delete it.
We should talk,I try. Delete.
I found something from when we were seventeen.Delete.
Finally, I settle on:My mom showed up early from Florida. She brought something I think you should see. Can we meet tomorrow?
I hit send before I can chicken out.
His response comes thirty seconds later:Is everything okay?
Not sure yet. But I think it could be.
A pause. Then:I’ll be at the coffee shop at 7. Our usual spot.
Our usual spot. Like we have one. Like we’re people who have patterns and routines and a “usual” anything.
Maybe we could be.
See you then,I send.
I set down my phone and look at the metal box, still open on the kitchen table. Twenty years of promises, of running from the one person who said he’d wait.
Third time’s the charm.
