Harriet
Are we going to leave the trees up through the end of January like usual?”
Sasha has been approaching me with kid gloves since the holiday, no doubt reading the melancholy I keep draped around me like the scarf I haven’t bothered to take off. Christmas has come and gone, and Nolan hasn’t come back.
I’m being a sad sack. I know that.
It’s hard not to be.
So I’m letting myself feel my feelings as I shuffle around the Crow’s Nest, thinking about Nolan.
I take inventory of my memories, checking off each box to make sure nothing has wavered.
The ice-skating rink. The tree field. The back corner of the shop where his favorite arm chair is, and my bedroom. My kitchen. His tea mug.
Everything is still there. Every crack and crevice Nolan filled up. Maybe it was his last gift to me. A little magic to hold him in place.
Whatever it is, I’m grateful I don’t have to forget the rasp of his laugh or the reluctant way his mouth always pulled into a smile. Like even after a hundred years, he wasn’t quite sure how to do it.
“Harriet,” Sasha says carefully. “Are you all right?” The million-dollar question.
“Yes and yes,” I say, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “The decorations will stay up until the end of the month, and I’m—I’m okay.”
Okay feels like a fine enough word for what I am.
Sasha frowns at me from around the side of an antique mirror.
I get a good look at myself in the gilded frame and wince.
My hair is in a messy bun on the very top of my head.
My eyes are shadowed and tired. And my shoulders are hunched to my ears, the scarf Nolan made me looped three times around my neck.
“Maybe I’m slightly less than okay.”
She nods, solemn. “I used the mirror on purpose. You needed to take a good hard look at yourself.”
I give her an unamused look. “I figured as much. Thank you for that.”
Sasha scurries around the edge of the mirror and rounds the counter, joining me where I’m trying to scrub off sales stickers from the bottom of dusty glasses. We absorbed some stock from a neighboring antiques shop that had to close its doors, and they inexplicably put stickers on everything.
“Does your sad potato act have anything to do with the scarf you refuse to take off?”
I nuzzle my chin down into the material. It still sort of smells like Nolan. Cloves and sea salt.
I miss him.
“Maybe.”
Sasha pauses, waiting for me to elaborate. I don’t.
“Does it have anything to do with that hot guy who was in here with that hot girl?”
I stop trying to take out my heartache on the bottom of a wineglass. “You remember that?”
Sasha’s face pinches. “It was last month. Of course I remember.”
Yes, but … I sort of assumed she wouldn’t. Nolan said that ghosts aren’t remembered. That once a mortal sees him, he abruptly disappears from their consciousness. I wonder what else—
I abruptly stomp down on the thought. No. No. It doesn’t mean anything. Nolan is gone and I am here.
There’s no use in debating the intricacies of a world I’ll never know more about.
“That guy sort of looked at you like you hung the moon,” Sasha continues. “And I haven’t seen him around since.”
I nod, picking at the edge of a sticker. “Yeah. There was … we had a thing.” A thing that felt like everything. A thing that has potentially ruined me for any other things for the rest of my life. “But it was temporary and we both knew it. He’s … moved on.”
I snicker to myself. It sounds suspiciously like a sob. Sasha gives me a look. “Is he coming back?”
I shake my head.
“Oh. Bummer.” Sasha leans her hip against the counter at my side. “Do we need to get drunk about it?”
“No.” I smile and rest my head against her shoulder. “I’m dealing with it. I’m just—giving myself the space to mourn what could have been, I guess.”
“That’s fair,” Sasha says. “Hey, if you want to talk about it, I’m here, okay?” She pats lightly at my back. “I promise not to pull any more shenanigans with the mirror.”
“Appreciated.” I laugh.
“But you do look a little like Miss Havisham, walking around in the scarf.”
I roll my eyes. “Noted.”
Sasha hitches her thumb over her shoulder. “I’m going to go catch up on my reading while pretending I’m counting inventory. Yell if you need me.”
“At least you’re honest,” I call after her.
She waves over her head. “You are always welcome to join me!”
“Some of us still have work to do!”
I let my mind drift as I work my way through the rest of the glasses. I keep the scarf around my neck and press my face into it every now and again. I might be Miss Havisham, but it’s nice to feel like I have a piece of Nolan here with me still.
I don’t have any other tangible reminders. The compass disappeared from the mantel the morning after Nolan left. All that remained was the little white box I wrapped it in and the flecks of gold paper in between my floorboards.
I like to think it’s with Nolan now. Wherever he is. The bell above the door jingles with a new visitor.
“I’ll be right with you,” I shout. “Feel free to look around and let me know if you have any questions.”
The door closes and stilettos click across the uneven floors. A shadow falls over my mismatched glasses.
“I was actually hoping to talk to the owner.” I look up and my sister offers me a hesitant smile from the other side of the counter. “If that’s all right.”
I make us tea and find two dining room chairs in one of the back corners, arranging them so that we can talk by one of the windows.
It’s snowing today, a light flurry on the other side of the glass that makes me think of lazy mornings in bed.
