First Love Again. Kristina Knight

do you still read these tabloids?” He picked a few issues from the floor, dated last summer.

      “I never read that trash. Mary Margaret, she likes those celebrity stories. Likes to stay on top of Hollywood,” he said, his voice lilting into a laugh. “Hey, do you think that’s what’s holding her up? You think she’s reading the magazine in the store because she’s tired of me ribbing her about it? We’ll have to tell Emmett that when he gets here.”

      Emmett gave up. He couldn’t say those words—Mom is dead—one more time. He couldn’t. Mary Margaret Deal was very much alive in this house. Emmett shook his head. Even if he could say it, Gibson very obviously couldn’t believe his wife was gone. Maybe that was why his father was having such a hard time letting go, because he could still feel her here.

      No, Gibson’s inability to let go had nothing to do with the magazines stacked around the house or the sewing room that probably still had whatever project on the sewing table Mom had been working on before she died years before. He couldn’t let go because that was part of who he was. Determined. Particular. Obstinately convinced he was right until the last leg of whatever crusade he was on crumbled.

      He’d been the last man standing in the quest to save the old school all those years ago. The first to defend Emmett when the rest of the town went on the attack.

      The doctor said Gibson was living in a world that was more comfortable for him; Mary Margaret always made things comfortable. Maybe it was okay for Emmett to just let this one illusion stand.

      “Could be, she always liked the pictures best,” he said as he pulled one full trash bag from the can and replaced it with another. He started filling that one up, too. “Did you know they’re talking about rehabbing the old school? Well, maybe. They were actually talking about tearing it down, but I volunteered to have a look.”

      He kept talking about the school, about the Reds and Indians. About anything he could think of as Gibson stared out the window. Emmett cleared the kitchen table of junk and filled another bag with trash, hating the sound of his voice but more afraid of the silence if he stopped talking. Mentally he tacked another week on to his plans to stay on the island. It would take at least that long to get the junk cleared out so the real work could begin. He’d need more supplies, which meant another ferry ride to the mainland. Might as well unpack the truck and reload it for the landfill. Once most of the junk was cleared away he would call the cleaning crew to start working on the inside of the house.

      Emmett tied up a third bag of trash and started on a fourth, this time pulling crusty pots from the stovetop and putting them into the bag. He would do all of this and he wouldn’t complain, not once.

      “Hey.” Gibson turned away from the window. “Emmett, I didn’t hear you come in, boy. You’re early.”

      “It’s almost noon.”

      Gibson grabbed another bottle of water from the fridge. “I didn’t figure you’d get here much before five, what with traffic and coming up from Cincy. I didn’t get to the store before you got here, so we’ll have to eat at Gulliver’s Diner tonight. They still do that prime rib you like.”

      Why was it suddenly easier to breathe? His father was back. “Sure, Dad, that sounds great. And we’ll stop by the grocery to get a few essentials after.”

      “It’s good to have you home, boy.” Gibson looked around with sadness in his eyes. Where there was confusion before, now Emmett was certain Gibson saw what he did: a cluttered, messy house in need of repair. No ghosts. No memories that seem more real than the present. “I don’t want to leave this place.”

      “I know, Dad.”

      “Mary Margaret and I had a lot of good memories here.”

      “I remember.” Emmett swallowed. This was the man he remembered. A little thinner and more vulnerable than he had ever seen him, but this was the Gibson he remembered.

      This was his dad.

      “I don’t, sometimes. Sometimes, all I know are the memories.” Gibson squeezed his hands together, looking around the room as if he might find the one thing that would keep him here.

      “That’s why you’re coming to Cincinnati, so the doctors can help you.”

      Gibson sighed. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this, boy. It isn’t fair.”

      Emmett agreed. Losing his mother had been hard. Watching his father fade away...he didn’t know how he could deal with that, too. “Who said life was fair, right?”

      “Emmett.” Gibson shook his head. “Life is what you make of it.”

      Up until a month before Emmett had thought he’d been making a pretty good life. Since they’d met with his father’s doctors, he wasn’t so sure the choices he’d made were anything but selfish.

      He didn’t know if the trustees would call about the school, but if they did he would answer. Why he’d ever offered to do an estimate on the building he couldn’t explain. Just that there had been a look in Jaime’s eyes, a determination to the set of her shoulders and her fisted hands, that he’d had to encourage. He owed her at least that much.

       CHAPTER THREE

      THE NEXT MORNING Jaime paced her office and one question kept repeating over and over.

      What was Emmett Deal doing back on Gulliver? While she waited for a clerk in the Historic Registrar’s Office in Columbus to pick up the phone, she pulled at the collar of her fitted navy T and this time her nail bumped along the scar that ran from her collarbone to the top of her breast. She shivered and blew out a breath before busying her hands with the pens and markers in the tree-trunk coffee mug on her desk.

      It didn’t matter why he was back. It didn’t matter that he had the absolute worst timing of any human who’d walked the face of the earth. What mattered was getting through the next six weeks and getting her life back to normal. Quiet and so boring that she faded into the background and people forgot about Pittsburgh. No more reading through the accomplishments of her former classmates and realizing she didn’t like the life she’d been perfectly happy with just a month before. No more wishing she’d made different choices all those years ago. Wondering if was too late to make those changes now.

      Jaime ran her index finger under the crew neck of her T, trying to scratch the itch that normally didn’t make itself known until the first tourist-filled ferry docked at the pier. Her life might not be as big as some of those on the reunion questionnaires but it was hers, built from the ashes of a time when she’d been afraid to leave her own house. She had a challenging job at Gulliver Wines. Lived in a perfect little bungalow with water views. Had friends she could count on. She wasn’t jealous. She wasn’t sure what she was but it wasn’t jealous.

      Calling the registrar’s office was step one. Going to the Deal house was step two and getting the renovation back on track step three.

      The registrar’s secretary came back on the line and asked Jaime to leave a message. Screw it; she’d deal with the state paperwork later. After leaving the message she hung up the phone and willed her mind to focus. She composed a quick email to the registrar to underline the importance of the school, and to reiterate her request that he call. Then she made a list of local contractors she’d dealt with for the winery; once this project got its second start it was important for it to go smoothly. No more Luthers.

      Maureen arrived with steaming containers of fresh fish and chips from a dockside restaurant a few minutes later and Jaime’s stomach growled as if on cue.

      “I’m so glad you’re flexible. When the school called this morning I couldn’t tell them no.” Maureen rattled the containers before setting them on a side table and tossing her purse into an empty chair. “God, I love your office.”

      Jaime looked around at the mostly white space. She’d framed a few pictures