If We Fly: A What If Novel Read online

  En route, Teddy collected rocks, leaves, sticks, dead bugs…anything he could find. Vanessa sighed and complained that her feet hurt. Dad marched forward, a walking stick in his hand, pausing every now and then to point out something he thought was fascinating—the way the light shone through the trees, the shape of a flower, a bird’s nest.

  The rustic wood cabin with its smudged windows and stone chimney appears in a clearing of pine trees. Vanessa’s car is parked to the side, and the rumble of the generator indicates she got the electricity working.

  Knowing she might turn me away, I suppress my nervousness and knock on the door. She opens it slightly, peering at me over the chain lock. Her face is pale and pinched, her swollen eyes smudged with dark circles.

  I tighten my grip on my backpack. “Please let me come in.”

  She hesitates. Her lips compress. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “You don’t have to say anything.” I indicate my damp hair and raincoat. “But it’s raining, and I really don’t want to walk all the way back to Spiral Pass.”

  The crease between her eyebrows eases a little. She unlatches the door and pulls it open. Relief and nostalgia flood me the instant I step inside. The musty cabin is still filled with old, comfortable furniture, woven throw rugs, and a bookshelf stuffed with books. My father’s old nature lithographs and photos adorn the walls.

  “Wow.” I set my things down and take a deep breath. “It’s like a time capsule.”

  “I was surprised too, though I don’t know why.” Vanessa purses her lips and surveys the room. “No one’s been here in years so it’s not as if anything would have changed.”

  Rubbing my hands together, I eye her cautiously. “How are you doing?”

  She shrugs. Her expression closes off.

  “Do I smell coffee?” I ask.

  “Decaf. You can have a cup, if you want.” She sits on the sofa, drawing an old quilt around her legs.

  Since I’m somewhat certain she won’t throw me out into the rain, I pour two cups of coffee and set a mug on the table for her.

  “There was a message on the answering machine that you missed a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.” I retrieve a paper bag from my backpack. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes. It was just for more bloodwork.”

  I sit across from her on the sofa and hand her the bag.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “Open it. They might be a little squished though.”

  She peers into the bag. A faint smile curves her mouth. “I totally forgot. Dad’s doughnuts.”

  “From Gus’s Bakery.” I unfold two napkins and hand her one. “Remember Gus always used to give Dad an extra one?”

  “A baker’s dozen.” Vanessa takes out two chocolate-glazed doughnuts and sets one on a napkin for me.

  “I couldn’t fit a whole dozen in my backpack, so we’ll have to settle for two. Well, three. Gus insisted on giving me an extra one anyway.”

  I bite into the sugary treat. Though it’s ridiculous to get emotional about a chocolate-glazed doughnut, bittersweet pleasure fills me.

  Before coming up to the cabin, our father always made a stop at Gus’s Bakery for doughnuts. A baker’s dozen. He wouldn’t let anyone even open the box until we arrived at the cabin, after which we’d indulge in the ritual selection of one doughnut apiece before settling in for the weekend.

  I polish off the doughnut, glancing up. Vanessa is watching me, her eyes shuttered.

  Dismay clouds my heart. “I am so sorry, Vanessa.”

  She averts her gaze, her features tense.

  Silence stretches thin and brittle.

  “God.” A sigh breaks from her throat. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “What a fucking mess.”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “I don’t care what Nathan said.” Leaning forward, she puts her mug on the coffee table with a thunk. “If he really thought he saw or heard something that contradicted Cole’s story, then why the hell didn’t the investigators and the chief of police notice them too?”

  “Maybe they did.” I rub my aching chest. “But Chief Peterson was good friends with Kevin Danforth, and he’d never thought Cole was worth anything. Just the opposite, especially after Cole broke away from his father. I imagine it was all too easy for him to believe that Cole had been driving. Hell, it was probably what he wanted. He wouldn’t have had a problem ignoring any evidence to the contrary.”

  She twists her mouth with disbelief, but a glimmer of understanding appears in her eyes.

