Page 13 of The Words We Lost

Unlike yesterday’s harried drive from the ferry terminal to Cece’s cottage, my pace through town is tourist-slow. If all goes as I hope, there’s a better than decent chance I’ll be booking an Uber from the San Francisco airport by this time tomorrow morning. Funny how differently time is prioritized when it’s in short supply.

Sunlight glistens off the storefront windows and highlights the litter-free alleys and sidewalks as I roll through the freshly paved streets of downtown Port Townsend. Dozens of fishing vessels and wooden sailboats line the harbor to my right, each one biding their time for their next day at sea. A handful of nautical-themed taverns, coffee shops, and best-view-in-town restaurants have comeinto focus now, too. And before I can look away, I’m searching for the most obvious of landmarks along Water Street: the renovated, Victorian-era hotel owned by a family I once loved as if they were my own.

My speed is barely above a crawl as I recall the first time I roamed these streets with my father as a wide-eyed adolescent. The cotton-candy-colored Victorian architecture had awed me back then, encouraging my belief in the magical fables I collected from used bookstores at ports up and down the West Coast. But unlike most children who outgrow fairy tales, it wasn’t age that had squashed the magic of this seaport town for me; it was the inescapable reality of unmet promises.

With just over twenty minutes to spare, I swing a left just past the docks and head up the hill toward Marshall Evans’s office. A white, steepled church comes into view and kicks my pulse into an erratic beat. For all my controlled reminiscing since debarking the ferry, I’m not prepared for the collision of snapshots and soundbites that thrash against me like a battered piece of sea kelp at the memory of Cece’s funeral. The somber gray skies. The eulogy delivered by Joel. The security detail instructed to keep onlookers out of the private service.

Ten months suddenly feels no longer than a blink; five years no longer than a breath.

Two stop signs away from the law office, my gaze pulls to the right, where a familiar purple-and-yellow-striped food truck idles with a banner advertisingThe Peninsula’s Best Blackberry Lemonade Slush.

And just like that, I veer into the beach parking lot with Cece’s voice resounding in my ears.“Come on, Indy. You can’t miss birthday slushies on the beach. It’s tradition!”

How many summer days had the three of us shared right here, year after year, laughing and listening to Cece regale us with imaginary tales about pirates on the high seas that felt as real as our friendships?

“Ma’am? Can I help you?” A woman with bohemian braids smiles at me through my driver’s window. She tips her head to the small sign directly in front of my bumper, reading Drive-up Orders Only, and lifts her ordering device. It’s then I realize how I want to spend the next twenty minutes.

Despite the early hour and brisk morning, I order a medium slush with a slice of lime and a splash of orange juice—Cece’s standard order—and leave the rental car behind so I can meander the nearby shoreline, a path I could walk in my sleep.

Transfixed by the spellbinding swells and tantalizing rhythm of the tides, I face the Sound and inhale the briny air in one greedy pull. Just like I did as a young girl, I count all the buoys I can see—six—and watch as seagulls dip to play with the catches in their beaks. With an unsteady hand, I raise my slush a few inches toward the horizon and whisper the words my heart aches to shout to the best friend I’ll ever have, “Happy birthday, Cece.”

When I finally twist away from the water and head to the bench where so many book plots and secret hopes were shared, my steps falter. On the far right side of the old wooden bench where three sets of initials are carved sits a man who slowly raises his own blackberry lemonade slush in my direction.

If this were anybody else, any other two people reuniting in such a serendipitous way, I could easily imagine the fumbling of words that would follow such an encounter: the cheap quips about great minds thinking alike, the uncomfortable chuckles and insecure small talk, the shock over the happenstance of such a random meeting. But this moment isn’t random for Joel and me. It’s the result of a synchronous connection neither of us seems to know how to sever even after the world broke us apart five years ago.

He gestures to the empty spot at the opposite end of the bench—my spot.I don’t hesitate to take it, though I’m careful to leave adequate space in the middle. For Cece.And perhaps for everything else that will never be named between her cousin and me.

