Page 28 of Love Again

“Living with you is like living with Godzilla. The crews are right.”

“About what? What’d you call me?”

“Never mind.”

“Now you’ve hurt my feelings.”

I settle in a chair. “She thinks that because Max died trying to find me, find us, that we compromised him. And I get it. I feel the same way.”

“But . . .”

“But—that’s what loves does. That’s what love is. You love that person completely and would risk everything for them. Is she never going to love again?”

Keller stretches across the small dining table and shoves an envelope in my direction. “This may not be the best time,” he says, “but it’s for you.” And then, in a completely different context, “Think she’ll mind if I use the bathroom?”

He disappears upstairs and the pipes start their mournful whine.

I don’t like the look of the envelope. I sit down at the table and take the knife to slit it open, a knot forming in my stomach. It’s from a lawyer in town.

It’s what I thought.

Divorce papers.

Chapter Nine

Devon

I decide to leave before Keller comes downstairs from his shower. Thank God he doesn’t make an appearance.

Luke is quiet. My face is hot, papery, and I have an upset stomach—all this from crying so hard. The kitchen table is cleared, and my gear is folded by the front door on top of my boots. He must have washed everything and even wiped my helmet off with a cloth.

“Your PPE is probably still damp. They need another two hours or so. They’re hard to get dry,” he says as he gives me a sweet kiss on the forehead. It’s all I can do to leave before I start crying again.

Because I don’t cry.

Because I’m right about us.

Luke is also right about my PPE. The trousers and coat are still wet to the touch. With our shitty dryer, it takes a good six hours to dry my firefighting gear. I glance at the clock on the dash during the five-minute ride home. I slept for three hours, and the sun is nearly gone. I pull the car into the parking lot behind the store and switch off the ignition. As I walk around to the front of Weaver’s, the sky and sea both spread out in a way I never tire of.

When you live close to the water, every day is different. It’s good to be reminded of this once in a while.

To the west, close to the horizon, the sky is sheared in thready ribbons of crimson and orange. The dark silhouettes of seagulls flying are only visible against this streak of bright color.

The sea is luminous, settling under the night sky like a sigh. I climb the stairs, my mind on fire.

I’m wired. I pace the apartment like a caged animal. I don’t want wine, I don’t want weed. I don’t want anything that will become an obstacle to clear thinking. Two days ago, I asked Aiden McCardell to send out our divorce papers—finally. It’s not like I didn’t have Luke’s address before. I had twenty-four letters stamped with it. But having him here seemed to make the whole process necessary. So, I broke down and asked Aiden to send them to David Keller’s address.

To his credit, Aiden bore little reaction. The guy is a gem. He’s known me since before I was born and filed the Title IX lawsuit against Keller when I was sixteen. He never once batted an eye when I told him I’m married and wanted to file for a divorce.

I fill up a travel mug with red wine in case I do want some later and press the lid on. It’s probably forty out. After tossing the PPE into the dryer off the kitchen, I bundle up my burgundy down jacket, shove my hair under an alpaca knit hat, and head back out to the wharf.

But I’m sidetracked. Finn has a firepit going, probably one of the last before he opens The Inn back up. February, March, and April are retooling months and the place closes down. Our parents closed up shop for a month. They’d yank us out of school, and in a flurry of textbooks and papers, we’d all pile into our battered Scooby-Doo VW van and head west.

Mom and Dad took us to every national park in Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Arizona, and ended in Yosemite and the Sequoias in California. It’s probably one of the reasons I ended up out there. Despite being landlocked, Colorado felt like home.

Claire stands next to Finn, her arm round his waist. I walk past the wharf and down the little sandy trail lined with grass to the firepit.

Bright-orange sparks fly against the black night sky.