  “So…do you believe it now?” My heart pounds.

  She stares at her belly, stroking the round bump. Her eyes glitter.

  “I don’t know,” she finally says. “I mean, all these years, and the lawsuit…Jesus. What are people going to think about that? What if Cole demands the money back?”

  “He won’t. He’ll tell you what he told me. He made the choice.” I drag my fingers through my damp hair. “I’m so…I mean, the lie was one thing, but it ended up changing his whole life. Ruining it.”

  With a faint laugh, she shakes her head. “I hardly think owning one of the most successful liquor companies in the country has ruined his life.”

  “But it wasn’t what he wanted to do.” I take a sip of coffee, smothering another surge of regret. “He was supposed to have a career in marine sciences and ocean conservation.”

  “So you just said he made a choice, right?” Her mouth twists. “I mean, if it’s true that he lied about driving, I wouldn’t call him a victim of circumstances. He still could have pursued marine sciences after he left Castille. For whatever reason, he chose not to. None of the events after the accident happened to him. He made them happen, both because of his lie and as a result of it.”

  “Maybe that’s part of why he was upset when I told him I wanted to tell the truth.” I run my finger over the rim of my mug. “I was taking it all out of his control.”

  “Control does seem to be an issue with him.” She rolls her eyes slightly.

  “But nothing changes the facts.” I pull in a heavy breath. “I was driving the car. It was my fault. Mom, Dad, Teddy…they’d still be alive if I’d done something differently.”

  Vanessa is silent for a second before she grabs my arm, her fingers tight.

  “Stop it.” Her voice sharpens. “Even after Cole left, you refused to believe he was at fault. You kept saying he hadn’t killed them, that it was an accident, that there was nothing he could have done. You defended him constantly. So don’t you dare turn things around on yourself now. If you were the driver, you couldn’t have done anything to stop it. No one will blame you.”

  “What about you?” I scrub my swollen eyes with my sleeve. “You blamed Cole, so why wouldn’t you blame me? The circumstances were the same.”

  She compresses her lips. “I was furious after the accident…obviously. Grief-stricken. And ever since then, Cole has never done a thing to make people, me included, think anything good about him. It’s like he wanted to live up to the rumors that he’d done something wrong. So yes, I blamed him for a lot of things. And now I know he wanted to be blamed. He lied. He put it on himself. And he did it for you.”

  Releasing my arm, she sits back and shakes her head again. “I guess it was pretty selfless. He wasn’t thinking about himself at all. The only thing he cared about was protecting you from the worst nightmare you could have imagined.” She spreads out her hand and looks at her fingers. “Most women would give a lot to be loved that much.”

  The statement lodges like a tiny light beneath my layers of sorrow and grief.

  Vanessa sighs, her shoulders slumping. “And I’m sorry for what I said. I hate what’s happening, but it’s okay that you came back. In fact, I’m glad you did.”

  “I am too. But I don’t think I can finish the mural.”

  She frowns. “Why not?”

  “An honor for Mom and Dad when I—”

  My voice breaks off. Pain flashes
in Vanessa’s eyes.

  “How can I finish it without thinking about what I did?” I rub a speck of dried red paint on my thumb.

  “You can’t.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not supposed to finish the mural without thinking of them.” She reaches for her mug. “You’re supposed to finish it by thinking of them. When you were six years old, you broke one of Mom’s clay sculptures that was supposed to be in an art show in Portland.”

  I blink at the non-sequitur. “I don’t remember that.”

  “I do. You were running around the house pretending to be Wonder Woman, sliding down the banister, using a rope as a lasso. And on one of your rescue missions or whatever, you bumped into the table that was holding the sculpture. It fell and broke into about half a dozen pieces. Totally ruined.”

  “How horrible.” I search for the memory but can’t find it. “Mom must have been horrified.”

  “She was. She didn’t have another piece to send them, and she didn’t have time to make one so she had to drop out of the show.”

