Chapter Thirty-Eight

“I’m sorry. I know I messed up. I know you don’t have to listen to me or forgive me. I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

Cecil barked, the sound echoing in the tight confines of the trailer, and Maggie made a face in the mirror.

“I know,” she told her dog. “Too earnest. If I’m begging it’s just pathetic, isn’t it?”

The character needed more bite. Like she really did believe she deserved his forgiveness. Was even entitled to it. This wasn’t the part of the movie where she’d learned her lesson yet.

Maggie cleared her throat, skimming the lines to remind herself of them one more time before facing the mirror again. “I’m sorry. I know I messed up—”

A knock at the trailer door interrupted her and Maggie tossed the script on her vanity as she crossed the three feet to the door. The trailer was a fraction of the size of her usual on-set accommodations, but the budget on this film was a fraction of the size of the ones she normally worked on so she would suck it up and handle the close confines.

The next Alien Adventuress film wouldn’t start filming for months—big budget blockbusters like that always had a million moving parts to line up—but Maggie had been eager to get back to work and this little indie film had been perfect timing. The entire shoot would be only sixteen days—a mad dash of filming, as if the director was afraid the producers were going to yank the funding at any moment. The energy on the set was infectious, everyone pulling together to make something they believed in—long hours, small paychecks, and a sort of frantic stress to make it work in the time they had all contributed to the vibe on set. And made Maggie feel like she might be working on something that mattered.

And if she still missed Sadie and Ian and Long Shores… Well. It hadn’t even been a month since she left. She was sure to get over them soon.

“You ready for me?” she asked the production assistant waiting on the other side of the door when she opened it.

“Not yet.” The PA grimaced and Maggie decided not to ask about whatever snafu on set was delaying filming. “Probably another half hour, at least.” She held up a manila envelope. “Your manager just sent this over.”

“Thanks.” Maggie accepted the envelope and retreated back inside her on set refuge.

She expected some rider she needed to review for the Alien Adventuress deal, but when she opened the flap, a single letter-sized envelope slid out into her hands, along with a hand-written note. A familiar sized envelope, in which she could feel the familiar thick stationary.

This one was addressed, stamped and mailed—from Dolores Tully to Maggie Tate—but it was stamped “Insufficient Postage” and the handwritten note with it was in Mel’s handwriting, explaining that the courier who had picked up the car from Lolly’s place had also been instructed to collect the mail and this had been the only item which wasn’t junk mail.

How many times had Maggie wondered why Lolly hadn’t mailed the letters? She’d mailed this one. Were the others just test runs? From the date stamp, it had been mailed months ago. The returned letter had probably been sitting in the mail box the entire time Maggie was in Long Shores and it hadn’t even occurred to her to look.

With shaking hands, she pulled open the flap, sliding out several sheets of thick stationary, each covered in Lolly’s looping script. Her chest tight, Maggie sank onto the bench in front of her vanity and began to read.

Dear Maggie,

There is so much I know I should say to you and no matter how much I write here, I worry I will never be able to say enough. I have so many regrets, chief among them that I pushed you away by trying to force you to have a relationship with your father. No matter how I felt about you both, I should have respected your feelings.

I’ve spent my life handing out advice, but I couldn’t take my own where you were concerned and I have always felt that I failed you. Failed you when you were small for not being part of your life. When you were a teen for not doing more. And when you were an adult by pushing you away. Maybe I only gave good advice because I made so many mistakes in my own life. Learning the lessons of what not to do. I missed out on love when I had the chance. I missed out on having children as I had always wanted. And I didn’t do enough for you when I should have.

I have so many regrets. Which doesn’t mean that I didn’t love my life and love the people in it, but I have lived with so much regret, so many might have beens, and the one thing I want for you, above all others, is for you to live your life without that feeling. So that when you look back on what you are leaving to the world, you don’t wish you could do it all over again, and you don’t have a single letter you wish you had written years earlier.

I’m leaving you the house, the cottage in Long Shores. I know it isn’t much for a movie star, but you were happy there once and if I can give you anything, it would be the memory of happy times and the wish that you make more there.

I am so proud of you, Maggie May, though perhaps I have no right to be. You made yourself. And what you have made is extraordinary.

I’m not sure when this letter will find you. Or if I will still be here when it does. My clock is winding down, but I don’t regret the end—only the opportunities lost. May you never feel you have missed what life offered you. Loving you was one of the best things I ever did. With all my love.

Lolly

Maggie stared at the letter for a long moment, then flipped to the first page and began reading again.

A single phrase stuck out to her, again and again. Loving you was one of the best things I ever did.

Loving you…

Lolly had always seemed so sure of who she was, never questioning. It had never occurred to Maggie that she had regrets. That she felt like she’d let opportunities pass her by.

Lolly had loved her. And she had loved Lolly. Maybe that was the key. Maybe it wasn’t about being worthy. Maybe it wasn’t about the right person loving her. Maybe the only way to fill the gaping hole inside her was to give love, not to receive. Maybe that was her esteem-able act. Hadn’t she been happiest when she was with Ian and Sadie, before she knew whether Ian cared for her or not, when she just threw herself into caring for him?

She didn’t want to relive Lolly’s mistakes, missing out on love…but if Ian truly didn’t want her there…

Her phone rang—if this were a movie, it would be Ian, but Mel’s name flashed on the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Good news. We have an offer.”

