“You don’t want your own library in a castle?” said Florence, eyebrow raised.
“I want to go back to my life,” said Sylvie. “I changed my mind.”
“You don’t love Simon.”
Sylvie shook her head.
“Youdolove Simon.”
“I do love Simon, yes.”
“Even now that you know he’s living on stolen money.”
“This isn’t even about love, Flo. I know you don’t understand.”
“You’re scared,” said Florence.
Sylvie looked at her hands. She had taken off her ring from Simon. It was so much bigger and flashier than the simple gold band Alexander had placed on her finger (and that she now worearound her neck). Florence hugged her. Sylvie blinked back tears. “I can’t hope anymore,” she managed. “It’s too hard.”
“OK,” said Florence. “I get it. I can understand that.”
Simon’s letter didn’t make Sylvie adore him any less. In his missive, she found the man she loved. But before she even read the postscript, Sylvie felt something in her come to a halt. She had been allowing herself to fall, to be pulled by some exquisite gravity into marriage, into a life without steady sorrow. She was reading letters like a Jane Austen heroine, in a castle in a country not her own. She had been inhabiting an impossible but thrilling dream.
Now she was awake.
As distracting and scary andfunas this whole Simon fantasy had been, Sylvie ached to be on her brown couch, Willie asleep next to her. She dreaded the long journey to get there from where she was.
Sylvie respected that Simon had been honest with her. She owed him honesty as well. Simon was saddled with a decrepit castle and ghosts of his own; he did not need a bride who still clung to a dead husband. Penelope did not need a mother figure who had stopped believing in God.
Sylvie would miss Simon so much, especially his kisses.
And days spent in hammocks.
And the way he smelled like pepper and fir trees. And his sense of humor. And how it felt to have someone love her so very much. She would miss that. She would miss the beep of a text from Simon distracting her from shelving, the books he’d bought two copies of, and long quiet evenings reading near each other. Sex, she was going to miss that. And the way he made perfect coffee, every time, and how he called Penelope every day. And watching Penelope grow and maybe Penelope might have wandered the hallways of Coconut Grove Elementary.
When she was finished packing, Sylvie looked out thewindow of her empty home library. The sun had set over the Eskdale Valley, and Simon had told her that families and couples strolled on the dunes by a nearby estuary. The air smelled faintly salty, wonderful. Sylvie wanted to call Simon and—
No. That was done now. She would not walk with her Simon by the sea.
5
Cleo
Outside Mumberton Castle, it was absolutely silent and cold. The stars were brilliant overhead and the castle was lit up, breathtaking in its magnificence. Mumberton Castle had been waiting for decades for a Rampling to marry inside its walls. Cleo was in the most scenic place she’d ever been, and she was so lonely.
She walked toward the Gatekeeper’s Cottage, speeding up to stay warm in the brisk summer air. Her boots pounded on the gravelly hiking path. When she reached the cottage, Cleo stood under the arch and stared up at the portcullis that could be lowered so quickly it would crush her. In an alleyway between the two hanging gates, there was a small door. She knocked, and when there was no response, started hitting the door with the side of her fist. Then she started banging hard. “Sylvie?” she called. “SYLVIE! Come down here!”
Sylvie opened the door. She looked exhausted and was dressed in one of her librarian outfits: a matching cardigan set the color of a cooked salmon, a wide-waled corduroy skirt, and big wool socks with clogs. “What’s going on?” said Cleo. “Why do you have a suitcase?”
“Come on in,” said Sylvie.
Cleo took in the modern interior, surprised that the historical building opened into an airy foyer. Sylvie led Cleo through a dimly lit library where Rashid was watching the news in an Eames chair, up a set of limestone steps lined with a sleek wooden railing, to a sitting room with giant windows on both sides of the uppermost room, allowing Cleo to gaze over both Mumberton Castle and Mumberton Town. Cleo suddenly missed Montana, the inner quietude that a big view was able to give her.
Cleo followed Sylvie into an enormous bedroom. A California king bed was made up with light-pink linens, framed by a huge velvet backboard. There was a cozy fire lit and two love seats had been made up into beds on either side of the room. Someone (Louisa Freck? Simon?) had fanned gossip magazines on a low table, along with popcorn, bottles of sparkling wine and lemonade on ice, coupe glasses, a bowl of Twizzlers (Emma’s favorite) and After Eight mints (Cleo’s favorite—she’d imagined, when little, that rich adults ate them). A big television on a wheeled cart had a stack of 1990s DVDs on top:My Best Friend’s Wedding, Ever After, Titanic,andThe Wedding Singer.
Cleo shook her head: These had been their favorite movies to watch back on Joy Street—all of this was Sylvie’s doing. Cleo’s gratitude for her sweet, dorky little sister only made her hate herself more. Sylvie’s desires were so simple, a child’s dreams: sisterly connection, popcorn.
Cleo saw Emma passed out on the bed, and Florence in hideous sweatpants on a settee. “Nobody told me you were all here,” said Cleo. A voice in her mind said,Left out again…
