My lips part in surprise. I had no idea Sabine’s mom died. She doesn’t owe me this personal information, but it’s kind of her to offer.
I learned early on everyone moves forward with their lives even if it feels like yours has stopped. When I returned to Ivernia, I thought,Everything is so normal.And why wouldn’t it be?
“Thank you,” I tell her. “I feel so…”
“Adrift?” she suggests.
A corner of my mouth lifts. “Exactly.”
“I did speech and debate with Jared and remember him mentioning you grew up here—and your dad also taught here, right?” At my nod, she continues. “I could tell from his stories that you all loved this place.”
Ivernia has always been such an integral part of me because it was such an integral part of my dad. When he was in his early thirties, he wanted to get out of the competitive world of astrophysics research at Cornell and found a school seeking an astronomy instructor. Three years later, this is where he met my mother.
She was a substitute teacher at the time, working her way through graduate school, where she’d go on to earn her master’s in library and information science. Her path shouldn’t have crossed with his—until she’d accidentally entered the wrong classroom. She was meant to substitute for a ninth-grade honorsEnglish class, but there he was, an astronomy instructor so captivated that, every time he recalled the story, he’d say in the most enraptured tone, “It felt as though, in that very moment, the earth stopped rotating. She was aforce.”
They hit it off right away. He sat with her in the dining hall during lunch breaks and discovered she was covering for Mrs.Gupta’s class for a few days. By the end of her stay, his crush was so obvious, sheknewhe was going to ask her to dinner. And since she was equally enamored, she’d already planned on saying yes.
Once things became more serious and my mother finished graduate school, she moved in with him into off-campus housing and searched for librarian positions, eventually accepting one in Burlington. Several months later he proposed to her on the banks of Ivernia’s lake.
Lake Placid was my first home. We grew up exploring the woods and hiking trails and walking the jogging loop around campus, so of course officially attending Ivernia School sparked Jared’s interest first. We missed it here. And because I wanted to do everything Jared did, Ivernia became my goal too.
He was the first to get accepted with a partial scholarship. A year later, when it was my turn to apply, I dedicated months of my life to perfecting my application. Not only did I have to get in, but I also had to get in with tuition assistance. My parents were adamant the three of us would go to college, so Ivernia was out of the question unless we had help. My scholarship was small, so small that my mom almost said no, but my dad was convincing. Hepicked up paid guest-lecturing opportunities on top of his teaching salary, and we agreed I’d come home and work through the summers to help offset the cost. So that’s what I did.
We’d spread his ashes out on the lake, near the spot he’d proposed to my mom.
“The school meant a lot to him.” The softness of the earth muffles our footsteps as we cut across the grass. “No one loved learning—or teaching—more than he did. It was like this compulsion. To try and figure out…everything, I guess.”
Sabine smiles. “If that isn’t life.”
She carries the slightest lilt of French in her voice. We’ve shared a few classes over the years, but this is the first time we’ve really talked. It’s refreshing in a way I didn’t expect.
“What was your mom like?”
“Oh my god,sostrict.” She laughs. “Later I understood it was her way of showing love. That protectiveness. She was scared of letting anything bad happen to me, but it happens anyway, right? We cannot escape it.” She gives me a sidelong glance. “She died when I was eleven. My dad travels a lot for business, so it was my idea to come here. We’re really close, don’t get me wrong, but I need the structure because…well, she shaped me into needing that. And I love her for it.”
“You know,” I say, “I think she’d be happy you understand.”
“I told you, Sabine. For you, I want the best,” she says, laughing as she imitates her mother’s heavy French accent. “She so would.”
We fall into a comfortable silence. In front of us, the stonefountain stretches out into a smooth oval, roughly the size of a large swimming pool. At its center, a spewing geyser erupts skyward. Enthusiastic chatter permeates through the quad as hordes of students pull each other into conversation, their voices growing louder with eager anticipation. Many have already found a seat on the lip of the fountain’s cement basin.
Wish night is an Ivernia-approved event, the one day a year where curfew is extended under instructor supervision. Naturally, everyone goes. Teachers haul Igloo coolers full of soda to pass around, steaming cups of coffee in their hands as they catch up with their fellow faculty from the sidelines. It marks the start of a new year, one that holds potential and possibilities.
There’s so much about this place that’s stayed the same since my childhood. The sharp frame of the towering Adirondack Mountains. The lush forest and rich pine smell. Mads was too young to absorb the campus in the way Jared and I did, but I remember everything. Spending afternoons in the Chelmsford library and how my mother insisted she could wander in it for hours. Grabbing maple-buttercream cookies in town and eating them in the courtyard while we waited for my dad to finish class. And the time when I first peered into the biggest fountain I’d ever seen, mesmerized by the copper collected at the bottom, and my dad handed me a penny.
I don’t remember what I wished for. Back then I had everything I needed.
It’s moments like this when I start to feel myself glaze over.Like I’m coming untethered from the present, stuck somewhere in the depths of my own head. It takes precise mental energy to pull my focus back.
We catch up to Inessa, who’s ditched Stelmak, and she leads us through a dense cluster of seniors. As I wind my way behind them, someone clips my shoulder. I glance up, ready to apologize, but then I see who’s in front of me and bite my tongue.
Sumner.
He tries to step aside but is accidentally jostled by Justin Lee’s elbow. We end up maneuvering in the same direction, making this whole interaction ten times more awkward as our chests collide. And when we seize the opportunity to shift through the same gap in the crowd, our fingers brush in our hasty effort to escape. It would be comical if it weren’t so infuriating.
His dark hair curls in half loops splayed every which way, shifting as he tips his head in my direction. “Following me?”
There’s a natural rasp in his voice. I was never sure if it was a result of him gaming or because he generally had a difficult time shutting up.