“For Alien Adventuress? I thought that was already done.”

“No, sorry. The house. The one in Oregon. The realtor just called. Someone made an offer.”

Maggie’s heart stuttered. “Already?”

She wasn’t ready to give up.

The realization shuddered through her, loud and clear. Ian lashed out when he felt threatened, throwing words to protect himself. She’d known that about him since they were eight years old. He’d told her it wasn’t real between them—and maybe it hadn’t been—but she wasn’t ready to believe that just yet.

“Turn it down.”

“What? Don’t you even want to know how much they offered?”

“No. I’m not ready to sell. Not yet.”

“All right,” Mel acknowledged. “You’re the boss.”

And for the first time, she really felt like it. For once, in control of her life.

She got off the phone with Mel and stared at the letter in her hands. She and Ian had never written letters. Even when they’d tried, their correspondence had been lackluster at best, but maybe it was time to turn over a new leaf.

She tore a blank page off the back of her script and grabbed a pen, beginning to write before she could second guess herself.

Dear Ian,

We were never very good at writing letters, but I think I finally have something to say.

She paused, writing the next words in strong, clear script.

It was real to me.

A knock on the trailer door interrupted her and Cecil barked as Maggie set down her pen. It had only been twenty minutes. If this were a movie, Ian would be standing outside—but when she pulled open the door the same PA stood on the pavement. They must have gotten the problems on set sorted out faster than anticipated. “Ready for me?”

“Not yet.” The PA jerked her head toward the exit. “There’s some guy at the front gate asking to see you. We wanted to check with you before we run him off.”

Ian.

She was out of the trailer and moving quickly toward the security gate before the PA had finished talking. He was here. She’d known he would come. Her heart had known—

But when she rounded the corner and saw the man standing next to the security guard, her heart froze in her chest and her feet stopped moving.

“Maggie?”

“It’s okay,” she said numbly to the PA who had kept pace with her. “It’s my father.”

* * * * *

The trailer felt a thousand times smaller with her father sitting across from her, his large shoulders seeming to take up too much space. And too much oxygen.

Maggie wasn’t sure why she’d let him in. She should have told him to take a hike. She had to work. She had to be in a mindset to work. He couldn’t just show up here in a freaking Uber. She could be called to set at any moment and she’d have to perform. She should tell him to get the hell out.

But she didn’t say a word. Staring at him. Waiting.

“I know you probably don’t want to hear what I have to say,” he began. And she almost agreed with him, almost told him he couldn’t say a damn thing to her and had him escorted off the lot—but the words wouldn’t come out. “I didn’t think you’d take my call. Not that I can blame you. I know I’ve fucked up when it comes to you more times than I can count, but I…I haven’t been sleeping since you came to see me.”

“I don’t see how that’s my problem.”

His throat worked as he swallowed. “It isn’t. You don’t owe me anything. I just…I wanted to explain.”

She arched a brow in a classic I’m waiting gesture.

Her father cleared his throat. “It was easier,” he said. “It’s no excuse, but it’s the truth. I wasn’t ready to be a dad and my orders gave me the perfect excuse not to be. I was protecting the country. I was a hero. And when I got back stateside, I told myself you didn’t need me. You didn’t know me. You’d been doing fine while I was gone. You were taken care of. And what did I know about kids? What could I possibly do with you? I was a kid and I wanted to believe you had it better with your mom and your grandparents than you would have had with me. I wanted to believe you didn’t need me, because I needed to believe I hadn’t done anything wrong by not being around. Your mom sent me pictures and you looked happy. You were better off. I told myself that so many times it had to be true. I couldn’t accept anything else, because if I did then I had to admit I’d screwed up. And that I’d failed you.”

“I get it when you were nineteen,” she said. “I do. But when you were in your thirties? When you brought Michelle up to Long Shores to meet me like some kind of parental Show and Tell?”

“I didn’t think of it that way. Michelle wanted to meet you—”

Maggie nodded. “So it was her idea. I wondered about that.”

“It was Lolly’s idea.”

Maggie laughed softly. “Of course it was.” Lolly, who never met a problem she didn’t want to fix.

“I didn’t realize you expected to come live with us. I didn’t think you wanted—”

“You never asked what I wanted,” she reminded him. “You never bothered to know me.”

He nodded, lowering his head. “I’m sorry.”

She’d been waiting a long time for those words and hearing them just made her sad. “Me too.”

She’d wanted that to be enough. For his regret to magically make her feel different. Just like she’d wanted the fame and success to magically make her feel whole. But it didn’t work like that. She was still angry at him. Though maybe the thousand little razor cuts inside her chest didn’t hurt quite so much anymore.

He looked up. “Do you think we could…?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.” There was no starting over. There was no magically wiping the slate clean and pretending the last thirty years hadn’t happened. But she didn’t want to wake up in twenty years wishing she’d taken the chance when it was offered. “Maybe we can get coffee sometime,” she offered.

“I’d like that. I have to fly back for work tomorrow, but I have a few hours—”

“Not today. I’m sure I’ll be in Florida again at some point. Or, you know, I’m an eccentric movie star. Flying across the country for coffee is pretty much our thing.”

He nodded, his eyes bright as they met hers. “Right.”

She looked away. “I should get to set,” she mumbled—though no one had come to fetch her. This was enough real drama for one day. She had fake drama to create.

And maybe when they wrapped filming for the night, she’d finish that letter.