8
It was dark when they finally reached Miramar’s outskirts. Traffic was heavy in the other direction, a long stream of headlights heading out while the roads remained open. For Olivia, the return journey held a calmness that defied all the concerns binding them to this place and season.
Much of the town remained blacked out, even the streetlights were off. She saw several power company trucks and workers high up in their cherry-pickers. She had nowhere else to live except the jail. No place where she might stay and recover. These were very real concerns. Just the same, it felt so good to sit with her back against the side door, shoes off, legs up on the seat, chin resting on her knees. Like she had so very many times before. In the era she thought lost and gone forever.
She asked, “You never married?”
“Year before last I got engaged. Great lady. It didn’t take.” He took it slow around a rubble-strewn curve. “She wanted what I couldn’t give her.”
“What was that?”
“A husband.” He flashed her an almost-smile. “I was working crazy hours, traveling all over the place, sizing up new investments, everything it took to help my tiny little egg of a company hatch and grow wings.”
She had a crazy thought, one definitely best left unsaid. How he had suffered through his own version of a miscarriage. She needed to say something, and came up with, “You would have been a great boss.”
He pulled up to a small crossroads, the darkened streetlight dangling overhead. He looked at her, started to speak, then something beyond her window caught Dillon’s eye. “Get a load of that.”
She lowered her feet, turned, and said, “Oh, Dillon.”
The single-story ranch was surrounded by Christmas. Only the lights were out, and the front yard’s trees danced in the wind. The sleigh and reindeer bounding across the roof were mere shadows. Ditto for the tall candy canes and figurines filling the yard.
Instead, every window held candles.
Dozens of them glowed and flickered in silent defiance of the night.
Olivia reached for his hand.
They sat like that for a long moment, until the car behind them beeped softly. A quick, almost apologetic tap. The sound of another traveler touched by what they saw.
Dillon released her hand and drove on. “Now I remember what it feels like.”
“What?”
“Something I thought I’d left behind,” he replied. He continued in silence until they pulled into the station lot. Dillon cut the engine, then finished, “Hope.”
* * *
Dillon entered the station long enough to thank Porter for the loan, then together they walked to the Ocean Avenue Grill. A heavy cloud cover glinted copper from the streetlights still working. To the west, the Pacific rumbled like a coming storm. They entered by the kitchen door, sat on stools behind the larder, and devoured the day’s simple fare.
As they finished eating, Dillon told her about Porter wanting a family portrait. And Maud and Ryan asking as well. Olivia found it necessary to swallow hard before replying, “I would like that more than anything.”
“Maud and Ryan can definitely wait,” Dillon continued. “But Porter’s daughter is leaving tomorrow for school.”
“Tomorrow is fine.” Another hard swallow. “I run away as hard and fast as I can get. I come back, thinking I’m totally defeated. And I’m greeted by a ruined house, a jail cell for a bed, and the first faint glimmer of a dream come true.”
Dillon studied her in silence.
“What?”
He shook his head. “I’m happy for you.”
Olivia did not press. As they departed, Olivia hugged Claire and pretended to ignore her friend smirking over seeing the two of them together.
On the way back to the station, Olivia said, “Maybe it’s time you give me a fuller picture of the cottage.”
Dillon’s response was calmly apologetic. Not so much offhand as preoccupied. He described the loose foundations, the damaged retaining wall, the stripped kitchen, the broken glass. His casual manner helped her accept the news.
When he finished, she repeated what she had said on the road. “I don’t have the funds to put things right.”
