He walks toward me. “I told Jules to take Maureen home alone. It occurred to me that I had forgotten something.” He plucks the trash bag out of my hand and sets it aside.
“What?” I ask.
“You never gave me my present.” Oliver’s hands settle on my hips. “So? What did you get me?”
I wrap my arms around his neck and slowly lean toward him. “Forever,” I whisper.
Oliver dips his head, just a breath away from me. “Well, look at that,” he says, dropping a kiss onto my lips. “It fits perfectly.”
There’s a difference between a house and a home.
Why don’t you walk into your neighbor’s apartment or your best friend’s mudroom and think it’s where you live? Obviously the surroundings are different. There will be odd bits of furniture, and walls that are the wrong color, and pets that don’t belong to you.
But even if every house looked identical—if all the furnishings were the same—it still wouldn’t feel like yours.
That’s because home isn’t where you are. It’s who you’re with.
OLIVER
TWO MONTHS LATER
Every day, I wake up to the smell of vanilla.
Maureen is up before dawn, frosting the cupcakes that have become the most sought-after sweets in New England. Her home-based business, the Queen of Tarts, has been featured in newspapers, in magazines, and even on television. Once she figured out the concept of basic economics—namely, the fact that one could sell cupcakes for a profit rather than just giving them away for free—and once she realized that the refrigerator would not restock itself every night, her career as a master pastry chef really took flight. People who taste her pies and cakes beg to know the secret ingredient, and she always answers, “A little dash of magic.”
I take a quick shower, towel my hair, and throw on a pair of jeans and a sweater. Then, proudly, I grab my car keys from my desk. After several weeks of Delilah’s Driving Boot Camp, shehas deemed me worthy of Edgar’s driver’s license. Given that neither Maureen nor I knew how to drive when we first arrived, this was quite a necessity. Jessamyn’s van is now officially my valiant steed.
From what Jules tells us, Jessamyn’s career is blossoming too. She’s writing again, for the first time since she pennedBetween the Lines,and at a rapid rate. The kingdom has been captivated by her books, which have a special sort of twist: she somehow is able to create a story that is exactly what the reader needs at the moment he or she is reading. What one person takes away from a book might be very different from what the next person takes away—almost as if the story is altered depending on who’s reading, where, and when. But then, maybe all books are like that—a little different each time they are opened. The real question is who’s doing the changing: the story, or the reader.
The best news of all is that Jessamyn is healthy once again, and is being courted by Captain Crabbe, who took her on a moonlight sail and learned how to use a knife and fork while eating, just for her.
And Edgar? Unbelievably, he’s gotten to do some space travel after all, inside the book. It may not be the plot, but it makes a great hobby. His rocket ship is Pyro, and he navigates galaxies from the dragon’s back. Even more unbelievably, he’s not the only budding astronaut. Seraphima, who formerly couldn’t hold a single thought in her pretty little head, now talks nonstop about black holes and pulsars and quasars.
When he’s not flying missions, though, I hear Edgar spends a lot of time on page 43, talking to Jules.
I glance at the clock and hurry downstairs. I want to get toDelilah’s house as early as possible. I have something I can’t wait to show her.
Maureen glances up over a tiered cake. The fondant is already setting; she’s piped pink petals along the edge, decorated with silver sugar pearls. Right now she’s inscribing a message across the top. “Good morning, dear,” she says. “How did you sleep?”
“Quite well, thanks,” I answer, automatically reaching a finger into the bowl of frosting for a taste.
She swats me with a spatula. “Ineedthat,” she scolds. With her piping bag, she loops the wordHAPPYacross the cake.
I watch her work for a few moments, until she notices me staring. “What?” she asks.
“Are you?” I ask. “Happy?”
She smiles. “I don’t think I really knew what happy was until I came here. I didn’t know how much bigger the world could be, how much more there was to offer.”
I exhale a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. It’s good to know that for once, we all seem to be satisfied with where we are.
“If you wait two minutes,” Maureen says, “you can have a fresh muffin before you go.”
“Can’t.” I give her a peck on the cheek and head out of the kitchen. “Don’t work too hard.”
“It’s only work if you don’t like it,” she calls back.
In the van, I turn on the radio and drive the ten minutes to Delilah’s house. When I get there, her mother is just coming outside, holding a travel mug of coffee, on her way to work. “You’re here early,” Mrs. McPhee says. “Delilah’s still asleep.”
