Choices were limited. There were no interior designers in town that she knew of, so she’d have to rely on her own tastes and what was available to make the changes necessary to put the Roberts’ cottage on the market—or at the very least make it inhabitable for advertisement to out-of-town renters.
All the gadgets, screws, nuts and bolts before her reminded her of the odds and ends in her memory box. On separate occasions, her mother had tried to empty out her memory box, telling her that she needed to rid it of all of the junk that was inside—rocks, old pieces of cement, ribbons—but she’d refused.
The last time she’d put something in it was right before she’d left New York. She’d picked up a runaway flier, a pink half sheet of heavy paper advertising a stage show off Broadway. It had floated past her on her way home to her apartment for the last time. She’d picked it up, folded it twice, and placed it inside her memory box before packing it up to ship to the cottage. It was at that moment that the flier had crossed her path that she’d stopped to watch all the people crossing the crosswalk in front of her. All those faces of New Yorkers—driven, busy, walking at a clip, oblivious to her stares. The flier would be a tangible reminder of those faces.
There were other memories in the box too. The pebble she’d taken from the driveway outside her house the day her father had packed the last of his things in his car and moved out for good. She’d held it in her hand as the other pebbles had crunched beneath his tires, his car pulling out in front of her, his eyes visible in the rearview mirror. She had also held on to a twig that she’d taken from the butterfly bush next to Pete’s window the day she’d snuck over to his house to take one last look at him before leaving him and never coming back.
Libby had known that the only way to get Pete to understand and not try and convince her to stay was to tell him straight out what she thought about leaving. That day was burned into her memory—every bit of it as clear as if it had happened yesterday.
“How can anyone be successful here?” she’d said. “I want to be around people who have ambition.”
“So going to a school closer to home doesn’t show ambition?” Pete had said, his face indignant. “I can’t believe you just said that.” He looked down at the floor, his jaw clenched. When he looked up at her, it was as if he were just seeing her for the first time, his eyes scanning her up and down. “Is that all that matters to you? What about your family? What about Pop and Nana? Don’t you want to be close to them? What if, God forbid, something happened to one of them? Wouldn’t you want to be able to come home and see them? Is your ambition worth that much?”
She did care about Pop and Nana. She did care about being able to see them, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She needed to attend an elite university to be surrounded by other people with goals like hers, people who could challenge her, push her to be the very best version of herself that she could be.
“I need a competitive university to get me where I want to be in life. If I go to college around here, I know I’ll end up staying in White Stone.” His expression looked annoyed, irritating her. “The best I can hope for here is an unimportant job at one of the little office buildings in town!” she could hear her voice rising. “This is an insignificant little town with no opportunities.”
“Wow,” he’d said, shaking his head, incredulity in his eyes. He was quiet for a moment, just staring at her as if he could not believe what he’d just heard. Then, quietly, he said, his face turning red from the anger that he was clearly attempting to control, “Then go, Libby.” That was all he’d said before he walked out of the room and left.
Libby remembered feeling helpless in that moment because there was nothing she could do to change the situation or what Pete wanted for his future. She had hurt him, but being honest with him was the only way she’d be able to leave. When the day came, she was more than ready to get out of town, but she couldn’t leave without seeing him.
Growing up, she’d always come to his first-floor window by the butterfly bush and knocked. He’d see her and sneak her inside. She hadn’t told anyone about going to see Pete the day she’d left. No one would’ve understood. She had snuck over and peeked in on him in his room, but she didn’t knock. It was only for a second, just to say goodbye. He was lying on his bed, reading a book. His face was calm, his expression neutral—a change from the last time she’d seen him. He had the palm of his hand on his temple, leaning on his elbow, and it struck her how she’d never get to hold that hand again. She took in his fingertips, the strength in his forearm, his eyes as they studied the page in front of him, the way his back rose with every breath. It may be the last time she’d see him. After their argument and the hurtful things she’d said, he certainly wasn’t going to show up for a visit.