Page 124 of Must Have Been Love

“You look good,” he murmurs, taking in my white summer dress. The weather is warm, the sun kissing my skin whenever I take long walks outside. Lee left two days ago and after this session with Dr. Methi I need to go back to the Airbnb to pack up my things.

I feel peaceful, which is a strange way to feel when your world is upside down. But maybe I’ve always found peace in the chaos. When you’re standing in the eye of the storm it teaches you how strong you can be.

“You look good too.”

“Liar.”

I give him a small smile. Okay, it was a bit of a lie. He looks so, so tired. And that bruise gives him a menacing edge, not that he needed it. But even so, it feels good to see him. I don’t want things to be awkward between us. We’re going to be connected for life even though he doesn’t know it.

I want to be his friend. I want him to be mine.

“I guess I should go in,” I say, pointing at the door to Dr. Methi’s office. He’s not charging me and I don’t want to be late. “Take care of yourself, Hudson.”

“You too.” He parts his lips. “Will you come back to Liberty soon?”

I want to ask him if he wants me to. But that’s not how coming home works. “Yes,” I say. And a smile almost pulls at his lips.

“Good.”

The elevator doors go to close, and I shrug. “I’ll see you around,” I tell him.

“You will.”

I start to walk toward Dr. Methi’s office, but then two tiny arms throw themselves around my legs again. I lean down to kiss Ayda’s cheek, checking that Hudson is holding the elevator door – he is.

And just as I let go of her, Ayda’s mouth presses against my ear.

“Come home.”

My mouth drops open. She can talk. Of course she can talk. She spoke to me on the deck that day. She said a word, how could I have forgotten that?

“Home?” I say, wanting to hear it again.

“Ayda,” Hudson calls, still standing next to the elevator. “Let Skyler go.”

But I hold onto her. “Hudson, she spoke,” I tell him. “She just said a word.”

His eyes meet mine. He looks as confused as I am. “She what?”

My heart is pounding. “We need to go into Dr. Methi’s office,” I tell him. “Right now.”

* * *

“I’ve spoken to Ayda’s speech therapist,” Dr. Methi says, walking back into the room. Ayda is kneeling at his coffee table, coloring a picture of a fish. Hudson is sitting on one end of the sofa, I’m on the other.

My therapy session is all but forgotten about, and I’m very okay with that. Instead of the bawling and handwringing I thought I’d be going through, I spent the first few minutes explaining to Dr. Methi and Hudson what Ayda had said to me, both today and on the day she disappeared.

My face flamed when I told them that she’d said “mother”.

“Could she have meant Grandmother?” Dr. Methi had asked. “She was sitting near you on the deck, wasn’t she?”

And that’s when I realized I’d been wrong. Of course she’d been saying grandmother. She was trying to tell me Catherine was there, and I hadn’t realized.

“You’re doing fine,” Dr. Methi had reassured me, like he knew I was second guessing myself. “Why would you have thought she was saying those words? Nobody would have.”

And then I told them about her two words outside the elevator.Come home.

Hudson’s eyes had met mine when I said it. There’d been so much emotion in his gaze. And yet it made me shift, because I don’t want him to feel emotion because his daughter spoke to me.

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