Page 53 of Home to Christmas Island
He says nothing, waiting for me to go on. But there’s no going on. I have to get out of here. I vow to myself that I’ll leave first thing in the morning—ignoring the warning bells going off in my head about the snow, about Alba, about Alistair.
Well, it’s not safe to drive tonight, Alistair says, as if reading my thoughts. I just have to get through this wedding and—I’m going to give you some space, Florence. I don’t want to push you further, but I’m not walking away, okay?
He takes my face in both of his hands, gently forcing my eyes to meet his. I’m staying in that cabin there, on the far right. I have to work tomorrow, but come see me anytime if you want to talk. Call me, text me, come over whenever. But I think we can talk through this. All right? Let’s try to have a conversation about it, whenever you’re ready.
I can barely register his words. He kisses me softly and looks like he wants to say more, his eyes swimming with something I can’t quite decipher.
The old Flora is trying to claw her way to the surface, to say something, anything, to him.
But I shove her down…
Down…
Down.
Chapter 23
I DON’T SEE ALISTAIR AGAIN that night. Instead, I force myself to go back inside, to pretend, to stay at the party for as long as I can handle. As the clock nears midnight, that New Year’s Eve kiss I’d been dreaming about abandoned now, I try to plaster on a smile and dance alongside Alba, Rose, and all of their friends.
When I can’t take another second of faking it, I hug the happy couple and my uncle goodnight. I say nothing about my plans to leave in the morning, but I’m resolute. I go back to the house and throw my things into my suitcase, grateful that the newlyweds are staying in one of the cabins tonight and won’t catch me before I leave. The frantic packing reminds me of my last day in the lake house after the funeral. Didn’t I end up regretting my decision to bolt?
I toss and turn and get a restless few hours of sleep, desperate to get away from everything that’s clawing at me from the inside. After seven o’clock when the sun is finally starting to rise, I admit defeat and get up, throwing everything I’ve brought with me into the back of my rental car.
I don’t leave a note, which only makes my self-loathing double in size. But I can’t bear to hurt Alba in her honeymoon bliss. I hope she gets a day or two where she assumes I’m staying with Alistair.
I feel numb when I pull out of the driveway and onto the highway. The rental car is due back in two days, anyway. I had booked a plane ticket to Miami, where the cruise ship is leaving from next, before I’d even come to Christmas Island. I plan to stay in Halifax until I can get on an earlier flight.
I pass over the bridge in Iona, and I can admit to myself that it’s not really safe to drive. The roads haven’t been fully cleared and the car slogs through the snow. I drive through Iona and I try not to think about Alistair.
Alistair distracting me at the post office, Alistair teasing me at the pub. I have never once felt anxious around him. Irritated, sure, or buzzing with a nervous energy, but it’s like he was always able to refocus me somehow. Redirect my energy into something productive, rather than avoidance or shoving things down. And with the exception of last night, his directness has helped ease something in me—helped me start to open up.
Maybe someday I’ll change your mind. But you’d have to let me in, even a little bit. Isn’t that what Alistair said to me that day on the beach by Mrs. Sutherland’s house? And hadn’t he done that—found his way in and changed my mind about him? It’s the only example in recent history that I can think of where I didn’t let my stubbornness stop me from seeing what was so clearly in front of me.
He’s been obsessed with you since the second you got here. Alba’s voice rings through my head. Some part of me knows she’s right. But I don’t want to think about my cousin, who I know will be so incredibly disappointed in me. And absolutely enraged at my leaving like this.
For the first time in a while, I think about Justin. And I swear I feel my blood pressure spike. He had me on a string, giving me just enough affection and praise to keep me coming back. But he never made me feel calm. He never made me feel safe. The thought of going back to him, back to the mindless baking on the ship, makes me feel unhinged. I don’t want any of it.
But the thought of staying here, where too many people know my story and my mother’s, and want to pass judgment on it… I’m not sure I can handle that either. But, that voice in my head says, But Alba is here. Rose is here. Uncle Albie is here. Alistair is here.
There are so many people in my corner.
What am I doing? I’m fully crying now, and it’s getting to the point that I really should pull over. Between both the tears and the blowing snow, I can’t see where I’m going. Where am I going?
I don’t want to leave. I want to go home.
Home, I think. Home to Christmas Island.
I pull the car over, breathing heavily. I let the thoughts sink in: I do not want to go back on the ship. I do not want to go to New York, or Toronto, or anywhere else. I want to stay. This rears up the stubbornness in me. My whole life I wanted to get out, and what, now I just move back here? I feel frustrated and anxious and littered with self-doubt.
I want to stay, I think again, but I’m terrified.
What’s worse: that I leave, and maybe save myself pain that might or might not happen, but I’m miserable along the way? Or that I stay, and get to be around the people I love; get to choose for myself what my life looks like—even if there’s some hurt in it?
Okay Mom, I think, covering my face with my hands. I need a sign.
A second later, I hear a loud smack. A huge gust of wind has blown something onto my windshield. It’s a letter, with a stamp from the Christmas Island post office. I think of Mom on the wind, and the letter is whisked off with another gust of snow.
I pull back onto the highway and at the next driveway I can see, I turn the car around.
