Page 15 of The Words We Lost

A beat passes before he says, “She left something else for us inside that envelope.” He reaches into his back pocket for a familiar yellow piece of stationery, only I’m still trying to process the prologue I struggled to read in Marshall’s office. “If you’d rather read it on your own first, then I’ll give you space to—”

I shake my head. “I just want to understand what’s going on.”

He nods. “So do I.”

And then, much the way he held Cece’s letter in my office, he holds this one out, too. In a voice that projects over the wind and waves, Joel reads his cousin’s words to us both.

“Joel and Indy—

There are so many things I want to say to you, but I know if I could come back, even for a moment, the first thing I’d say is that I miss you. I’ve often wondered if missing people from heaven is even possible, given the whole ‘no more sadness’ assurance ... but missing someone doesn’t always have to be sad, does it? If not, then I’ll miss you happy. And I’ll miss you laughing. And I’ll miss you with every ounce of joy I possess until I’m with you again.

By now, Lloyd has given you the memoir I’ve been working on for some time. Years, actually. When I started it, I had every intention to finish and hand it over soon after Indy moved to California, but a story is so much harder to write when it’s true.

I’m under no illusion that these last few months have been easy,which makes asking something more of you even more difficult. But I need you to read this memoir. Not on your own, but together. And not only for me but for everything the three of us meant to each other for so many years. This is more than a last wish—it’s an imperative truth that deserves to live even if I do not.

Once you’ve finished, I pray you’ll find the rest of the answers you seek and know how to move forward.

I made you the trustees of my intellectual property because I trust you’ll guard my words and work well. But I made you my closest friends because I trust you’ll also guard my love and intentions for you well, too.

I love you both. Forever.

Missing you happy,

Cece”

The sky has morphed into a marbled gray mass overhead, beckoning emotion long buried in me to rise to the surface—which is exactly why I cannot possibly agree to what she’s asked. Honoring my best friend’s legacy by protecting her life’s work is one thing, but reading an entire book of memorieswiththe man I hold responsible for the questions that plague me most about my father’s death? The very idea of it feels like a betrayal. How could she possibly ask this of me?

I’m shaking my head, shaking all over, and yet I can’t utter any one of the hundred thoughts Joel seems to perfectly interpret from my gaze.

“I know this isn’t what you wanted or what you were expecting—it’s not what I was expecting, either. But this is it.” He holds up the letter and the wind immediately molds it to his fist. “This is all we have left of her. We may not understand why she did it, but she wrote that memoir to us.For us. The least we can do is honor her request by reading it.”

“Cece was my closest friend,” I petition, willing my stance to hold firm in the shifting sand, “and when she was here, there wasnothing I wouldn’t do for her. But she’s not here now, Joel. Only we are.” I thump a hand to my chest as if to scare the shake from my voice. It doesn’t work. “Think about this for a minute, about what she’s actually asking of us. What can a memoir written about our pasts possibly tell either of us that we don’t already know? That we haven’t already lived and experienced?”That one of us barely survived.I shake my head and stare into his unblinking gaze as the ceasefire we reached earlier this morning rapidly disappears. “Do you have any idea how—”

“How what? How hard it is for you to be here with me? Believe me, you’ve made that quite clear.” He thrusts the envelope into his back pocket and twists to stare at the horizon. “You’re not the only one whose life changed that night, Ingrid.”

“Don’t.” It’s a warning, and yet it’s so much more than that. A locked door on a portal I refuse to open, even for Cece.

When he turns back, he stays me with a look of such crippling desperation I struggle for my next intake of air. “Until this week, I’ve asked you for nothing. I’ve gone to every estate meeting and reviewed every account and document with Marshall. I’ve read the trustee reports and secured the properties and overseen Aunt Wendy’s trust and monthly budget. And I’ve done every bit of it for her, for Cece. But this is not something I can simply add to my calendar reminders. This is bigger than that.” His mossy eyes bore into mine. “Out of everyone in the world, she entrusted her last written words to the two of us. Thatmeanssomething to me, and it should mean something to you, too.” At his gentle chastisement, a fresh wave of guilt crashes over me. “I’m not asking you to forgive me or even to forget the past we’ve shared—I’m asking you to help me honor the life of someone we both loved deeply.” He steps in close, the plea in his voice sucking me into a past dimension I can’t revisit. “I’m asking you to give yourself permission to stay here a little longer—for her.”

Somewhere inside me lives the remnant of a desire to push back, to protect the last undamaged piece of myself at all costs. But my mindis as wrung out as my heart, and the vulnerability in his expression roots me to this rocky shoreline until he’s all I can focus on. Not the polarizing wind or the swelling tide or the turbulent clouds overhead.

Just him. Just Joel.

For several heartbeats, I’m lost in the eyes of the man who once showed me the kind of love I’d only read about in pages of fiction. The man who once cradled my dreams and cherished my secrets and fought my demons when I wasn’t brave enough to face them on my own.

But I’m brave enough now, even if the battle I have to fight is against him.

I’m still working to formulate an adequate response when water rushes for my heels. In one swift move, Joel launches me out of danger and onto the dry shore. Only this present danger, the one where his hands grip my arms and his eyes memorize my face in a way that makes bumps scatter over every inch of my exposed skin, is far more dire than a pair of wet flats and a narrowing beach.

Dazed, I work to reorient myself on the sand as his fingers trail a faint path down the backs of my arms. Before I can fully register the touch, he drops his hands to his sides and clears his throat.

“A few more days, Ingrid,” he reiterates. “Will you agree to that?”

I close my eyes in an attempt to capture my fleeting thoughts, but the gathering storm has blown them too far out to sea to be caught. When I open my eyes again, he’s still there, still watching me, still waiting for an answer.

“I need some time to think,” I say in a voice so feeble I’m not sure he’ll be able to make it out over the weather. But he must because he nods and says, “I think that’s fair. Today has been...a lot. We can talk later tonight.”

At first, I’m lost at his reference of time, unable to connect with anything outside the here and now. But then slowly, surely, it all comes back and I remember. Today is Cece’s twenty-seventh birthday. Just one of the many reasons whyfairwon’t ever be a part of my vocabulary again.

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