Like the ceasefire in war on Christmas Eve, there are no wordsexchanged during this brief reprieve where we pretend to be nothing more than two grieving strangers who cared for the same remarkable human being in our own unique ways. And for a moment, this shared silence feels like a gift.

When Joel clears his throat a few moments later, my back muscles tense. “It’s time, Indy. You ready?”

As I stand and face him, something inside me begins to crack, but I refuse to let it crumble. So I hold it back, lift my chin, and lie.“I’m ready.”

Joel holds the door for me as I enter Marshall Evans’s office. Though it’s my first time inside, the place is exactly what I imagine any small-town law office in America would look like, with its dark-stained bookshelves and executive-type furniture, complete with inspirational wall hangings and metal sconces. I can’t help but wonder how much of his grandfather’s practice still resides in this space.

“Ingrid, Joel. It’s good to see you both.” He shakes our hands. “I’d first like to offer another apology regarding the inexcusable delay in getting Cecelia’s letter to you. After our discovery, I hired an additional assistant to help me comb through every nook and cranny of my grandfather’s old files and lockboxes.” He offers us a kind smile. “Good news is, I don’t anticipate any more surprises will be surfacing from this point on.”

Joel nods in response, his manners reflective of the respectable upbringing I witnessed firsthand. “Please tell your parents my family’s been praying for Lloyd’s recovery, Marshall.”

“I will. They’ll appreciate that.” Marshall nods and gestures to the oblong table on the far side of the room. “Please, feel free to take a seat anywhere you like.”

“Thank you,” I say, wishing that I hadn’t left the remainder of my slush in the rental car. My tongue feels like a sea sponge on the sand.

Joel waits for me to select a seat before he claims the chair besidemine, despite the fact that there are six others at this table. Strangely, our proximity in this office feels infinitely closer than on the bench we occupied together only minutes ago. I pick up a hint of sea salt and spruce from the fabric of his shirt and make a point to detect the other scents around the room to drown it out. Coffee. Leather. A fresh linen fragrance wafting from the wall plug-in near Marshall’s bookshelves.

Marshall himself is a generic kind of familiar to me. One of the many faces of the kids who grew up dining at the hotel restaurant where I waitressed and whose parents rented out banquet rooms for game nights and birthday parties. He’s matured since I last saw him—stockier build, slightly thinner hair, and a wedding band encircling his left ring finger. If there’s an inventory to be taken of me, I imagine it would be over in a single glance.

My straight, obsidian hair—once worn long—has since been chopped to my shoulders, and the early wink of fine lines around the corners of my amber-brown eyes have already begun to make their appearance. The years acting as my father’s skipper under an unassuming sky didn’t do my future skin many favors. My natural tan, inherited from my mother’s Chinook heritage, deterred the rosy burns that often plagued my father’s milky Norwegian complexion, but the sun doesn’t play favorites. I’m sure in time it will prove just as unforgiving to my skin as it was to my father’s.

Marshall sits at the head of the table and places a thick padded envelope in front of him. Instantly my spine straightens, my eyes scanning the dimensions of its rectangular shape while he delivers a series of disclaimers and legal jargon my ears won’t absorb. My fingertips tingle with the urge to reach out for this precious parcel my friend saw fit to keep locked away for reasons I might not ever understand. And I’ll simply have to be okay with that, because what might have felt like a farfetched hypothesis only days ago now feels like the only outcome possible. That package contains Cece’s last written words. I canfeelit, the same way I can feel the quickening thump inside my ribcage.

“... of course, if either of you has any other questions about the trust itself or the protection it offers to Cecelia’s written works, you’re welcome to call me anytime.” Marshall’s hand rests atop the package as my mind wanders down a new path.

In only a few moments’ time, I’ll be holding the conclusion to my best friend’s fantasy series—the closure her readers have been waiting for. The closure that will mend the fissure dividing her massive fanbase over the cliffhanger she left us with inThe Twist of Wills.And just maybe it could be responsible for fixing something else, too.

What if these are the very words that can stitch the broken pieces in my brain back together again?

Marshall pushes the package toward us. “Then I suppose there’s only one thing left to do.”

---