Page 26 of The Start of Someday

We get out of the car and take the path down from the driveway to the little house near the water. Then we follow Rusty as he leads us to the front door and opens it.

“How did you get a key?” Abby asks. “I don’t even have a…”

But her voice trails off as she walks inside.

Following her in, I realize I have no idea what’s going on, but clearly it’s an emotional moment for her because Abby’s on the verge of crying.

“You kept it?” she asks, her voice a whisper as a few tears streak down her cheeks. She bats them away as she looks around. “Seriously?”

“I was always the one who wanted to get rid of their stuff,” Rusty tells his sister. “I knew you wanted to keep it, so…I put it in storage, figuring you could have it one day.”

I stand off to the side, trying to stay out of the way as Abby wanders through the house, taking a look at all the furniture I’m guessing used to belong to their parents. A beautiful kitchen table and chairs. A wooden hutch. Bar stools.

When my curiosity gets the better of me, I peek down the hall and find Abby kneeling on the floor, her forehead resting against a wooden chest at the end of a queen-sized bed.

“This was my mom’s,” she tells me, stray tears sliding down her face. “She said it was a hope chest.”

I don’t know what that is, and seeing the confusion on my face, Abby explains.

“It’s an old tradition. You get a hope chest when you’re young, and you fill it with things for when you get married.” Abby shakes her head and gives me a wobbly smile. “Mom never believed in that kind of thing, but she always said she liked the idea of a hope chest because it encouraged dreaming…planning for the future.”

She looks at the top of the chest and rubs her hand along the grain of the wood.

“Now you can use it to plan for yours,” I tell her, wishing there were some way I could alleviate her sadness but knowing there isn’t.

She nods and gives me a sad smile. “Yeah. I can.”

After another minute or so, I decide to step out of the house, feeling like I’m encroaching on something personal. Something precious. I take the short walk down to the dock that extends out into the water, my hands tucked into the pockets of my hoodie as I come to a stop at the end and stare out at the full expanse of Cedar Lake.

The evergreens stand tall and proud along the shore and rise up farther into the hills. It sure is a beautiful place to live, and I can’t help but wonder what it looks like here when it snows.

When I hear the cadence of heavy footsteps behind me, I know it’s Rusty coming up to stand with me on the dock.

“That’s a pretty amazing gift,” I tell him once he’s at my side. “I almost cried myself.”

I grin when I glance at him, trying to infuse a bit of levity into the moment, but it falls away when I see the way he’s looking at me.

“I’ve been thinking about what I said the other night,” he says, his jaw tight and his brow furrowed, his eyes lasering into mine. “About you only being here for the business and how we should pretend what happened between you and my sister didn’t happen.”

I swallow awkwardly, realizing if he’s bringing it up, maybe this is a moment when I can talk to him about how I feel, tell him truthfully that…she’s something pretty special.

Though I’m sure he’s already more than aware.

“About that—”

“No, let me finish.”

I twist my lips and nod, falling silent.

“I can’t presume to know what’s going on between the two of you, and honestly, just thinking about my sister…” He pauses and shakes his head. “I just remember how we used to talk about the girls we’d hook up with in college, and the idea of her being one of those girls—”

“She’s not, though,” I say, interrupting him.

“I know.” He sighs. “You didn’t speak about her that way when you mentioned that you’d hooked up with someone at the resort.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you didn’t give me any details.”

At that, I can’t help but chuckle.

“I like her, Rusty,” I tell him, shrugging a shoulder, knowing if I’m ever going to really say this right, it needs to be now. “I can’t promise you I’m gonna marry her. I can’t even promise that things will last longer than just the time I’m in town, but I can promise that the way I feel about her is…” I trail off, not even sure I know how I feel myself.

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