Page 54 of All Your Life

“Thief! Here I am being accused of a crime, while I’ve been sitting next to a mastermind this entire time.”

“What’s that saying about desperate times?” She carefully extracts the damp paper from the brush and leans out her window to pour some water over it before handing it to me. “I don’t mind sharing.”

“Obviously,” I say, taking it from her. “We’re sharing with one of those poor kids you stole from.”

“They were adorable, weren’t they?”

I finish brushing and nod before rinsing my mouth and spitting out the window. “Yeah, but four kids with one on the way? I think I’d lose my mind.”

Sarah shrugs. “They sure seemed happy to me.”

“No doubt about it.”

“There was something so—”

“Warm about their house?” Now I’m finishinghersentences.

“Yes! Like you could physicallyfeelthe love wafting through the place.”

I nod when she does. The way those two were around one another, so comfortable and so obviously…in love, made me choke up at one point. I don’t know if she caught what I did, but when we were leaving I turned back for one last look, and saw Garth giving Sienna a peck on the cheek and a playful swat on the butt before he went on to kiss each and every one of the kids, her belly being where the last kiss landed. To someone who grew up in a home like mine, their life looked idyllic.

She shifts to me excitedly. “So, what do you think about that detour?”

I’m thinking she wants to make it better, to ease some of the hurts from my past. I don’t need that, I want to tell her. But she looks so hopeful, and I’m not looking to part ways with Sarah or go back to real life just yet, so I tell her, “I’m in.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

SARAH

Liam is just about to pull out of the gas station and head off in a different direction when I blurt out, “Wait!”

I’m wringing my hands and taking deep breaths, which is the polar opposite of his cool, calm demeanor. He pulls over again and turns to face me, no question or expectation in his expression.

“I’m just thinking it’s silly…I mean, we’re here already, right?”

“I can’t make this decision for you, Sarah. But wearehere. Want to get a little closer and see how you feel then?”

“Yes.” I hardly recognize my own tremulous voice when I look down to see that I’m wiping two sweaty palms down my thighs. “Let’s just drive by. Maybe we’ll park far enough away and just walk around for a bit. Then we’ll get back on the road and head to the beach.”

“You still want to?”

“Hell yes.”

A few minutes later he comments, “It’s weird how you can tell wealthier neighborhoods from poor ones by how many trees there are. I mean, not in rural areas, but by us it’s so obvious.”

It’s random, and I’m sure he’s just making small talk in an effort to distract me. Taking a deep breath, I go along with it and decide that he’s got a point.

“On the street where I grew up, a lot of the yards have been paved over with concrete to make room for cars, and the few trees that are still there are kind of scrubby. Head towards my aunt and uncle’s place, though, and you see the landscape gradually changing. And forget it once you make it to your neighborhood…It’s all rolling green hills and loads of trees and flowers. Driving to work at the club in the spring, it was like this explosion of color every time.”

My mother loves gardening. And while she doesn’t do the heavy work herself, she did sketch out our landscape’s design, and went head to head with the gardeners when their boss didn’t agree with some of her choices. I know what Liam means, because sometimes when I’m coming up ourlong-ass driveway, as he calls it, I’m struck by the blaze of colors. And the way she mapped it out, there are pops of color that start in the spring and don’t end until the beginning of December. It’s like a rotating surprise, one shrub drops its flowers just as another one starts to bloom. But I’m not about to praise her horticultural skills right now, so when he asks what’s on my mind, I don’t think it through before saying, “Have you ever seen the cherry blossoms in DC?”

He smiles when I stop abruptly. “It’s fine, really. Like I said, I’ll get to all those places. Go on, Sarah, tell me about the trees.”

I take a minute to come up with words that are good enough, ones he might use to describe such a sight. I’ve been fortunate enough to see them in our country, as well as in Japan one year. “It seems endless, this loop that goes on and on, with clusters of trees that are nearly drooping under the weight of all those delicate pink flowers. When you’re walking under the canopy of them, it’s magical. It’s like being in a dream.” I laugh to cover my embarrassment.

“When do they bloom?”

“This year we went in late March. My mother was actually tracking the forecast and booked it last-minute.”

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