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The passage of time was a curse. All too soon, Sunday came, along with the first of two flights— one to take Bella and Kristine from Bar Harbor to Portland, and then another from Portland to New York City. Heather stood next to her Prius with her hand on her heart as she watched her gorgeous girls walk into the airport, one after another. Just when she thought they’d fully gone, they whipped open the door again and waved out. It reminded Heather of taking them to kindergarten some eighteen years ago when they hadn’t been able to resist a final wave and hug. Just six or seven hours apart had felt like a century. Now, Heather wasn’t sure when she’d see them again.
But there was so much to do and so much to discover. Heather dropped her head against the headrest as she eased back toward the main house, where Luke had said he would meet her that evening to pore over the documents and diaries. His text had read: “Maybe wine won’t cut it tonight. How do you feel about whiskey?” To this, Heather had sent only a thumbs-up. He got her. He got the heaviness of her situation.
Nicole had several appointments at the Keating Inn, which left Heather alone in the creaking, empty house until Luke’s shift ended. She set herself up at the antique desk with the large, dusty box on her thighs. She’d turned on a stereo for background music, but it seemed too light-hearted to listen to pop music while she went through her father’s old thoughts and feelings. If anything, her father was the serious literary type— and not the sort who would just listen to whatever was on. She got up and turned off the stereo, then lived in the deathly quiet.
Just as she’d suspected from the few leather-bound books she’d discovered so far, Adam Keating was a voracious writer and reader. Within this box, she found a number of old notebooks filled with poems and short stories. It was difficult to tell if these had been written prior to the ones she’d already discovered. It didn’t matter, really. She simply relished the words. One poem, in particular, brought her to tears.
I wake in the morning to the sound of thunder
A young wife lies beside me—
And I know she could be any man’s wife.
Why mine? What did I do to deserve such
Splendor.
Such is her beauty, her innocence as she
Sleeps on.
I marvel that it’s up to me to calm the storm
For her. There’s expectation in the “I do”
That I simply cannot meet.
When, pray tell, is love ever enough?
Heather had read countless autobiographies of other writers who’d only been discovered years after their death. Kafka, for example, had been a nobody for years and years, but now, students pored over his texts at universities and discussed his prose at length. What would he have thought of all that attention?
She thought about bringing Adam Keating’s words to the limelight. She was certainly a well-renowned writer in her own right. There was no reason she couldn’t send some of his better things to her publisher.
Oh, but what good would that do anyone?
She continued to parse through the box. Eventually, she found another diary, written from around the same time as the previous one she’d discovered. For whatever reason, she still felt too frightened of the one from her birth year.
Within, she found that Adam wrote as a young father to a little baby named Casey. Apparently, these pages picked up where the last one had left off.
August 12, 1975
Jane glared at me all through dinner. She knows I’m boozing hard again. She smashed a plate in the sink, and then the baby began to wail. Poor little Casey, born to an absolute fool of a father and a beautiful mother who wanted nothing but to marry someone worthy. She didn’t get that wish.
A few nights ago, she asked me what the hell I wanted for myself. I told her what I always tell her. That Joe and I have a plan. We want to open our own inn and restaurant. We want to cash in on real estate and the hospitality industry here in Bar Harbor. But more than that, we want to be a part of something major— something that matters. The way I see it, if you’re a part of someone’s vacation, you live forever in their memories. Maybe that’s cheesy. Joe says it’s romantic. I told him I’m nothing if not romantic.
Anyway, Jane, of course, brought up the realistic side of it all— that we don’t have two pennies to rub together. I reminded her of the way we met. How we’d been so idealistic. How we’d told each other we’d be together despite everything. No matter how many stupid pennies we had jangling around in our pockets.
Heather flipped forward slightly in the diary. She sensed the sinister relationship between Jane and Adam now. Had it all come down to money? As she and Max had always been generally comfortable, she couldn’t fully visualize this strain, and she counted herself lucky because of it.
Still, she was mesmerized by his words.
October 17, 1975
I don’t know, now, if she ever truly saw me for who I was. I suppose that’s typical for most romantic relationships. You draw up an idea of someone, and then they slowly begin to show you all the ways they aren’t that person until eventually, you can’t stand them anymore.
Is that where I am with Jane? I don’t know.
I have a great deal of love for her even still— especially when I see her with Casey. Casey is such a happy baby girl. Always so bright and giggling, even sometimes in her sleep. Jane and I talk only of her if we talk at all. It’s always, “Can you take her?” or “I already fed her,” or “I don’t suppose she needs a nap?” And it’s never Jane and me asking one another if the other is okay. I supposed, when we married, that we were promising one another to care and care deeply all the days of our lives. I suppose marriage is a lie, just like all the rest.
