Always make room in your life for art, yes. But also leave plenty of room for what’s real—even more real than an easel or brushes or turpentine. Something that can’t be created with a brushstroke. Make room for love.
The final entry. Noelle wasn’t ready yet to stop discovering all her aunt’s secrets. To stop hearing her aunt’s voice through the journal. Maybe that was why she had taken her time. She didn’t want to reach the end. But after struggling to piece together the shocking new information Helen had given yesterday about a pregnancy, Noelle had to know whether the last entry might hold the final piece of the puzzle.
She changed into flannel pajamas and lay back on the bed, propping two pillows behind her and cracking open the journal. Only one Polaroid remained. An incomplete series. The painting she’d found months ago in that locked room, half-finished on the easel, could have been Number Two. That fresh, pretty landscape, colorful and happy.
The Polaroid she held contained a beautiful lush garden—Gram’s estate. Noelle recognized the placement of sculpted shrubs and the cherubic fountain. Even the bench to the side, where she’d spent hours reading books and watching blue jays taunt the squirrels.
Noelle turned to the diary entry dated three weeks before her aunt passed away, entitled, “JOY.” She cheated, skimming ahead for news of a baby, a pregnancy, anything. But she found nothing. So she read from the beginning.
I’ve spent the last week looking at old photos, revisiting old memories in my mind. And I realise with all the valleys and dark shadows I’ve allowed my life to contain, there is also one other constant. Joy. I have been utterly blessed by good health, a rich family heritage, the passion of painting, and finding love again. What more could a person ask for? I also realise how selfish I’ve been, hiding away in this place all these years. Shoving people away, ignoring a kind hand reaching out. How ridiculous, in retrospect, the fears that I fought all this time. Fears that kept me isolated from the rest of humanity.
Revisiting those memories, I’ve found my perfect day. In all those years, there was one particular afternoon I wouldn’t mind living over and over again. The sky was a brilliant blue, with enormous clouds rolling past. Summer in the garden. My sister had just told me a dirty joke about a vicar’s knickers, and we were laughing until our sides ached. When Noelle, just eleven, asked why we laughed, we only laughed harder, knowing she was too innocent to understand, knowing it wouldn’t be appropriate to tell her anyway. She started laughing, too, and the three of us roared for several minutes, tears streaming, muscles aching, until we hardly remembered why we were laughing in the first place.
We had dinner in the garden that evening, under the moon with the fireflies blinking all around us. We ate succulent strawberries with rich cream and listened to the music of Benny Goodman floating from my sister’s old gramophone. I remember wishing I could have captured us on canvas that way, caught our moment in time. But we were the painting. We lived it and breathed it and enjoyed it as it happened, and it’s captured in my memory forever.
Perfection. And so, with my life’s clock ticking, when I become fearful of what lies before me, the Great Unknown, I will meditate on that perfect day. I will remember, and laugh, and I will feel joy.
Clutching the pages to her chest, Noelle closed her eyes and remembered, too. A summer before she’d even met Adam. That particular evening, Noelle had walked up to the edge of the garden, led by the sound of cackling laughter in the air. Gram and Aunt Joy on a blanket, doubled over, mouths open, smiling. They tried to talk to her between contagious giggles but couldn’t catch their breath long enough. By then, Noelle was laughing, too.
She also remembered the sweet goodness of the strawberries, the mellow clarinet of Benny Goodman, the dancing fireflies. How wonderful, how amazing, that her aunt remembered it, too, just the way she had. A single shared memory connected Noelle to Joy stronger than anything else did since her death, more than the paintings, the diary, the gallery, the cottage.
Noelle needed to remember this today. To be drawn into a place of bliss and joy during her own time of shadows and isolation.
But the bliss only lasted a moment as she shut the book on the final entry and looked around at the bedroom, jarred out of the memory. Isolated in a cabin, miles away from anyone, alone with her own thoughts. She listened. Being so alone produced an eerie quiet, nearly suffocating.
She wanted to go home. She was tired of running. Escape had always been her answer. In fact, escape had become a pattern she didn’t even know she had formed. She could trace her habitual need to run away back to that last summer in Bath as a teenager. When she thought Adam was seeing a girl at Oxford. When she disapproved of her mother’s string of new boyfriends. When she kissed an engaged man under a tree. She ran away. Every time.
Physically, literally, ran away.
But that hadn’t changed anything. Coming to Cornwall certainly hadn’t made her feelings for Adam disappear. They had only grown stronger, especially after talking to Jill. And escaping hadn’t erased that incredible kiss.
Time to stop running. She leaped up from the bed and marched toward the closet, laying the empty suitcase onto the bed with a bounce. It wouldn’t take long to pack—some hanging clothes, a bundle of sweaters and jeans from the drawers, a few toiletries. She could be on the train within an hour.
She had no idea exactly what she’d be returning to. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. One thing she did know, as she folded a sweater’s long sleeves. She wanted Adam. Wanted to relax into his arms, hear his laughter in rhythm with hers, and be his companion for the rest of her life. She’d wasted so much time looking back that she’d failed to look forward. To picture her life in days to come. And she couldn’t imagine those future days without Adam there.
In order to have even a chance that he’d be in her life, she needed to fight for him. At least to know that she’d tried. That she hadn’t run away.
Rushed and anxious, packing the last of her toiletries, Noelle stopped cold. A strong thud against one of the cottage’s walls made her gasp. She clutched the toothbrush in her hand and listened. Another smaller thud followed by a muffled voice. Noelle tiptoed into the living room. A blur of a shadow passed by the window. Petrified, she dropped the toothbrush and searched the room for some kind of makeshift weapon. An umbrella on the dresser three feet away caught her eye, and she snatched it tight, held it like a bat, both arms quivering.
