40
Now Spring and Summer
I know where I want to end up, but I’m not ready yet. So Felix and I go back and forth. April in Toronto. May on Prince Edward Island.
Felix discovers my world. We have sex in my pink bedroom, on my white sheets, and when we’re cuddled together afterward, he asks to see my notebook of flower farm ideas.
“Do you think I’m too ambitious?” I ask as he flips through the garden diagrams, the sketches of arrangements, the lists of imaginary supplies.
He kisses my temple. “I think you’re brilliant. A dreamer with beautiful dreams.”
I keep the Earl Grey he likes in the cupboard next to the fridge, and he masters my coffee maker. I let him inspect my medicine cabinet and my magazine collection. He makes bouillabaisse in my kitchen, familiarizes himself with where I keep the corkscrew and the good knife his mom gave me. He insists on meeting my parents, so we drive to St. Catharines, and I introduce him to my mom and dad, my brother and his husband.
“He’s very handsome, I’ll give you that,” my mother says when it’s just the two of us in the kitchen. “But are you sure it’s a good idea to be involved with Bridget’s brother, Goose?”
“Mom,” I say. “Please don’t call me that. And yes, I’m sure. I’ve never
been surer of anything.”
“Then I suppose you have my blessing.”
I take a deep breath. “I’m thirty years old, Mom. I’m an adult. I didn’t ask for your blessing.”
She flinches, surprised. She studies me like she’s seeing me for the first time. “You have my best wishes, then.” She sets a piece of orange cake on a plate. “You seem happy together.”
“We are.” I hesitate for a moment. “Are you happy?”
She pauses, assessing me.
“I heard you and Stacy talking once, at the hospital.”
“Ah.” She sighs. “I’m happy enough, Lucy. Your aunt thought life should be full of fireworks, but I’m content—that’s enough for me.”
My aunt wouldn’t be satisfied with content, but I know I won’t get anything else from my mother. “Stacy met Felix once,” I tell her. “It was only for a few minutes, but I think she liked him.”
My mom smiles, wistful. She slices another wedge of cake, and I think that’s the end of the conversation. But then she says, “Your aunt would call
him edible.”
“That’s the exact word she used.”
She laughs, pressing a finger to the corner of her eye. “She would have liked him, Lucy. She would have liked him a lot.”
I wrap my arms around my mom’s waist, my eyes stinging. “Thanks,” I whisper.
There’s a day during Felix’s visit that I can’t swing taking off. He rides with me on the streetcar in the morning, kisses me goodbye, and returns after the store is closed and everyone has gone home. I hear his tap, tap, pause, tap on the door. I unlock it, and drag him into the office, and act out one of the fantasies that involve me and him in this small room.
It’s painful to say goodbye, just like I knew it would be. But it isn’t too long before I’m back in Felix’s world. I spend a week there in June. He picks me up at the airport and we drive east. He buys a coffee maker for me and shows me how to make a perfect cup of tea for him. We cook together. I choose a book of poetry from his collection, and he reads it to me in the evening. But he doesn’t read for long, because poetry from Felix’s lips
uncoils me in a brand-new way, and I’m on my knees after only a few stanzas. I choose Austen the next night. It’s no better.
We have dinner with his parents at Summer Wind, and sleep in the guest room, the one Christine decorated with me in mind.
We walk through the field where we want to build a life together one day.
We imagine what our house might look like, we discuss where the dahlias should grow. Felix has grand plans for a vegetable patch.
“Carrots,” he says, “are very good for you.”
“You,” I tell him, “are very good for me.”
In August, Felix meets me in Toronto, and together we fly to Sydney so we can hold Felix’s niece in our arms. Bridget and I hug and cry and cling to each other for five minutes in the airport, and when we part, I find Felix with a baby nestled to his chest.
“Hi, Rowan,” he says. “I’m your uncle Felix, but everyone calls me Wolf.”
Felix brings the baby to me, cradles her in my arms with the utmost of care. Rowan’s eyes are squeezed shut. She’s all nose and cheek, with wisps of black hair sticking out from under her knit hat. I run my finger over her nose. Felix’s nose.
“Rowan,” says Bridget. “This is your auntie Lucy. But us girls call her Bee.”
Bridget kept her job and was managing it remotely before Rowan was born. But she’s taking a full year leave, and we have whole days to spend together. We take a lot of walks with the baby. We stroll the harbor, past the Opera House, and into the Royal Botanic Gardens. We shop at Paddy’s Markets and have fish and chips overlooking Watsons Bay. It’s winter in Australia, but it’s warm on the weekend, so Miles drives us to Palm Beach.
I stand on the shore with Felix behind me, his arms around my waist. We stare out over the Pacific, with Bridget, Miles, and Rowan sitting on a blanket, brushing sand off watermelon slices. I want this forever, I think.
Felix holding me against his chest, looking out at the sea.
I turn to face him. “I have an idea.”
“Uh-oh,” he says.
“A fucking brilliant idea.”
Dimple pop. “Give it to me.”
“I don’t want to spend another autumn alone. I want to be with you for Thanksgiving. I want to be with your family at Christmas. I want to see Salt Cottages with all the twinkle lights. I want to go skating with you. I want you to build me a fire so we can curl up next to it. I want to wake up together every day. I’m ready to live our dreams instead of talking about them. I want to build our house.”
“Our house. I like how it sounds when you say it.”
“Is that a yes?”
He holds my cheeks between his palms. “I have some ideas, too.”
“Do you?”
“I’ve been sketching.”
“Sketching?”
“Drawings of houses. Ran a few ideas by Zach and the architect at his
company who designed Salt Cottages.”
“You sneak. I had no idea.”
“They’re just preliminary. A house. A barn. A greenhouse. I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself until you were ready to look at them.”
“You’ve been designing my farm?”
“I have. I took a couple photos of your notebook, and I’ve got some thoughts. It’s all up for discussion. I want to do this together.”
“Together,” I repeat.
“You and me,” he says.
“In PEI.”
“If that’s what you want, Lucy.”
“That’s what I want.” Felix and me, on another beach, one with red sand and cliffs and a view of a different ocean. I want cold February nights with him reading me books. I want July mornings in a blossoming garden. Felix will be my home, and I will be a place for him to return to. He’ll be my oasis, and I’ll be his. He’ll save his best words for me, and I’ll save mine for him.
“It’s exactly what I want.”
