I

Allie’s [POV]

I could tell from the look on my mother’s face that she was not impressed with my new place. Disgusted might be a better word, or maybe that was a pity; with her, it was hard to tell sometimes. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and the blueberry muffins I had picked up earlier from Brown Bag Bakery were still slightly warm. The butter was organic and local, from grass-fed cows. All the sorts of things I would’ve thought she’d appreciate. The kitchen floor had black and white tiles and glass door cabinets with little panes that made me feel like the cups and plates were outside a window, looking in on me. I chose not to share this thought with her; she’d probably tell me it was clear that thinking something like that meant I was going insane because I’d been living out in the country for too long.

“It’s so...” My mother made a face. “It’s so quiet. What on earth are you going to do with yourself up here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been managing all right so far.”

She broke a piece off from one of the muffins, the gold bangles on her wrist jangling. “You say that now, but you’ve only been up here a week. Just wait until the newness wears off—then you’ll be crying to move back to the city, where, you know, life is actually happening. Are there any restaurants? Delivery? What happens if you don’t want to cook dinner one night, but no one will deliver because you live out here in the sticks?”

I moved up to Chapin, Maine from Boston because I couldn’t deal with city life anymore. I had never lived in a rural area like this, where the trees outnumbered both the people and the buildings, but so far, I liked it. I liked the feel of all the space around me, of the clean fresh air, of the relative quiet at night.

I’d searched on Craigslist and found my own little house, too. It was a winterized cottage, a small two-bedroom with blueberry bushes and a split rail fence. There was an overgrown garden in the back that I’d been thinking about maybe doing something with. I just liked the fact that I had a yard, even if it meant a lawn that I would have to mow. I’d never mowed a lawn before, but I didn’t care; I loved that the place was mine, that it was a dwelling not attached to any others, and that I wasn’t above or below anyone.

I took a sip of my coffee and chose not to tell her a large part of the reason I had fled Boston, to begin with, was because I couldn’t be in her vicinity anymore. Not that I didn’t want to be around my mother, but I simply couldn’t stand being around my stepfather, Bill. It had gotten worse over the years, though my mother was somehow blind to it all. How was that possible? The few times I had tried to talk to her about it, she had gotten irrationally angry and said that I was jealous and ungrateful. That Bill had provided for us over the years—more than just provided for us, allowed us to live a very well-off existence in a Beacon Hill brownstone—and that I couldn’t seem to appreciate the fact that there were probably a million other girls who would be willing to trade places with me in a heartbeat.

Bill, for his part, always gave me this wounded look whenever my mother was around, but when we were alone (which I tried to make sure never happened), that wounded look would change to something more predatory, though he hadn’t tried to make any moves on me since that night when I was 15.

“You just wait,” my mother said. “Once the novelty of this place wears off, you’ll be—” She stopped and straightened, looking out the window. “Now who is that?” she said.

My next-door neighbor had just stepped outside. The houses in this part of town weren’t right on top of each other, but they were close enough that friendly neighborhood interaction was a requirement.

“I assume that’s one of my neighbors,” I said.

My mother craned her neck, squinting. “He’s very handsome. You haven’t met him yet?”

“No.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t come over to introduce himself.”

“I think he’s pretty busy. He’s a doctor.”

“A doctor?” She sounded surprised like it was unheard of for a doctor to live anywhere but in a bustling metropolis. “He looks young to be a doctor. How do you know he’s a doctor if you’ve never met him?”

“My other neighbor, Diane, told me. I have met her.”

“Well.” My mother picked up the paper napkin and dabbed it at the corners of her mouth. She stood up. “No time like the present.”

“Mom—” I started, but it was too late, she was already pushing out the side door, striding across the yard, her blue Jimmy Choos stabbing the lawn as she went.

“Shit,” I muttered as I stood up to follow. It would be easy to hide in here, but I wanted to make sure she didn’t say something ridiculous.

By the time I caught up to her, my mother was already shaking his hand, laughing.

“Allie,” she said. “This is Cole.”

“Hey,” he said, extending a hand to me. Up close, he was extremely good-looking—almost uncomfortably so—but I just pasted a smile on my face and shook his hand. My stepfather was good-looking too, and for the majority of my childhood I’d watched the way women had fallen over themselves around him. I imagined that people did the same for Cole, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to be one of them.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

My mother beamed. “Allie just moved in.”

“Yeah, we noticed that the For Rent sign had been taken down,” Cole said. “Sorry that we haven’t been over to introduce ourselves yet, but things have been kind of crazy this past week.” He smiled, exposing a row of perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ve been pretty busy, too.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my mother’s smile faltering—he had said we—but before she could inquire about a wife or a girlfriend, a little boy was suddenly there, weaving around us like an overexcited puppy.

“Oh!” my mother said, stepping back. “What—I mean, who is this?”

“This is Declan.” Cole squatted down so he was at Declan’s level. “Declan, these are our new neighbors. This is Allie and...” He looked at my mom. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?”

“Jen.”

“And her mom, Jen.”

Declan, with big blue eyes and shaggy, light brown hair, grinned up at us. “Hi,” he said.

“I’m not a new neighbor,” my mother said. They both looked at her in confusion. “Just Allie is. I’m only visiting. I’ll be returning to the city later today.”

“I go to preschool,” Declan said.

“You do?” I asked. “How old are you?”

“Four.”

“What preschool do you go to?” I was going to be starting my new job on Monday at the Learning Center, which was a preschool the next town over.

“The Learning Center,” Declan said proudly.

“Well, isn’t that something!” my mother said. “That’s where Allie is going to be working. That’s the whole reason she moved to this town to begin with—because they offered her a job! Not that there aren’t plenty of teaching opportunities in Boston, either.”

“They’re not really interested in hearing about that, Mom,” I said. “Anyway, it was nice to meet you both, and it sounds like I’ll be seeing you soon, Declan.”

“Yeah, great meeting you,” Cole said. “Sorry to rush off like this, but I’ve got to get Declan to school, and I’ve got a full day of patients.”

“So, you are a doctor,” my mother said.

Cole smiled. “Have you been inquiring about me?”

I winced inwardly. This whole first meeting was really going great.

“Diane had mentioned it,” I said quickly.

“My dad’s the best doctor,” Declan said. “I want to be a firefighter when I grow up, though.”

“That’s a very good job to pick,” I said. “Firefighters are very brave.”

“I am brave! Look, I can pick up this spider.” And he leaned down and plucked a rather scary-looking spider from the edge of the driveway. I almost jumped out of my skin just seeing the spindly legs and the black, bulbous body, but I forced a grin. “You are very brave,” I said. Instead of squashing it, like many little boys his age would have, Declan carefully walked the spider over to the front lawn and put it down. “It’s not bad if spiders get into the house,” he said. “Because then they’ll spin webs and catch other bugs, like mosquitos.”

“All right, bud, let’s say bye and get in the car,” Cole said. “It was very nice to meet you two.”

“You too,” I said, and I waved at Declan as he went over and climbed into the back seat of the car.

“He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring,” my mother said once we were back in the kitchen.