Page 54

Finally, I turned away from the house, and this time I didn’t look back. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I knew if I did, I’d never end up leaving.

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting back tears before I read the last line of the book.

“Some love stories don’t end with the hero choosing the girl. Some end with the girl choosing to disappear, because love isn’t about getting…it’s about giving everything, even your own ending.”

I removed my glasses and set them on the desk, wiping away tears I didn’t know had fallen.

I was still sitting staring at my computer screen almost forty minutes later thinking about what I wanted. For once I was thinking about myself and my daughter, and what made us happy. I no longer cared about Richard and Margaret’s opinions, or about what others would think. I took a deep breath and picked up my phone and called Margaret. I was surprised she answered on the second ring, almost as if she’d been waiting for me to call.

“Everett.” Her voice sounded guarded and tired.

“I’m not calling to fight with you. That is the last thing I want. But I need you to hear me.”

“If this is about that piece of fiction, as she puts it, the one that your nanny wrote, I don’t want to hear it.”

“That is exactly what this call is about, and you will listen.”

The line was silent for a bit. “Fine, I’m listening.”

“I read the book Ember wrote. All of it,” I said, pausing so I could choose my words carefully. “Margaret, you were right in some ways, that the premise of the story is based on us. The characters, their grief, the holidays, all of it came from our family. But you need to know something. The way she wrote about Rebecca, about Ethan’s wife Sarah, it’s not exploitation. It’s a love letter.”

“Everett, don’t. Don’t drag yourself into her fantasy of thinking that it’s fiction. She has blatantly used our loss and your grief to profit.”

“No, Margaret, listen to me. She wrote a character who was loved so deeply after her death that it reshaped the lives of those she left behind. This isn’t mockery; it’s reverence.”

I could hear Margaret’s breathing change on the other end of the line.

“This book will not diminish Rebecca. She is going to be honored by it. A woman she never met, who loved her family so much that she wrote a story of how they found their way back to living again. If that isn’t a testament to who Rebecca was, then I don’t know what is.”

The line was quiet. Down the hall, I could hear Sophie talking in her sleep. Tiny murmurs mixed with small gasps, the odd cry, drifting through the baby monitor that still sat in the hall outside my office.

“Is that Sophie?” Margaret whispered.

“Yes. She cried herself to sleep. She’s heartbroken.”

I heard Margaret sniffle.

“Ember is a wonderful woman, and to be honest, it’s okay with me that she wrote the story the way she has. You really should read it, the entire thing, not just the small part you read.”

“Sophie told me that Ember was the best thing that ever happened to you both, that you laugh again. She told me that the last time we visited. Sophie also told me she taught her how to frost cookies and hang fairy lights and make paper bats. Those are the things that Rebecca should have done.”

My throat tightened, and I picked up the glass of water I had on my desk from earlier and took a sip.

“You are right. Rebecca should have done those things, but she got cancer. There isn’t anything any of us could do about that. I know all Rebecca would want now is for someone to love Sophie the way she did. And Margaret Ember does. She wrote an entire book proving that.”

Once again, the line went silent, and I stared at the wall in front of me, waiting for her to say something.

“I might have been a little harsh with her. I said things I never should have. I was frightened. When I read those pages and I saw Rebecca in them, it felt like I was losing her all over again, Everett. Someone took a very private and devastating part of all our lives and wanted to put them on display for the world to see.”

“I understand, but you know what? I am okay with it. I knew my wife well, and I think she would love it.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I think she would feel honored.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, I think you might be right. Rebecca would want Sophie to have this, and she would want you to have this. If that book is how Ember processes love…well.” She let out a broken laugh. “She is a writer, and writers write. Rebecca used to say the same thing about architects. She’d always tell me Mom, you can’t see a building without someone designing it in their heads.”

A sudden calm came over me. “So, we’re okay?”