But it was how I received it, and she knew that.
“Everything hurts,” I cried.
She held me tighter. “I know.”
FROM SHEP
To my beautiful daughter on your fifth birthday,
Being able to watch you grow up is the greatest joy of my life. It’s an honor to have a place in yours. You are smart and you are kind. Your imagination takes you to lands far beyond our willow tree.
As I’m writing this, your mom is picking up your birthday cake at the grocery store. You were insistent that it had to have all the princesses you adore on top. Fairytales are your favorite kind of story. I’d spend every single day reading them to you if I could. They’re full of brave girls just like you. Brave girls who aren’t afraid to climb trees, run fast, and scrape their knees. Brave girls who love with their whole hearts.
I hope you continue to grow in your bravery, never lose your joy, and keep believing in fairytales. Today, you believe that you have magic in your fingertips because that’s what the story says.
Someday, I hope you realize that you actually do.
Happy Birthday, Autumn.
Love,
Dad
32
AUTUMN
MISERY BUSINESS
The ocean was in a mood today, but so was I. The steady crash of waves matched the pounding in my head. I didn’t know if the headache was from three days of cross-country driving, dehydration, crying, or all of the above.
I wish it was from a killer hangover. I wanted to raid Wander’s kitchen and down a bottle of whatever she had on hand that was the strongest.
But she didn’t let me drink from the bottle that I really wanted. Instead, I was given a fluorescent sports drink packed full with vitamins and electrolytes and unceremoniously shoved into the shower.
That’s what friends were for.
I wanted to get drunk off my ass, but she knew that I would regret it and refused to let me no matter how much I begged.
When Whitney arrived with her adorable baby bump on display, she shared the news that it was a boy and that she was terrified of being a parent to mini Miles. The three of us sat on the beach while I dug my toes into the cool late-September sand and unloaded everything that had happened.
Everything.
When night fell, Wander and Whitney shared the bed in Wander’s room since Jack was on duty at the fire station, giving me privacy to cry myself to sleep in the guest room.
I had set the envelopes Ryan insisted I have on the nightstand, but I couldn’t sleep with them so close.
His ghost appeared everywhere. It haunted me in the worn paperback I kept for myself after our bookstore haul, in the handwritten chocolate chip cookie recipe from Penelope’s Bakehouse, and in every picture of us that lived on my phone.
I was a masochist, scrolling through the photo gallery to see if I could find the deceit in his eyes. The coldness that would have clued me in that this was nothing but a farce.
But it wasn’t there.
The spark in his dark eyes held nothing but adoration and that made it hurt all the more. He had made me believe it was real. Maybe he had lied to himself too.
When dawn broke, I grabbed my phone and the stack of envelopes and slipped out the back door to head down to the beach.
The whip of autumn wind made me shiver, but it hid the way that crying made my body tremble.