  “Yeah, this isn’t making me feel better at all.”

  Vanessa smiles faintly. “My point is that she didn’t blame you. She didn’t even scold you for running in the house because, of course, we used to do that all the time. She just said it was an accident and that there would be another art show. You helped her pick up the pieces and moved on. I guarantee she would want you to do the same thing now.”

  My heart constricts. “Breaking a sculpture and causing a fatal car crash are two different things entirely.”

  “My point is that they were both accidents.” An urgent note threads Vanessa’s voice. “And Mom and Dad never blamed you for an accident. God knows we had a lot of them as kids. The sculpture was just one of many. And yes, I know this is different, but if you think they’d blame you, you would be wrong.”

  Something loosens inside me, like a tight, frayed knot starting to unravel. I reach for the last doughnut in the bag and split it apart. We both polish off half before Vanessa groans and pushes to her feet.

  “I need to get some sleep.” She runs a hand over her belly. “The baby’s been kicking all day, and he’s finally settled down so this is my chance.”

  “I hope all that sugar doesn’t get him going again.” I take our mugs to the sink. “Do you need me to make up the bed?”

  “No, I already did it. I brought some sheets.”

  “I’ll sleep on the sofa.” I walk to where she’s standing outside the bedroom door. “Why did you come up here anyway?”

  “Just to get away.” She sighs and gathers her hair away from her neck. “I knew you and Nathan would come to the house looking for me, and…I needed to think. If it’s really true, then I feel like shit for the way I treated Cole. What I did to him.”

  “But you didn’t know, Vanessa. None of us knew.” I spread my hands out. “When information is kept from us, all we have to contend with is what we think we know. And I have no idea what’s going to happen with me and Cole, but I do know I can’t lose you again too. I came back to Castille for you and for the baby. We need each other.”

  She ducks her head. Tears shine in her eyes. She steps toward me for a quick embrace, which somehow says more than words could.

  “Get some sleep, Josie.” She detaches herself from me and turns to the bedroom. “You look like you could use it.”

  For the first time in what seems like ages, I laugh.

  Chapter 12

  Josie

  * * *

  “Josie? Josie!”

  I startle, opening my eyes. Lights blaze through the cabin. Vanessa is standing beside the sofa, shaking my arm. Her hair falls on either side of her face, shadowing her expression.

  “What?” I sit up groggily. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.” She presses a hand to her belly.

  I blink, my sleepiness turning into alarm. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve had a few contractions.” She sits beside me, her forehead creased. “I didn’t think much of it at first, but the last one was kind of strong.”

  “But you’re not due for over a month.”

  “That’s why it’s weird.” She shifts and winces, still rubbing her belly. “It’s probably just false labor, but…I don’t know.”

  “Let’s call your doctor.” I rummage in my backpack for my phone and swipe the screen. “Shit. No signal.”

  “We never got a signal up here.” She makes a tsk noise and shakes her head. “That’s why Dad liked it so much—because it cut us off from technology for a few days. I think that might have been one of the reasons he bought this particular cabin.”

  “I guess he never thought a situation might arise where we’d need to call someone.” I toss the phone aside, concern prickling my skin. “What are we supposed to do? Time them or something?”

  “I don’t think so.” She leans her head against the back of the sofa, a worried light rising to her eyes. “I mean, I can’t be in labor.”

  She doesn’t sound sure about that, and her uncertainty strengthens my concern. For something to do, I push to my feet and get her a bottle of water from the fridge.

  “Let’s time them just to see if there’s a pattern.” I open the water and hand it to her before pulling up the stopwatch on my cell. “Tell me when one starts.”

  For the next hour, we time her contractions, which last less than twenty seconds and are a good fifteen minutes apart.

  “That’s not very much.” She reaches behind her to rub her lower back. “But I’m a little freaked out that they’re not stopping completely. Braxton-Hicks contractions aren’t supposed to get longer.”

  I glance at the list I’ve made on a notepad recording the time of each contraction. The first one we timed was twelve seconds. The last one was eighteen.

