Chapter 40

Three months and a lot of covering my tracks later, I ended up in a town called New Castle, Connecticut, just about as far away from Rockaway Watch as I could get. I chose Sarah as my first name—not a palindrome. There were weeks at a time when I didn’t want the reminder and weeks when all I could think about was puzzles and games and codes and him.

I danced every day.

I worked in a diner. I made friends with my coworkers. I thought now and then about going back to school, even if I had to start over, but at the end of the day, I didn’t want to risk any connection to my old life, not even becoming a nurse.

I couldn’t risk being found—not by my family and not by Toby’s.

As the years went by, I slowly stopped expecting the tragedy on Hawthorne Island to end up back in the news, stopped expecting anyone else to discover what I knew: Somewhere out there, Toby Hawthorne was alive.

I loved him.

I loved him—and hated him, too. I tried to forget him—one night with one man, and I ended up pregnant as a result. Almost from the beginning, in my mind, the baby was ours.

Toby’s and mine.

I told myself that it was wrong. My baby had a father, though he was certainly no prince. I promised myself that when she was born, I was going to give her the actual father’s last name. But in my heart, she was the fairy-tale ending Toby and I had been denied. She was my new beginning, and I swore that I would be her everything, that I would teach her how to play, how to make everything a game, how to find joy. Every day.

I swore that she would grow up dancing. She would never be invisible. She would always be loved. And someday, I’d tell her—all of it. My story. Our story.

Her due date came and went, but my baby showed no signs of making her appearance until the storm of the century rolled in. It was the worst I’d ever seen, worse even than the night of the fire, and I heard a whisper somewhere in my mind.

As far as I’m concerned, Hannah the Same Backward as Forward, you’re the storm.

Hurricane-strength winds knocked out power lines and blew out windows. My apartment lost electricity—and that was when my water broke. There was no way I could drive. Streets were flooding. I tried calling 911 but couldn’t even get through.

I told myself that I had time, that babies, especially first babies, didn’t come that quickly, but each contraction hit me like my body was being split in two. I tried to make it to the door, feeling my way through the darkness, and suddenly, there he was.

“Harry.” That name came first, then the other one, the true one. “Toby.”

“I’ve got you, Hannah.” He lifted me off the ground, and my head lolled against his chest as he continued. “The Same Backward as Forward.”

The next contraction hit, the worst yet, but I didn’t scream, the same way he hadn’t, as I’d nursed him through agony all those nights.

He was here.

And she was coming.

Somehow, he got me into my bedroom and onto my bed. I could feel myself on the verge of losing consciousness, but his voice brought me back.

“I wrote to you.”

The lights flickered, and suddenly, I could see him. All I wanted was to see him. “I hate you,” I said, but the words came out tender—a love song. Our love song.

“I know.” He pushed my knees up, put two pillows beneath my head, pressed sweat-drenched hair back from my face.

“For leaving,” I clarified, thinking of that damn letter. “I hate you for leaving and only for leaving, and, for the record? I love you, too.”

My voice gave way to a scream, and his hand slipped into mine. I held on so tightly I half expected the bones in his fingers to break, but he never even flinched.

I love you.

“You son of a bitch,” I said, breathing the words the moment I could. “I love you, you bastard.”

“You’re almost there.”

I glared at him. “I want the letters you wrote me.”

My glare triggered his smirk, like not even the years and the miles he’d put between us could circumvent that reaction. “They’re postcards, actually.”

He looked years older than he had the last time I’d seen him—harder, sun-worn. His tan wasn’t even. His shirt was threadbare. Facial hair marked his jawline, and still, I knew every line of his face.

“I want,” I said, my body seizing with pain, “my postcards.”

“One more push,” he told me, “and you can have them.”

I love you.

I didn’t realize I’d said a damn thing until he said it back.

“I love you,” Toby Hawthorne told me. “I have loved you from the moment you dumped a half-dozen lemons on my bed. From before that, even. From the moment I saw you folding paper, from the first sugar castle, from the instant you promised me a merciful death and lied.”

I couldn’t do this, but I had to. For the baby, I had to. I pushed, and I screamed.

“I loved you,” he whispered, “when the world was pain and the only thing that made sense was your eyes. I loved you before I knew to hate myself, and I have loved you every day since.”

I love you.

And then he had her. She was real, and she was there, and for a single moment in time, she was ours. And then the ambulance arrived. I didn’t even remember him calling it. I had no idea how he’d gotten through.

The love of my life tucked my brand-new baby onto my chest, and just like that, he was gone.

Like the wind.

Like a dream.