Page 142 of The Otherworld

I nod.

Hand in hand, we approach the front door of the little whitewashed cottage. Wildflowers scatter the front yard, swaying in the breeze as if to wave hello to us—a sea of petals, pink and yellow and violet. We don’t even reach the front door before I hear a voice call out my name.

“Orca! Is that you?”

I stop halfway up the flagstone path, whirling around to see a huge straw sunhat pop up from behind a lilac bush. A middle-aged woman with high cheekbones and bright copper eyes steps out from behind the foliage, peeling off her dirty gardening gloves as she approaches. Her nutmeg-brown hair is woven into a long braid that coils down her back.

“Pardon the mess,” she says cheerfully, stepping over a fallen rake and a bag of potting soil. “I’m not used to having visitors.” She pulls me into a fierce hug, then holds me back at arm’s length to get a better look at me. “Goodness, how long it’s been—I can hardly believe you’re standing here right now! You look so much like Miriam.”

“I do?” A flicker of something warm and sad awakens in my chest when she says that. “Thank you for letting us come over, Aunt Sara. Can I call you Aunt Sara?”

She laughs. “Absolutely, my dear. And who is this?”

“Oh, this is Adam,” I say, putting my arm around him. “The love of my life.”

“Quite an introduction,” Aunt Sara says with a grin, making Adam blush.

He shakes her hand. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

Aunt Sara escorts us both inside, offering us some tea and insisting that we make ourselves right at home.

The cottage is small and cozy, swept with a cool breeze from the cove beyond the hemlocks. Everything is tidy and organized—a bookish hideaway filled with potted houseplants and jars of fresh-clipped flowers. It’s the sort of place that feels instantly familiar, even if you’ve never been there before. A sweet old Labrador lopes over to greet us, sniffing our shoes and thwacking her tail in approval.

“This is Daisy,” Aunt Sara says, gesturing toward the dog. “She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

While she prepares a pot of tea, I notice how quiet the cottage is. Nothing but the whistle of the kettle and the wind chimes on the back porch. “Is your husband at home?” I ask.

Aunt Sara shakes her head. “I’m not married.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, I just assumed…”

“It’s all right. Most people do.” She gives me an easy smile, patting her dog’s head. “But I’m quite happy on my own despite what people may think. I have my books and plants to keep me company. And Daisy, of course.”

With a contented sigh, the dog lies down on the linoleum floor.

“You have a beautiful spot here,” Adam observes, looking out the kitchen window to the backyard, which offers sprawling views of the glittering blue cove beyond the trees.

“Mm, isn’t it lovely? I’m a bit of a sentimentalist, so I couldn’t bear to sell it when Dad passed. This little cottage has been in our family for a long time. It was built back in San Juan’s logging and lime days before the island became a tourist destination.” Aunt Sara strides over to a wall covered in framed photographs. She points out a faded black-and-white picture of two little girls playing together on a rocky beach. “This was the summer of sixty-seven… Miriam and I used to have cairn-building competitions down in the cove. Whoever toppled theirs first had to do the other’s chores for the rest of the day.” She chuckles, remembering it. “I usually lost, but Miriam never let me do her chores all on my own.”

I study the photograph: two messy, sandy girls stacking up towers of flat stones on the beach. My mother and my aunt. It’s strange to think of my mother as a child, a little girl who grew up swimming in the same waters as I have. Perhaps she watched the same migrating orca pods, too.

“So you used to come here as a kid?” I ask, my gaze roaming over the other old photographs on the wall.

Aunt Sara nods. “Every summer. The island wasn’t so built up in those days. We had the cove practically to ourselves.”

“What was my mother like back then?”

“Oh, she was such fun. Way more adventurous than I ever was. I remember one time she built a raft and insisted we both sail to British Columbia on it. We got as far as the neighbors’ beach before we shipwrecked and had to swim to shore. Dad was so furious, and Mom nearly had a heart attack.”

Aunt Sara has many stories to tell, and each one is a brushstroke of color painting the blank canvas that has been waiting with my mother’s name on it. Every detail is a new piece of the puzzle, coming together to show me a vivid picture of what my mother was like. We sit in the cozy little living room and drink tea from ceramic cups, passing around photographs from summers long ago.

Eventually, Aunt Sara says, “I’m surprised your father never told you about her.”

“I think it makes him too sad to talk about it,” I murmur, looking down into my teacup. “He misses her a lot, even still.”

Aunt Sara nods slowly. “I miss her, too. I haven’t seen her since the funeral.”

I frown at her choice of words. “Is that the last time you saw Papa, too?” My heart is heavy as I imagine what a sad, sad day that must have been—for all of them.

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