I can feel my cell phone vibrate in my pocket with yet another message. “Um,” I say. “Yeah.”
Jessamyn hands me the phone. “Call her.”
Reluctantly, I dial the numbers. It hasn’t even rung once when my mother picks up.
“Hi, Mom!” I say, as cheerful as possible.
I have to hold the phone away from my ear as she shouts at me in reply. Wincing, I wait till there’s a break in the wall of sound and speak again. “I’m really sorry—”
“Delilah Eve, do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? Whereareyou? What were youthinking?!”
“I just had to do something and I knew you wouldn’t let me leave if I asked first.”
“Tell me where you are. I’m going to come get you. And then I’m going to ground you for life.”
“I’m kind of in Massachusetts. On Cape Cod.”
There is another torrent of angry sound as my mother yells her response. Again, I hold the phone away from my ear.
“Maybe I can help,” Jessamyn says, and she reaches out her hand for the phone. “Hello? Is this Delilah’s mother? I’m Jessamyn Jacobs.” She hesitates. “Yes. Well, I used to be an author, anyway. Oh, that’s very kind. I’m so glad you were a fan.” Another pause. “Believe me, it was quite a surprise for me too…. No, no. It’s far too late for you to make that kind of trip. Why don’t you just let me host Delilah overnight, and you can be here bright and early in the morning. She can stay in our guest room.”
I hear the buzzy warble of my mother’s voice in return, and then Jessamyn gives her an address. She holds thephone out to me when she’s through. “She’d like to speak to you again.”
“Just so we’re on the same page, you are still grounded until you hit menopause,” my mother repeats. “But at least I know you’re not wandering around on a street somewhere at night. You’ve caused this woman a great deal of disruption, so you’d better be the best guest she’s ever had in her home. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Mom,” I mutter. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Delilah?” my mother says.
“Yeah?”
“I love you, you know.”
I look down into my lap. I’ve created so much trouble—for my mother and for Jessamyn Jacobs, all in the hope that I can make the impossible possible and turn a fictional character real. Suddenly, I’m ashamed for being so selfish. “I love you too,” I whisper.
I hang up the phone and hand it back to Jessamyn. “Thank you. For letting me stay here.”
“It’s no problem. It’s nice for Edgar to have someone his age around. He doesn’t make friends very easily.”
I sit up. “Can I ask you a question? How come Oliver looks just like your son?”
“Because heismy son.” Jessamyn looks up at me. “After Edgar’s father died, he was so afraid of everything. I wanted to create a role model for him—someone whomaybe wasn’t the bravest or strongest boy in the kingdom but who managed to always triumph by using his brain. Edgar was younger then—I had to imagine the boy I thought he’d grow up to look like—and that was how I painted Oliver.”
“Well, they’re identical.”
“Not really,” Jessamyn says. “Edgar never became the Oliver I hoped he would.” She smiles, a little sadly. “I wasn’t very good at helping Edgar with his grief. I didn’t know how to do that, but I knew how to write books. So I figured I’d try to help him, through what I do best. But when that wasn’t enough, I stopped writing. Instead, I concentrated on learning how to be a better mother.” She shakes her head, as if she’s clearing it, and then pats my shoulder. “Why don’t we get you settled upstairs?”
***
The guest room is painted the color of a sunset. There is a small wooden bureau and a double bed. Jessamyn leaves me with a stack of fresh towels and a promise to check in on me after I’ve rested for a while.
It’s weird, having no luggage to unpack. I sit on the edge of the bed and look around the room. There are framed photos on the walls of a baby who keeps getting progressively older. This, I realize, is Edgar—but I find myself drawn to the walls, touching the glass on the photos, thinking that this is what Oliver would have looked likewhen he was two, when he was four, when he rode his first horse, when he learned how to swim.
Suddenly, I really miss Oliver. I unzip my backpack and pull out the book. It falls open to page 43.
“It’s her, it’s really her! Delilah, you amazing girl, you did it!” He is so happy that it hurts me to look at him.
“Oliver,” I whisper. “She won’t change the ending.”