  Don’t panic. At least, don’t let her know you’re panicking.

  “Maybe we should head back to town,” I suggest, managing to keep my voice calm. “Sooner rather than later.”

  She nods and hauls herself to her feet. “Let me get dressed and go to the bathroom.”

  After pulling on jeans and a T-shirt, I hurry to throw a few things into my backpack. I grab my most powerful flashlight and get Vanessa’s travel bag and car keys from the bedroom.

  Only when I open the front door to take our bags to the car do I realize it’s still raining. Hard. Water streams from the gutters and puddles in the bumpy dirt road, and a heavy wind rustles the pine trees.

  A lump sticks in my throat. Swallowing it back down, I shrug into my bright red raincoat, flip on the light, and dash through the rain to toss my backpack in the trunk.

  Not wanting to think about driving in the goddamned rain, I run back inside to help Vanessa to the car.

  I skid to a halt. She’s standing outside the bathroom, pale with shock and holding a…

  “Vanessa.” Ice slithers through my veins. “What is that?”

  “Blood.” She stares at the bloody tissue, then looks back at me. “I’m bleeding. I shouldn’t be bleeding like this.”

  Jesus.

  My stomach knots. Grabbing the tissue from her, I throw it in the trash.

  “Come on.” I take her arm. She’s shaking so hard her teeth chatter. “I put our stuff in the car. We’ll be at the hospital in no time.”

  Hurrying through the rain, we manage to get back out to the car. I help her get situated in the backseat and run back to the cabin for a pillow so she can lie down on her side. Then I get into the driver’s seat.

  My heart is pounding so hard it’s like thunder in my head. I push the key into the ignition, struggling to keep my breathing even.

  I can do this. I have to do this.

  After starting the windshield wipers, I push the gear shift into drive and head toward Spiral Pass. My sweaty palms slip on the wheel. The tires bump.

  I glance in the rearview mirror at Vanessa. In the dim light, her eyes are closed, her head resting on the pillow. One hand is on
her belly.

  Get a grip, Josie Mays. This is not about you.

  I pull carefully on to Spiral Pass, hoping my internal scolding is enough to quell my growing panic. There are no other cars on the road, which at first I think might be a relief. But as I press on the accelerator and pick up speed, my nerves stretch tighter and tighter.

  Dark rainy night…only car on the road…

  Blocking the thought, I flex my fingers on the wheel and concentrate on the mechanics of driving. The headlights carve a dim path through the rain, illuminating only the yellow dividing line and the wet asphalt ahead. Beyond that thin light, there is only vast, suffocating dark.

  I drag in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “You doing okay?” Not taking my eyes off the road, I force a light note into my voice.

  Vanessa doesn’t respond. I can’t risk looking at her. I tighten my grip on the wheel and press the accelerator a little harder. Though I’m well below the speed limit, the whoosh of the tires in the water makes the car feel as if it’s going way too fast. Ahead looms the sharpest curve on the mountain.

  I brake on a shallow turn. My chest tightens. The hill slopes down on either side of the narrow road, plunging into nothing but darkness.

  “Ellsworth is out with a knee injury, but Walker is batting a .300.”

  “The Dodgers should never have traded him.”

  “Hey, if we go early we should try one of the new restaurants at Fenway.”

  Cole’s and my father’s voices drift through the car, a harmony to the sound of the rain pummeling the roof and windshield. I’m happy and tired from the success of the party, but my hands clench tighter on the wheel the harder the rain falls.

  I should have let Cole drive. He navigates storms better than I do. Maybe I should pull over and…

  No, it’s okay. We’ll be home in fifteen minutes. If I stop, we might wake Teddy up. There’s the sign for the Old Mill Bridge. Once we cross that, it’s just a few more turns back into Castille.

  I flip the wipers to a faster speed as we approach the bridge. The streets in town must be flooding with all this rain. I can’t see anything past the gleam of the headlights.