Nolan’s hands in my hair and his bare skin beneath my mouth.
I blink and focus on my sister, stirring my spoon a little too aggressively. It clink-clink-clinks against the edges of my mug.
“I’m surprised to see you,” I offer. She hasn’t said anything besides a half-hearted thank you since I handed her the mug, and while I’m content to let her work up whatever nerve she needs, I have no idea what she’s doing here.
It’s possible she’s doing reconnaissance for my mother, but that seems a little too desperate for Donna York.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” I add, forcing myself to hold still. To wait.
Samantha nods, peering into her tea mug like it holds the secrets to the universe. “That makes sense, given how our last interaction went.”
I smile tightly. “Also seeing how you haven’t responded to a single one of my text messages in months.”
She flinches. “That’s fair.”
I stay quiet. If she’s waiting for an apology, she’s not going to get one.
I don’t regret anything I said the night of the gala.
For the first time in a long time, I was honest. I was brave.
Nolan showed me I could be both of those things without apology.
I don’t intend to undo all of that hard work by making it easier for Samantha.
And while it is difficult for me not to fill the space between us with assurances, I hold my ground.
I blow the steam off the top of my mug and I wait.
“I always envied you, you know,” Samantha finally says.
I almost spit out my tea.
“What?”
A dry smile pulls at her cheeks. “Is that really so hard to believe?”
“Yes,” I say immediately, emphatically. “You—you—” I set down my tea on the window ledge. My hands are shaking too badly for me to maintain my grip. “You envied me? Why?”
How? I want to ask. When? Samantha was always the put-together one. The one my mother measured me against only to find me woefully wanting.
Her smile turns sad. “You always got to be exactly who you wanted, while I had no choice but to fit the mold that was made for me.”
I blink at her, shocked. “Samantha.” I have to steady myself.
I don’t know if I’m furious or amazed that we’ve both managed to be hurt so profoundly by the exact same thing.
Maybe a combination of both. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to fit into that mold.
It felt like—it felt like no one wanted me to fit. ”
She nods. “I realize that now. Or, I guess, I realized that after what you said at the gala. I thought you had some well of confidence I never figured out how to access and you were just—doing what you wanted, damn the consequences.” She sets her mug down next to mine, the ceramic handles kissing.
They’re mismatched, but they pair beautifully. I stare at them for a long time.
“When you made the decision to leave law and run this place instead,” Samantha continues, “I was furious. It felt like you got to do whatever you wanted while I was trapped. While I had to clean up after your messes. It isn’t a fair response and it’s something I’m working through with my therapist, but—I don’t think I ever considered that you weren’t given the same choices. ”
“They liked you more,” I tell her. “They always liked you more.”
“I think Mom was afraid of how quickly you got on with Aunt Matilda,” Samantha says. “I think Mom struggled to understand you, and it was hard for her when Matilda got it right on the first try. I’m not making excuses for her, but I think she felt she lost you before she ever had you.”
“I was just a child.”
Samantha nods. “I know. It’s not fair how she treated you. Our parents are people, too. They make mistakes and poor choices. But you—”
She trails off. My heart stomps a furious beat in the middle of my chest. “But me?”
“You were so brave,” Samantha continues in a whisper, eyes flicking up and then down again. “So much braver than me. Everything Mom threw at you, you seemed to handle it. You didn’t crack. You didn’t wilt.”
“I did,” I interrupt. “It hurt me. Every time.”
Samantha nods. “I can see that now. But you were also very good at making other people believe you were okay. I thought you had something I lacked.”
“Yeah.” I laugh. “A people-pleasing complex.”
“And apparently I’ve been nursing an inferiority complex,” Samantha replies.
A rueful smile tilts her lips. “As I grew older, I think my admiration twisted into irritation. I’ve spent so long being envious of you, I think I forgot that we’re supposed to be on the same team. We used to be partners, remember?”
Tears burn behind my eyes. “Yeah. We used to be partners.”
We used to tell each other everything. We used to lie beneath her blankets at night, our faces inches away from each other on her pillow and whisper about all the things we wished we could be. We used to be best friends.
Samantha’s face softens. “I’d like to get back to that, if we can. I think—I think it’ll take some time, for both of us. And I know I owe you an apology. But I’d like to try.”
I sniffle, discreetly trying to wipe under my eye with the edge of the scarf. But it’s game over when I feel the tiny NC embroidered at the bottom.
I might have been the key to moving Nolan forward in his afterlife, but I think he was the push I needed in this life. He forced me to see myself in a different light. He made me brave enough to stand up for myself, and because of it, Samantha got to see me in a different light, too.
It’s like Nolan’s reached above my head and fixed that busted light bulb in the supply closet. I’m seeing everything from an angle I haven’t before. Light in all my dark corners, discovering the forgotten things.
“I’d like to try, too,” I tell Samantha. I take a chance. I reach out my hand toward her. When she tucks her palm against mine, something in my chest realigns, shifts, and settles. I let out a breath and smile my first real smile in weeks. “I’d like that a lot.”