I knock on the door and wait, trying not to shift on my feet. The warm presence at my back helps keep me calm. Holds me steady.
The door opens to reveal Rosaline dressed in a pair of ratty sweats that still look amazing on her. And I’m happy to realize I don’t resent her attractiveness.
Is this what people call progress? Go me, I guess.
The woman stares at me, eyes wide, knuckles going white on the doorknob. “Maddie. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were coming. Dom said…” She glances over my shoulder. “Dom said he wanted to talk.”
And again, I’m pleasantly surprised that their shared glance, which probably communicated more than her words did, elicits no negative reactions in me. No suspicion or resentment or hopelessness. The reminder of their past together doesn’t feel like an attack on what Dom and I might be building between us.
For this emotional growth, I can probably thank the combination of therapy and the gift I brought.
“We’re going to drink.” I hold up the bottle of gin I’m clutching, and Dom has a cloth bag with three types of wine because he said that’s what Rosaline prefers. “And we’re going to do this puzzle.” I show her the glass Rubbermaid container full of jigsaw pieces.
Only the best container for my brother’s final gift to me.
“Okay.” Rosaline steps back to let us into her house. Her home—which is how I can think of it now instead of their home—is quaint in a way I didn’t expect. Not the shabby hobbit librarian decor of my apartment, but kind of plant maiden cottagecore. I could spend some time here and not be mad about it. When I wander into her living room, Rosaline’s decoration choices notch up even further in my opinion.
“This is a quality puzzling table.” I place the container in the middle of a golden wood-grain masterpiece that’s almost as large as mine.
“Thanks,” she murmurs. “Adam made it for me.”
Dom checks over the table, assessing his brother’s work, then nods with a pleased grunt before setting out the bottles of wine. He disappears into another room that must be the kitchen, because he comes back a moment later with some stemless wineglasses—one full of ice for me—and a bottle opener.
“I’ll leave you to it.” He brushes a hand over my lower back as he steps away from the table.
“You’re leaving?” Rosaline sounds lost as she glances between us.
“He’s going to entertain himself in the other room,” I assure her. “He’s mainly here as my DD. Have fun.” I pat his taught stomach, then settle cross-legged by the table and reach for the container. “Get to pouring, Ros. That wine isn’t going to drink itself.”
Dom squeezes her shoulder before strolling out of the room, and soon I hear the sound of a chair groan as he settles himself elsewhere.
After another prolonged pause, Rosaline pops the cork from a bottle of wine and pours herself a generous glass. Then she kindly unscrews the cap on the gin and gives me a healthy dose of the good stuff. Then she grabs two throw pillows off the nearby couch, hands one to me, and settles another across the way from where I’m sitting.
Even as I sort through the pieces, focused on finding the edges first, most of my concentration is on the redhead. I’ve always thought of Rosaline as utterly confident and secure. A league above me. A goddess to my mere mortal.
But now she moves as if waiting for me to jump at her. I don’t think she’s scared of me, but there’s an element of caution. Of anticipation.
“Maddie, I’m not sure why you’re here.” Her voice carries a question. An invitation to explain my sudden game night invasion when most of my life I’ve shied away from her.
“The puzzle will reveal all,” I say in the voice of a carnival fortune teller.
There’s a snort from the other room, and I’m glad one person here finds me entertaining.
Rosaline blinks at me, looking suddenly stunned, and her shock is enough to have me pausing. “What? Did I spill on myself?” I examine my white tank top for wet spots.
“No. It’s just…you sounded exactly like him. Just then. The way you said that.”
We both know who “him” is.
Josh.
“Yeah, well, flare for the dramatic must be in the blood.” I nod toward the scattering of pieces in front of her. “You going to help?”
She shakes her head, but not in a no. More like clearing the specter of my brother from her mind. “You’re saying when the puzzle is done, you’ll tell me why you’re visiting me?”
“Correct. Now get to working. We’ve got a thousand pieces to sort out.”
That may sound like a lot to a puzzle amateur, but I’ve been jigsawing for decades. And Rosaline ends up having a knack for finding those tricky solid-color pieces that look the same as twenty others. We settle into a mostly comfortable silence, sipping our drinks and slipping missing pieces into place.
Almost an hour has gone by when something in her demeanor shifts. Rosaline finds the right spot for a piece she’s been clutching for five minutes, settling it with a triumphant “Ha!”
Then she freezes.
I don’t react, continuing to work on the corner I’ve claimed.
“Is…” She doesn’t finish the question, letting her voice trail off with a quiver. After a prolonged pause she reaches for another piece with fingers that shake.
Another half hour, and we have the entire puzzle done. Sprawled across Rosaline’s coffee table is a clear picture of a couple standing on the glacier in Denali, both in puffy jackets with their arms wrapped around each other. The woman smiles at the camera. The man gazes down at his companion with so much love on his face, it’s hard to look at for long.
My brother left me a picture of himself.
And Rosaline.
“Tell me about your time with Josh,” I say.
One important thing I’ve learned on these many trips with Dom is that I only know a portion of my brother. We were close, but there were pieces we kept to ourselves, or gave to others. Josh gave parts of himself to his best friend.
And he gave others to the woman he loved.
I want all of him I can have, even if the pieces are secondhand.
“We…” She clears her throat. “We loved each other.”
I nod, not wanting to interrupt.
“N-nothing happened for years. Not while Dom and I were together. I never would have. Josh wouldn’t have. It wasn’t until we separated.”
My heart hurts when the timeline clarifies in my mind.
“After Josh’s diagnosis, then,” I say. “You were together for a year. Less.”