Again, the concept of the elusive inn and restaurant came back up. Jane picked a fight about it, in fact. I suppose this was one time where she and I talked about something other than the baby. It didn’t go well. She seems to eye the door. I want to tell her it’s wide open for her.
But I can’t. I love the baby too much. I don’t want them to go. Plus, there’s the issue of the new pregnancy. Due in April, I’m told. I have no affection for this new one. Why would I? The new baby was built from a loveless relationship. You can’t build a full person from what Jane and I have together.
But what on earth would I tell Joe if Jane left me? That I failed at being a husband? That I have nothing to offer the world besides my own messes? What kind of person would get into business with a man like that, even if that man happened to be his brother? Joe is much smarter than that. No, he never had the grades I did, he’s never read Proust or written an essay, but he’s got a lot up there.
Heather’s mind raced. Here she was, in the midst of the incredible horror of her father’s life. Jane was pregnant with Nicole, and Casey was a year and a half old. Adam floundered, day after day, generally unsure where to turn or who to become. Jane had put the pressure on him.
Heather continued to sift through the pages. She was born in February 1977— which meant that her birth had been known midway through 1976. Around then, she found an entry that intrigued her.
June 14, 1976
Darwin Snow has been gracious enough to hire me to manage a number of his properties. I already perceive Jane’s affection for me rising. Still, I want to take issue with it. I want to demand of her— am I really better for her as a result of my income?
Still, it’s not enough. With the new baby, we find new cracks in our already declining relationship. Casey is only two, but with that, apparently, comes a whole host of tantrums, many of which seem to be reflections of my inner soul and horror at the nature of our environment. I know, I want to tell her. I know we live in relative squalor.
Still, there was no mention of Heather’s birth. She leaned back and flicked through the pages, then went on to the next diary— the one he’d listed as 1977. She flicked through this until she passed all the way to February 25, 1977. Her birthday.
February 25, 1977
I barely made it to the hospital.
I had to sneak around, make excuses and find a babysitter for Nicole and Casey.
But it was worth it because I was there for her birth—a beautiful, beautiful baby girl.
Melanie gleamed with sweat and exhaustion. I held her hand and told her a story as she and the baby fell asleep. I told her, even so far into whatever consciousness she was, that we would find a perfect name for the baby.
Melanie is my soul mate, and this new baby is my fresh start.
I can’t believe I ever thought another world was possible.
This is it for me.
Heather jumped from her chair. Her entire body felt alert. She reread the diary entry from her birthday again as tears streaked across her cheeks.
Melanie? Who the hell was Melanie?
That moment, the doorbell rang. Heather placed the diary delicately on the desk, pressed her hands over her hair in a foolish attempt to calm it, then turned to march toward the foyer. When she opened the door, she found Luke—perfect, terribly handsome Luke— with his hand lifted to show off a large white doggy bag of the Eatery’s best dinnertime food.
“I brought you dinner,” he told her, still wearing that smile that seemed to pierce through time.
Heather’s knees wobbled beneath her. In a moment, she felt she might crash to the ground. Luke rushed forward to grip her elbow and helped her walk to the couch.
“Heather? What’s wrong? Heather? Gosh, you’re white as a sheet.”
Luke disappeared, then reappeared with a glass of water. Heather drank it slowly. Her stomach, shrunk from her lack of eating, seemed to fill up from the water. She sputtered as Luke sat alongside her and reached for her hand.
“What’s going on, Heather?” He asked it as though it was one of the more difficult questions anyone had ever asked anyone.
Heather felt ridiculous. She sipped her water again and then said, “I think I know who my mother is.”
Luke’s eyes widened. “Tell me.”
“I saw it in a diary entry from my birthdate. A woman named Melanie.”
One of Heather’s hands was limp, off to the left of the rest of her frame. Luke gripped it hard, a reminder that she remained on planet Earth.
“I have more digging to do. I just don’t know how to do it alone.”
Luke nodded. After a long pause, he said, “I think we’re both starving after the past few hours we’ve had. How about we eat some food and drink some wine on the porch? Watch the sun set? After that, we can dive through your father’s memories and figure the rest of it out.”
Heather’s nostrils flared. She gripped his hand harder. She tried yet again to remember what it had been like, a million years ago, to fall in love with Max. Had it felt anything like this? But no, it couldn’t have. This was shadowed with so much trauma, probably on both sides. They were damaged people. Probably, Luke should run far, far away. Why hadn’t he yet?
“That sounds really lovely, Luke. Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure,” he returned. “Really.”