Page 60 of The Lost Book of First Loves

“If he were here, Dad would have offered up some philosophical commentary about how most of life is like the drive up here to the falls. Whenever you want to see the beautiful spots, you have to first find the courage to bump your way through the rocky parts.”

June looked out at the rippling water, lifting a hand to right below her collarbone then dropping it again.

“I actually wanted to talk to you about your dad.”

Our dad.

Alison tensed, the truth hovering between them. She had to tell June. If the other woman could handle driving a Jeep on a rough mountain road, why couldn’t she handle finding out everything she thought she knew about her life was wrong?

“Oh?” she asked, her mouth suddenly feeling frozen and stiff.

“Do you know anything about a manuscript he might have written years ago, one he might never have published?”

Ali released a breath, relieved at the switch in topic. She didn’t have to say anything about their shared paternal DNA. She didn’t want to ruin the beauty of the evening and risk setting back June’s recovery.

She would tell her, just not yet.

“Dad doesn’t have any unpublished manuscripts.Purgatory Riverwas his first-ever book and thenBeneath the Dusty Skycameafter that.”

“What about between the two? It was nearly four years between his first book and his second. What if he wrote another one in between there?”

Ali considered the possibility, but quickly discarded it. “He couldn’t have. He always said that during the gap between books, he was searching for his soul. He traveled through Africa, India, parts of Tibet and Vietnam. He worked on a cargo ship. He studied eastern philosophy. He walked the Camino de Santiago and lived in a monastery for a few months. He said he needed those years to figure out who he was.”

“I’ve been reading about some of his adventures in his journal. He sprained an ankle badly on the Camino during his first week and that’s why he lived in the monastery, recovering until he could finish. And he fell overboard on that cargo ship during a winter storm and had to be rescued.”

“OMG. You’re kidding? He never told me that!”

“You’ll have to read the journals.” She paused. “But he also made some notes about a manuscript he was working on that bears no resemblance toBeneath a Dusty Skyor any of his other works, as far as I can tell. This one is more of a Great Gatsby kind of story about an ill-fated love affair and a man in love with another man’s wife, which wasn’t at all like the coming-of-age story inDusty Sky. He called itThe Forgotten Road.”

“If he wrote another book that remains unpublished, I’ve never heard about it. But he didn’t talk a lot about the early days of his career. I didn’t know anything about the cargo ship, for instance.”

“I could be wrong, but he writes so clearly in his journals about it. He even records a few passages from it. He says,It wasn’t in the way she left, but in the silence that followed. I knew, as I watched her go, that there would be no letters, no whispers of regret. She loved me, yes, but love was never enough to bend the world to our will.”

Could her father have been writing about his relationship with June’s mom? Ali was still trying to figure out the timing, but June had said her father was in the military and died when she was a baby overseas. Was it possible her mother had been married when she met Carson?

“If he wrote it and didn’t publish it, there must have been a reason. Maybe he thought it was too imitative of Fitzgerald.”

“Beck said he might have burned it.”

She blinked, surprised. She had no idea the two of them had the sort of relationship that encouraged literary discussions.

“When did you talk to Beck about it?”

Alison was suddenly interested to see a slight tinge of pink across June’s cheekbones.

“This morning he came to the cabin looking for Hank. He agrees that it’s curious. He thought we might find something in his papers that are stowed around the cabin.”

“There are boxes and boxes. But if you want to sort through them, I’m totally fine with that.”

“Thank you. Right now I wouldn’t know where to look. I would like to read further in the journals first to see if I can find out more.”

“I’m heading on an overnight ride into the mountains Sunday with a friend, but when I get back, I can help you.”

“That sounds fun.”

For some reason, Ali could feel her face heat now. She couldn’t seem to shake the memory of that photo album.

“Yeah. I’m going with my pal Xander. We’ve been talking about it for years and this is the first time in forever we’ve been home at the same time. He’s a travel vlogger who’s always on the road, but he’s home for the summer to stay with his great-aunt who raised him and his sister. She had hip replacement surgery. Xander was my best friend in school. My ride or die, you know?”

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