Adrenaline raced to the top of her head, and her pulse thumped faster. In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, isolated, vulnerable, on her own. She couldn’t even remember where she’d put her cell phone—in the bathroom, on the bed. Too late to call for help, anyway.
Steady footsteps thumped on the porch outside, followed by a three-tap knock at the door.
Still leery, Noelle loosened her grip on the umbrella. An intruder wouldn’t knock.
Another knock, “shave-and-a-haircut.” She inched closer, a few feet from the door, wondering how on earth to respond. A muffled male voice spoke through the door. “Noelle?”
Still shaken, she reached for the knob and cracked the door hesitantly. There stood Adam, hunched shoulders, wearing at least a three-day beard, his right eye swollen and bruised. Her body went limp at the sight of him, the mixture of fear and relief rendering her weak. Seeing the umbrella clutched in her hand, and the ashen look on her face, Adam stepped forward and wrapped her up tight in his arms. She melted into him.
“I scared you. I’m sorry.” He cradled her head.
The umbrella slipped down, and she gripped the sides of his suede jacket, burying her head in his chest. After a moment, he nudged her forward into the living room, shutting the door on the cool night air with his foot, still holding her tight.
“Shh. Hey, it’s okay,” he whispered. She had started to cry.
He stroked her hair, and she was safe again. She wished she could stay this way forever, but knew they had some talking to do first. She backed away slightly, wiping tears with her hand. “Sorry. I thought you were an intruder. I’m a little emotional tonight.”
“I tried to call, but your cell was off.” He wiped her other cheek.
She thought he would release her, but he stayed close, his hands still around her waist. She winced when she saw a black eye again. “What happened?”
“Oh, this?” He touched his fingertips just below the crimson half-moon. “That’s nothing. You should’ve seen it this morning—swollen shut.”
“Who did that?”
Adam raised an eyebrow. “Laurel’s father. Long story.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not too bad.”
“How did you know I was in Cornwall? I bet Jill told you.”
“Nope. Mac told me. I went looking for you tonight, at your cottage. Mac was there and told me how to find you.”
“Adam, about Laurel—”
“I didn’t come here to talk about Laurel. I came to talk about something else.” His eyes held a solemnity. She saw it that day his father went into the hospital, and she recognized it again tonight. A desperation, an urgency, a concern that he was about to lose something precious to him. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a crinkled piece of paper, unfolding it with his fingers. “Do you recognize this?” He held the paper between them.
Noelle touched the corner, the faded pencil sketch of a sneaker. “Yes. You read me a story under the tree, and I ignored you and sketched your shoe.” She looked up at him, puzzled.
“I found it inside one of my architecture books when I moved in with Laurel. Way before I even knew you were back in England. I must’ve carried it around with me all these years, from dorm rooms to apartments, tucked away in that book. That morning of your birthday, and the festival, I got sort of nostalgic and rummaged around and found it again.”
Adam folded the paper and returned it to his pocket. “But I didn’t put it back inside the book. I sort of… hid it away. In this drawer in my study. I thought I put it in a safe place, but—”
“Laurel found it. That’s what first made her suspicious. She saw my name in the corner of the sketch.”
Adam nodded. He placed his hands back on her arms and looked squarely at her, the earnest gaze returning. “I don’t want to talk about a sketch, or a festival, or Laurel. I want to talk about us. I’ve had feelings for you all the way back to when we were teenagers. And they’ve only grown stronger this year. I should’ve raced to that airport all those years ago when you left England. I should’ve fought for you, no matter what hurdles my mother had put in our way. It wasn’t up to her. It was up to me. I was too bloody young and too bloody stupid to do anything about it. But I’m older now. And when I kissed you under that tree, I knew everything had changed. I’m going to tell you something I was too scared to say back then. I love you. We belong together. You know we do. This can be our second chance.”
Noelle opened her mouth to respond, but she could tell he wasn’t finished.
“I’m a free man. It’s a long story, but Laurel took off before I could speak to her that day under the tree. I had to track her down at her parents’ house, all the way to Scotland. Call me old-fashioned, but I had to settle things, end them with her before I could come to you again. I wanted to do this right. Clean slate.”
“She didn’t take it very well, did she?”
“Neither did her father. Hell, I deserved it. I’ve been an idiot, fighting the truth for months, leading Laurel on, giving you mixed signals. But something about that kiss told me you felt the same way. Look, we can’t go back and change things, but we can start from right here. If that’s what you want.”
She watched his eyes, unblinking, waiting for her response. “I need to hear it again,” she said.
“Which part?”
“The part about you loving me.”
“Oh, that.” He grinned. He touched her face with both hands and said purposely, deliberately, “I love you, Noelle Cooke.”
“I love you right back.”
Their lips met in a deep, exuberant kiss. Urgent at first, then softer, slower. He shifted his arms to her waist, his grasp firm and confident as he lifted her inches off the ground. Noelle savored his lips, caressed his hair, his neck. No hesitation or guilt. No running away or stings of regret. Only certainty and tenderness as he set her back down.
She outlined his mouth with her fingers, sensing the last piece of the wall crumble. He’s mine. “I can’t believe you came all this way to find me. I’m glad you did.”
“So am I.”
“And you were just in time. I had started packing when you showed up.”
“Why?”
“I was coming to find you.”
Adam tilted his head and whispered, “Here I am.” Then he kissed her again.