“What did you expect?” He wondered just who Maggie thought he was.
“A sports car, maybe.” He scoffed as she shrugged. “A cop car, then. Since you’re so insistent on policing your students’ late work.” Her eyes shimmered in a way that let him know she was joking. He let out a laugh that was more like a huff, returning her grin.
“I really don’t feel comfortable letting you drive the forty minutes to Atlantia,” she said.
Her concern warmed something that had been cold and dead in Arthur for a long time. Maybe Maggie didn’t hate him after all. Or, maybe, she just didn’t want to let Hawthorn’s prize professor die before he could bring the school more money. “The walk here has really helped,” he said, trying to soothe her worry. “Look—” He walked on one of the parking lot lines like it was a balance beam and this was a sobriety test.
Still, she bit her lip, hesitating. “I’ll feel a lot better if you text me when you get home.”
He didn’t have any objection to that, so he recited his phone number as she typed it in. His phone buzzed in his pocket as she called him.
“Now you have mine,” she said, tucking her phone back in her bag. He couldn’t quite believe it, a small thrill going through him as he realized Maggie Linden’s phone number was now in his contacts. She went on, threatening, “If I don’t hear from you, I’m calling Dean Clearwater.”
Arthur tried to remember the charming man he’d been on Beltane. As he got into the truck, he turned to Maggie one last time and said, “If you wanted my number that bad, I’m sure Edna would have just given it to you.” And it was more than a small thrill that he felt at the look of absolute indignation on her face as he drove off.
Chapter Ten
Arthur was halfway to Atlantia on the two-lane highway that crisscrossed the marshlands when his phone dinged. He glanced down only for a moment, expecting an email, hoping for something from Maggie, but instead it was a calendar reminder:Lane’s appointment. Arthur cursed, turning on his signal and easing into the parking lot of a charging station before opening his phone and calling his brother, Rory.
It had been Rory who had persuaded him to go out on Beltane. “Live a little for once!” he’d shouted at him. “You’ve been working every day since you moved out here.” The party on Brig Beach was the same Beltane festival that Rory always bragged about when they were kids, calling Arthur at his mom’s to tell him about how he’d climbed out a window at their dad’s house and ridden his bike to the bonfire and all the requisite debauchery a teen boy could get into. Arthur had always been jealous of the stories, even if they were only half true. His mother would have eviscerated him for sneaking out, so he’d never tried it, not even when he was with his dad over the summer in Atlantia, convinced she would find out somehow.
But when Rory suggested they go to that same festival a few weeks ago, Arthur had felt seventeen again. All that envy and regret and excitement bubbled up until he said yes. In fact,Arthur had revealed all of that to Rory after about five minutes of wearing that damn mask. He’d confessed all of his childhood envies, the way he’d thought to relive some of the nights he’d missed out on now, at thirty-five. It had been a ridiculous thing to say, and Rory hadn’t let him forget it, not that night and not since. Rory had resurrected old insults the way only a brother can, so Arthur had abandoned Rory on Beltane, afraid of what else he’d reveal.
Arthur had been too distracted in the weeks since. His baby brother needed him, and he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about Lane’s appointment. He felt like a bad brother and a worse uncle. He cursed again as the phone rang.
“Hey, Artie.” Rory’s voice came through the line after a few more rings. He sounded far away, and the screeching of kids echoed in the background. Before Arthur could answer, Rory’s voice was muffled as he yelled, “Iknowyou’re not making a pet out of that poisonous caterpillar right now.” Arthur waited a moment for Rory to come back to him. “Yeah, well, I’m not Geordie’s dad,” he went on, still muffled, and then his voice was clear through the receiver again. “Sorry,” he finally said, exasperated. “This kid is out of control.”
Arthur knew he didn’t mean it.
“He’s had a very long day, studying hard,” Arthur said, defending his only nephew, who was perfect in every way.
“I know, I know.”
“You still at the school?”
“I’m letting him burn off some energy at the playground. Kid’s made a friend with a fourth grader and is causing havoc.” Rory sighed, and Arthur could imagine him sitting on the topof one of the warped, weather-beaten picnic tables that surrounded the school playground, his worry plain on his face.
“Steph couldn’t pick him up today?” Arthur didn’t mean to sound accusatory. Rory and his ex-wife had a good relationship, but he sometimes felt a fiery overprotectiveness for his brother and nephew that he had a hard time stifling. Rory and Stephanie had married young, barely out of college, while Arthur was still in the worst part of his PhD. It had been one of those times when Arthur had felt every mile between him and his brother. Steph and Rory’s marriage had already started to fall apart when she got pregnant, but Arthur hadn’t even known they were having problems. He sometimes wondered whether he could have made that hard time easier for Rory. If he had been a better brother. If he’d beenhere.
“She’s out of town on a business trip, but she’s already called about five times to check in. Besides”—Rory sighed—“I’d rather be worrying about Simon on the monkey bars than, well, you know.”
Arthur opened his mouth to say something but then hesitated. Rory must have been able to tell through the phone, because he answered Arthur’s unspoken question about Lane before he could ask it. “I haven’t heard from Pop or my mom yet.”
Arthur’s stomach dipped. Lane’s appointment had been scheduled for hours before, and Arthur had no idea if the delay meant anything, good or bad. He should be the one with experience here, but he felt like he was floundering.
“I’m on my way back to Atlantia. I’ll stop at Angelo’s and pick up a pizza,” he offered, trying to feel useful.
Rory’s relief was palpable through the phone. “That’s great. Can you get my mom an order of the fried ravioli? She loves those.”
“Of course. Give Simon a hug for me.”
After Rory hung up, Arthur pulled back out onto the highway toward Atlantia, which had finally come into view, rising out of the lowland marshes like a beacon. As he drove, his stomach tied itself into tighter and tighter knots.
Rory was, technically, Arthur’s half brother, but they’d never made that distinction. Rowena and Barry, Arthur’s parents, had a short-lived marriage that ended before Arthur was born. He grew up primarily with his mother, other than the long summer weeks at his father’s bungalow in North Atlantia. Barry’s second marriage to Lane, Rory’s mom, had ended, too, but Barry and Lane had stayed good friends, unlike the tense animosity that lasted between Rowena and Barry until right before Rowena passed away. Even though Barry wasn’t married to Lane anymore, it was clear they still loved each other deeply. They just loved each other from separate houses.
After his mother died, Arthur had been lost. His whole life had been spent orbiting Rowena. He had inherited her dark hair, her same aspirations, an academic career built on the research she’d explained to him instead of reading bedtime stories. She had been a larger-than-life presence. When she was gone and her own legacy hadn’t been enough to save her from a terrible end, he wondered what it had all been for. Did he even want the life he’d been building for almost twenty years? Or had Rowena wanted it? He didn’t know. After finishing out thatyear teaching at Dartwood, the only thing he knew for sure was that he couldn’t live across the country from the only family he had left.
So, he’d reached out to Dean Bobbin and had a job at Hawthorn within a week. Despite his misgivings about the job, he loved being in Atlantia with his dad, Rory, and Simon. And when Lane’s health scare had frightened them all, a near replay of what had happened with Rowena, he knew he’d made the right decision. This was why he’d moved here—to be here for his father and brother when they needed him.
