Page 71 of For Lila, Forever

The two of us have been texting more. At least a few times a day. Sometimes silly pictures, other times little notes to say hi. A little friendly banter here and there. A few times a week we’ll talk on the phone—mostly about MJ and what she’s up to. But it’s strange … not once has he brought up “us” again.

Ever since I shut him down at the diner that night, it’s like he accepted my answer as final—which has never been his style. I’ve never known him to give up on something once he decides he wants it.

Clearly he had a change of heart.

I try not to think about it for too long. It tends to put me in a funk, and I don’t want MJ to see me like that. Besides, I’m grateful that he’s back in my life, even if it’s in a platonic capacity.

“Lila?” Ms. Beauchamp calls for me from down the hall. “Lila, there’s something here for you.”

I follow her voice to the living room where she’s by the La-Z-Boy with a white envelope in her hands.

“Someone just stuck this in the door,” she says. “I don’t know when they did it, but I went out to water my begonias and there it was.”

On the front of the envelope, in familiar blue handwriting are the words:

For Lila, forever.

“What is it?” Ms. Beauchamp asks.

“I think it’s a letter?” My heart is sprinting, blood whooshing in my ear.

He’s in town.

Why didn’t he say something?

“You going to open it or are you going to stand there and stare at it all day?” She chuckles.

I almost don’t want to open it until later, until after I pick MJ up from her last day of school and after I put her to bed and the house is quiet and I can be truly alone for the first time all day. If this letter is nothing more than a tender, well-worded explanation for his absence of relentlessness over the past month, it’ll only bring me to tears, and I don’t want my daughter to worry and ask questions because she’s much too young to understand.

“I think I’m going to save it for later,” I say.

She scoffs. “That’s ridiculous. It’s just a letter.”

I check the time. I don’t have to get MJ from school for another ninety-minutes, so I suppose I could open it now and get it over with …

I think about all the phone calls and text messages we’ve had over the past month and how not once has he brought up the two of us being together again. For that reason alone, the odds of this letter being some profession of his undying love and devotion are slim to none. It wouldn’t make sense for him to be so indifferent and then leave a letter on my door out of the blue.

I rip the seal of the envelope and slip my fingers in to retrieve the letter … only there’s no paper inside.

There’s no letter.

There’s only a small key attached to a thin leather keychain embossed with an address:

377 Wildflower Lane

“What in the world …” Ms. Beauchamp stares at the key in my hand.

Sliding my phone from my back pocket, I Google the address and get a hit.

“What a strange thing to leave somebody. What are you going to do now?” she asks.

“Guess I’m going to Wildflower Lane.”

Chapter 59

Thayer

I stand on the front porch at 377 Wildflower Lane and keep an eye on the road. Any minute she’ll be pulling up, and this is going to go one of either two ways. At this point, it’s anyone’s guess as to how she’ll react when she sees this, but I’m hopeful.

I check my Apple Watch as a text comes through from Ms. Beauchamp, letting me know Lila’s en route and should be here any minute.

Every part of me is buzzing with anticipation, head to toe, inside and out.

A blue car passes a moment later, but it speeds up and disappears over the hill.

A dusty silver minivan coasts past next.

And finally … I spot Lila’s little white SUV in the distance.

I give a wave when she gets closer, and I meet her in the driveway.

“Oh my god,” she says as she flies out of the driver’s side and forgets to shut the door behind her. “Is this real? How did you …?”

Last month after discovering Granddad left me the island, I wasted no time drafting up paperwork transferring ownership to my mother, my aunt, and my cousins equally—but with one caveat.

I wanted The Lila Cottage.

A hundred phone calls and logistical nightmares later, and with a little help from my friend Leon who owns a ferry operation in Rose Crossing and has an impressive amount of connections, we were able to have the cottage moved from the island, ferried to the mainland, and then hauled over three thousand miles to this little acre of land I bought in Summerton for Lila and MJ.

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