Page 38 of Lost Dreams

But Lorelei was drawing into herself, getting up from the bench and leaning against the wall. “Carter, do you remember why we split up?”

Carter’s eyes were shadowed. “We were teenagers. We wanted different things.”

“We didn’t want different things,” Lorelei said gently. “We got pregnant, and you took off without telling me where you were going. You moved to Manhattan and lived the life we were going to live together, while leaving me to fend for things here, alone.”

Carter flinched. Lorelei wondered if, incredibly, Carter had blocked out this memory. She wondered if he’d told himself a different story for so long that he’d begun to believe it.

“But you didn’t have the baby,” Carter said, shrugging, as though that took care of it.

“I had a miscarriage,” she said, flaring her nostrils. “I was alone and frightened and in pain. I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. You were my boyfriend. You were the boy I loved, and you were just gone…” She trailed off, her voice fluttering. Even as she said all this aloud, she couldn’t believe it had really happened. She couldn’t believe he’d done that!

Carter got up abruptly and slammed his guitar into its case. “I didn’t realize I was on trial for stuff I may or may not have done when I was eighteen,” he said.

“You did do that,” Lorelei said. “You completely changed my life. And not in a good way.”

Carter’s eyes were rimmed with red. He picked up his guitar case and opened the practice room door. “It’s so clear to me that you’re miserable,” Carter said. “You’re in a miserable marriage, and you hate Italy, and you don’t know what you want in your life, so now you’re going to pick apart the past and make me the enemy. I am not your enemy, Lorelei. Grow up.”

At this, Carter stormed out of the room and down the hall. He left Lorelei in the corner alone, her heart in her throat, her eyes burning. But maybe the biggest surprise of all was the smile she felt on her lips. She thought to herself: I am so glad he left me when I was eighteen. I am so glad I didn’t marry him. I really dodged a bullet.

19

The day after Aurora’s heart-to-heart with her mother, she woke up in her mother’s bed. The clock told her it was nearly noon, that she’d slept the morning away. Aurora didn’t care. It had been such a relief to spill the beans about Nico, about her broken heart, about all she was running away from. She felt free and alive.

Lorelei was nowhere to be found, so Aurora went to her bedroom to get her phone and reorient herself. There were many messages on there, one from Pino, another from her father, and several from Kenny. She read the ones from Kenny first.

KENNY: Oren and I are quitting the Lodge.

KENNY: Can’t bear to be here anymore. I don’t know. I think Oren’s going back to the city, and I’m going to figure something else out.

KENNY: I’ll try my best to fix things with Oren. I’ll try to ask him not to use any of the footage from your family in his doc. But I can’t promise anything.

KENNY: It was really cool to get to know you. I don’t know what else to say. I’m not so good with my emotions, or with words, or whatever. Keep in touch?

Aurora squeezed her eyes shut. She searched her heart to see how much this hurt her, then discovered that her heart was too scarred to feel much of any of it. Kenny was just another guy. Oren was just another idiot she had to deal with. She was on a journey forward. She couldn’t let this get to her.

She read the one from her father next.

PAPA: Your siblings and I are coming back to Nantucket the first week of July. We have to discuss something as a family. I look forward to seeing you.

This touched Aurora’s heart differently, adding a glimmer of fear. If Roberto wanted to talk to them about something—as a family—she guessed it was about her parents’ marriage.

At twenty-two, she knew she needed to be emotionally ready to deal with her parents’ potential divorce. But it made her feel endlessly nihilistic about her own future. If her own parents, who’d loved one another for decades, who’d done everything to make their marriage work, couldn’t find a way through life together, then what did that mean for everyone else?

Was love ever something that could last?

She read the message from her brother Pino then.

PINO: We’re coming back to Nantucket, but Papa won’t tell me why. Did you do something wrong?

Aurora rolled her eyes into the back of her head and decided not to answer.

Rather than stay around the Lodge that afternoon, Aurora hitched a ride with her Uncle Jack to the historic district, where she found herself going in and out of bookstores and coffee shops, people-watching, eating an ice cream cone, before eventually stopping in front of a big window. Upon the window was painted: ART SUPPLIES. Aurora went in right away.

She’d always loved art stores. Paints and canvases and all kinds of pencils and pens and sketchpads were lined beautifully, in a way that made her feel safe and organized. For more than an hour, she perused, wondering if she even had it in her to start making art again.

Aurora purchased paints, a sketchpad, pencils, and two canvases, thinking that she didn’t want to go overboard, just in case she learned that she actually hated making art now. She paid for everything, bagged it all up, then considered how to get back to the Lodge. She’d previously gotten around so well with Kenny and Oren. She supposed she could hitchhike again.

Instead, she called her grandmother.