spoiled brat. At the turnoff for the Anderson Valley, Daniel forked west and tried again to
hold her hand. "Maybe you'll forgive me in time to enjoy our last few minutes together?"
She wanted to. She really wanted to not be fighting with Daniel right now. But the
fresh mention of there being such a thing as a "last few minutes together," of his leaving
her alone for reasons she couldn't understand and that he always refused to explain--it
made Luce nervous, then terrified, then frustrated all over again. In the roiling sea of new
state, new school, new dangers everywhere, Daniel was the only rock she had to hold on
to. And he was about to leave her? Hadn't she been through enough? Hadn't they both
been through enough?
It was only after they'd passed through the redwoods and come out into a starry,
royal-blue evening that Daniel said something that broke through to her. They'd just
passed a sign that read WELCOME TO MENDOCINO, and Luce was looking west. A
full moon shone down on a cluster of buildings: a lighthouse, several copper water
towers, and rows of well-preserved old wooden houses. Somewhere out beyond all that
was the ocean she could hear but couldn't see.
Daniel pointed east, into a dark, dense forest of redwood and maple trees. "See
that trailer park up ahead?"
She never would have if he hadn't pointed it out, but now Luce squinted to see a
narrow driveway, where a lime-caked wooden placard read in whitewashed letters
MENDOCINO MOBILE HOMES.
"You used to live right there."
"What?" Luce sucked in her breath so quickly, she started to cough. The park
looked sad and lonesome, a dull line of low-ceilinged cookie-cutter boxes set along a
cheap gravel road. "That's awful."
"You lived there before it was a trailer park," Daniel said, easing the car to a stop
by the side of the road. "Before there were mobile homes. Your father in that lifetime
brought your family out from Illinois during the gold rush." He seemed to look inward
somewhere, and sadly shook his head. "Used to be a really nice place."
Luce watched a bald man with a potbelly tug a mangy orange dog on a leash. The
man was wearing a white undershirt and flannel boxers. Luce couldn't picture herself
there at all.
Yet it was so clear to Daniel. "You had a two-room cabin and your mother was a
terrible cook, so the whole place always smelled like cabbage. You had these blue
gingham curtains that I used to part so I could climb through your window at night after
your parents were asleep."
The car idled. Luce closed her eyes and tried to fight back her stupid tears.
Hearing their history from Daniel made it feel both possible and impossible. Hearing it
also made her feel extremely guilty. He'd stuck with her for so long, over so many
lifetimes. She'd forgotten how well he knew her. Better even than she knew herself.
Would Daniel know what she was thinking now? Luce wondered whether, in some ways,
it was easier to be her and to never have remembered Daniel than it was for him to go
through this time and time again.
If he said he had to leave for a few weeks and couldn't explain why ... she would
have to trust him.
20
"What was it like when you first met me?" she asked.
Daniel smiled. "I chopped wood in exchange for meals back then. One night
around dinnertime I was walking past your house. Your mother had the cabbage going,
and it stank so badly I almost skipped your house. But then I saw you through the
window. You were sewing. I couldn't take my eyes off your hands."
Luce looked at her hands, her pale, tapered fingers and small, square palms. She
wondered if they'd always looked the same. Daniel reached for them across the console.
"They're just as soft now as they were then."
Luce shook her head. She loved the story, wanted to hear a thousand more just
like it, but that wasn't what she'd meant. "I want to know about the first time you met
me," she said. "The very first time. What was that like?"
After a long pause, he finally said, "It's getting late. They're expecting you at
Shoreline before midnight." He stepped on the gas, taking a quick left into downtown
Mendocino. In the side mirror, Luce watched the mobile home park grow smaller, darker,
until it disappeared completely. But then, a few seconds later, Daniel parked the car in
front of an empty all-night diner with yellow walls and floor-to-ceiling front windows.
The block was full of quirky, quaint buildings that reminded Luce of a less stuffy
version of the New England coastline near her old New Hampshire prep school, Dover.
The street was paved with uneven cobblestones that glowed yellow in the light from the
streetlamps overhead. At its end, the road seemed to drop straight into the ocean. A