Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Acknowledgments
- P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
- About the Author
- About the Book
- Also by Alison Gaylin
- About the Publisher
The postcard was unsigned and read simply, Wish you were here! He stared at the rounded script, the circles over the i’s. He turned it over. A photograph of a maple tree with bright orange leaves. “What is this?”
“Wishful thinking,” Edith said. “She always used to say that she wanted to go somewhere where they had seasons . . . I got that postcard, and I thought maybe . . . Maybe . . . I know it’s crazy.”
“You got this after April’s death.”
“Like I said, wishful thinking.”
Quentin looked at the postmark: August 1977. A year and two months after the Gideon fire. And the same month and year, according to Wikipedia, that film columnist Robin Diamond had been born. Quentin’s pulse pounded. “She just wanted to grow up,” he whispered, “and have a baby.”
“Are you all right?”
“Can I photograph this postcard with my phone?”
“I suppose,” said Edith Brixton. “But why?”
Quentin forced a smile. “Wishful thinking?” he said.
The postmark read New York.
Six
June 10, 1976
7:00 P.M.
Dear Aurora Grace,
They call it falling in love because you really do fall. The ground slips out from under you, and you’re in this place you’ve never been—mysterious and dark as a different planet. It’s hard to breathe there. There’s nothing to grab on to. You can’t pull yourself out. Not until the day you fall out of love. And when that happens, when you fall out of love, it’s just as unexpected and hopeless and impossible to get out of as it was when you fell into it in the first place.
For me, that happened a week ago, but it could have happened any time. It wasn’t anything Gabriel did or said. It was his face, close up, as we were kissing. Out of focus like that, Gabriel didn’t look like a boy or a man at all, but like some sort of animal—wolf mixed with bear. And it was consuming me, that animal. It was holding me in its claws like a piece of meat.
Aurora Grace, never open your eyes when you kiss a boy. I swear to God you will not like what you see.
The next morning, I broke up with Gabriel. I did it over the phone so I wouldn’t have to look at him, ever again. I told him Papa Pete didn’t want us seeing each other anymore, because I thought that might make it easier for him, easier for both of us. Mrs. Brixton had suggested it, and she always had the best ideas. A little white lie. That’s what she said.