Chapter 18: Player One

Willa's POV

The letter was one page.

It said: "Willa, the east block is yours if you want it."

It went on: "Full season, good pay, the cottage included. The vines miss someone who listens."

It ended: "Say yes or no, but write back either way. Cillian."

I read it standing on the gravel in his shirt, with the sun coming up.

Then I read it again.

"I would have come," I said.

"I know," Cillian said. "That's why it hurts."

Thurston stood by his car and stared at the ground.

"You kept this in her closet," I said to him.

"I took it out of her closet."

"After five years."

"Yes."

"Then thank you," I said. "And go home."

He went.

I folded the letter along its old crease and put it in the pocket of the shirt.

Cillian's hand was shaking at his side, and I took it.

"Saturday," I said. "I'm going to say my sentence."

"What is it?"

"You'll hear it with everyone else."

"Willa."

"Plainly, in person, in front of people," I said. "That's the only way I do it now."

On Saturday the parking lot at Sunset Cove was full by half past three.

Mara's invitations had gone out to a hundred and twenty people.

About ninety came, in their wedding clothes, with a look I knew from the rehearsal dinner.

They came to see.

Thurston's grandmother arrived early in her lavender suit.

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