Rosaline reaches out, her finger tracing Josh’s face on the puzzle. “Yes. A year.” Her smile is small and sad. “It seems both longer than that, and much shorter. I was the one who went to him. Showed up at his place, stared him in the eyes, and told him the rest of his days were mine.” She chuckles. “Then I lost my nerve, apologized, and asked if he still loved me.” Rosaline presses her fingers against her lips, appearing lost in a memory. “He told me he did. That he never stopped.”
“Never stopped?” I ask.
Her face flushes a rosy color. “When we were twenty-one—the summer after we graduated college. Dom and I broke up. I had an internship in New York, same as Josh. And we just…clicked. Two months in love. Then…” She pauses again, and I realize this must be hard for her to talk about. To speak of the romance now that he’s gone. “I found out I was pregnant. And timing-wise, it had to be Dom’s. I was too far along. But the thing is, I also didn’t want it to be Josh’s.”
“Why not?”
She traces the indents of the puzzle’s pieces. “Because I was scared.”
“Scared of what?” I press because I’m desperate and pushy.
Rosaline, still wearing her sad smile, keeps talking.
“Scared of how free your brother was. With life. With everything. He wanted to travel the world. I knew he loved me. But I was scared if I told him about the pregnancy, that it was Dom’s, he’d leave. Or that he’d set aside all his dreams and stay. And I wondered, if he did stay, could he handle the responsibility? Every angle I studied it, I couldn’t picture a way forward with Josh. And, well, you may remember my parents. How they raised me…Not having the baby didn’t register as an option. So, I ended things with Josh. I came home. And I told Dom. About the pregnancy, not about your brother.” She sends a pained grimace toward the doorway, as if she can see her ex-husband in the next room. “I panicked. And I knew Dom would keep me steady. That he was safe.” She sighs, combing a rough hand through her hair. “I wish I had slowed down. That I had taken more time to think. That summer. It changed everything.”
Yeah. For all of us.
“So, you loved Josh then,” I say. “But that was years ago. You knew his chances of survival were low. How could you put yourself through loving someone, knowing you’d likely lose them so soon?”
Rosaline stares at her hands, turning a silver ring on her middle finger.
“One day,” she says.
“One day, you’ll what?”
“No. I’m saying if I’d had one day—only one—it would’ve been worth it. To be with Josh, loving him like I’d always wanted, a single day would have been a gift. And I got a year.” She smiles wide, her eyes full of tears that slowly overflow and spill down her cheeks. “Yeah, I wish I’d had a lifetime. And yeah, it hurts more than I can describe. Two years, six months, three days, and I still miss him every day. But it would’ve been worse if I’d never had him at all.”
One day.
My mind plays out the rest of my life in that moment. Me living a long, safe life to one hundred years old.
Without a single day more of Dominic Perry.
I think I’d rather leave this world the day after tomorrow and spend a solid twenty-four hours with him.
All I wish is that I’d been living the past ten years with him as well.
“Why didn’t you two say anything? How did I miss it?” Since finishing the puzzle the first time, I’ve been racking my brain for memories of that last year. Josh was able to manage the pain well enough to keep traveling for a while—to Alaska apparently. He managed well enough that he didn’t let on how bad things were until close to the end. But the final few weeks, I was in the hospital with him as much as I could be.
“That was something Josh asked for. To keep us just for us.” Rosaline sighs. “I think he was worried what people would say about me when he was gone. Leaving his best friend for him. I told him I didn’t care. But it worried him, and I didn’t want to give him more things to stress over.”
There’s a weighty presence at my back, and I glance over my shoulder to find Dom leaning against the doorway, a grimace of regret on his face. “My family would’ve understood. They will understand, if you decide to tell them.”
The Perrys. I think I get it now. Josh knew Rosaline would need people after the end, and her strict parents aren’t the most comforting bunch. No wonder she was at Adam and Carter’s graduation. They’re the ones she turned to when she lost the love of her life, though no one really knew.
Rosaline huffs a sad laugh. “I just might. A bit of honesty would have done us all some good.”
“Did you know about the letters he left us?” I ask. The puzzle was obviously a surprise.
Now her expression turns wistful. “Not exactly. Only that he was plotting something. I saw him writing a few, but when I asked, he gave me that mischievous smile of his and said he was figuring out how to fit two puzzle pieces together.”
I snort and blink away tears. At the end of his life, my brother was trying to mastermind my love story.
I wish he and Rosaline hadn’t had to wait so long for their own.
“Are you mad at Dom? For asking you to marry him?” The questions tumble out before I consider them.
Rosaline blinks at me, then she flicks her eyes over my shoulder, then back to me.
“Dom didn’t ask. I did.”
“What?” I yelp. “Wait. Wait wait wait. I was there. I heard Dom say, ‘We’ll get married.’ When you two were sitting on the porch swing.” I glance behind me and spy Dom rubbing a rough hand over his face.
“Yeah,” Rosaline speaks slowly. “In response to me asking him. Begging him, more like.”
“You”—I point an aggravated finger at him—“never clarified that. I thought the marriage was your idea.”
Dom crosses the room to crouch beside me. “It might as well have been. I didn’t turn her down. I prioritized what I thought I was supposed to do over what I should have done to make us both happy.”
My breath leaves me in a huff. “I’m just saying, I would’ve been slightly less pissed at you. I think. Maybe not. I’m kind of petty.”
Rosaline reaches across the puzzle to place her hand over mine.
“We were young fools. The two of us. I never should’ve asked him. And he never should have said yes. We should’ve chosen the people we loved, not the ones we felt safest with or responsible for. We both should’ve fought harder for the Sandersons.”
I squeeze her hand back. “I’m glad you were brave. That Josh had you in the end.”
And suddenly she’s around the table, or maybe I went to her. Either way, I find myself hugging tight to the only other woman who loved Josh as much as I did.
As Rosaline’s arms tighten around me, I breathe in the scent of lavender.