Page 37 of The Quiet Rebuild

“Yeah!” Lindsey laughed as tears spilled from her eyes. It felt delicious to hear someone else say what she’d known all along.

“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t open it,” Jake said.

“I know.” Lindsey sighed.

“I’ll be there if you want that,” Jake said.

“Oh, Jake. I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Lindsey said.

But Jake told her it would be his pleasure if she wanted that. “I’ve been through my fair share of hardships. I’ve lost people. I’ve had eras I’ve had to say goodbye to. I can’t fathom what it’s like to lose a child. I won’t pretend to. But I know what it’s like to feel alone in something. And I don’t want you to feel alone in this. Not anymore.”

Lindsey rolled onto her stomach. She wanted to ask Jake if he was too good to be true. But she also wanted to live in the magic of this call a little bit longer. “Tell me,” she said then, smiling. “Tell me about all of your eras. Tell me everything that’s happened to you.”

Laughing, Jake plunged into his stories of heartache: the girlfriend he’d nearly married who’d left him four days before the wedding, the woman he’d eventually married who’d accused him of abandoning her for birdwatching, the brother who’d died a few years ago after a skiing accident.

Lindsey had the sensation that they were spilling one another’s stories, showing every bit of darkness to one another, so that they could move on.

They fell asleep mid-call, Lindsey cozied up in California, and Jake, his head heavy, his alarm set for four thirty in the morning so that he could run along the beach, taking photographs and following his dreams.

18

Two days later, Taylor and Lindsey went back to the airport and prepared to fly to Nantucket Island. The same pilot and stewardess, Deb, were waiting for them. Onboard, Taylor settled in, glancing leftward at a stack of magazines and books, prepared there by Deb. Taylor reached for a gossip magazine, remembering the not-so-long-ago day when news of Taylor’s on-set outburst had graced the front page. Now, another starlet was on the front page, screaming at someone else. Time marched on.

Without thinking anything of it, Taylor flicked through the pages, then found herself halfway through, reading an article about Jason Clapton. Twenty-Three-Year-Old Girlfriend Pregnant with Jason Clapton’s First Child. Taylor searched her heart for devastation. She searched her spirit for breakage. Instead, she felt a weightlessness that she couldn’t understand.

Attached to the article were numerous photographs of Jason and his girlfriend. In them, they strolled through Madrid and Barcelona. They sat in the sun on Jason’s yacht. They went jogging together in Los Angeles. Jason looked happy in those photographs. His girlfriend was often laughing in a way Taylor couldn’t recall having laughed in, not in ages. Maybe being famous had never suited Taylor, not the way it suited Jason and his girlfriend.

Deb strolled past and happened to glance at the images of Jason in the magazine. She yelped and grabbed it, saying, “Oh, Taylor, I’m so sorry! I thought I checked every page.”

Taylor laughed and shook her head. “It’s not a problem. Really.”

“Oh, but these men. They don’t know how silly they look,” Deb said, her hands on her hips.

On the other side of the aisle, Lindsey looked stricken. “What’s going on?”

“I found out why Jason wanted to talk,” Taylor explained. “His girlfriend is pregnant.”

Lindsey made a sound in her throat. Deb, still worried and sweating slightly, told them to buckle themselves in and prepare for takeoff. She apologized another three times, then buckled herself in as well. Soon enough, the plane charged into the sky, giving Taylor plenty of time to think about Jason and his baby.

Of course, Jason and Taylor had wanted a baby of their own. It had always been in the cards. When Taylor’s fame had stalled out a little bit in the late 2000s—after her cuteness had died away—they’d discussed it more seriously. But their initial attempts hadn’t been fruitful. They’d talked about doing IVF. After all, they were wealthy and could afford treatments other people couldn’t. But Jason started getting more and more acting gigs, and Taylor hired a new manager around then to kick-start her career, but it just never happened.

Now, he’d get that baby they always wanted.

What would Taylor have instead?

By now, they were fully in the air, speeding east toward Nantucket. Taylor turned to look at Lindsey, who sipped her champagne and studied her phone. Taylor guessed they were messages from the birdwatcher. Lindsey confirmed this soon after, showing photographs Jake had taken both that morning and the one before that.

“I’m falling in love with a nerd,” Lindsey said.

“Hold on to him,” Taylor told her. “He’s a good one. And there are so few good ones left.”

Lindsey pocketed her phone and reached over to top Taylor’s champagne off. “I think I’m going to miss this high-rolling lifestyle a little bit. Private planes? Private drivers?”

“It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Taylor assured her. “I’m excited to get back to Nantucket and fully commit to the Harbor House, you know? I applied for a reason.”

Taylor was looking forward to one-on-one sessions with Dr. Estelle. She’d already booked a few acupuncture appointments, a massage, and a session with the personal trainer in which they talked about trauma and where it lived in the body. Tomorrow morning, she planned to join Audrey, Mary, and Cindy for a beach cleanup on one of Nantucket's more popular beaches. According to the Harbor House’s mission, it was good for the soul to give back to your surroundings.

“Maybe I’ll join you for the cleanup crew,” Lindsey said. “That is, if you’re not too sick of me.”