that’s who I am. Like birds, or the seasons, or a stray cat who shows up, hangs around for a while, and then disappears. I’ll probably miss you more than you miss me. I get addicted to people, and then I need to break the habit. And the writing always comes first with me. It has to, or I wouldn’t be good at it.”
She saw him one more time after that, and then he was gone. She’d had two wonderful months with him, and realized that it might be all she’d ever get. She might never hear from him again. But he had been one of those incredible comets flashing through the sky in a shower of stars. Just being with him was exciting.
She told Sam about him when she called him before his wedding.
“There you go again. Coco, please don’t get hooked on this guy. He told you he’s not reliable. Believe him. I love his books too, but he has to be a little whacko to write like that.”
“He’s not whacko. He’s brilliant,” she defended him.
“That’s the point. He’s the flash again. You have to give that up, and find a real one.”
“He’s about as real as it gets.”
“No, he’s not. That’s not real. It’s excitement again. Real is something very quiet that you can come home to at night, and know will still be there. Ian Kingston is never going to be there for you. He told you that in the beginning.”
“Yes, he did,” she admitted. “Is that what you have with Tamar?” Something quiet that would always be there. Maybe he was right.
“Yeah, I guess so. I know she’s always going to be there for me. I won’t have nights with her like you’ve had with Ian Kingston. But she won’t disappoint me either.”
“How can you be sure?”
“You never are in life. But with the wild ones, the flashy ones, you know they’re going to burn themselves out and disappear in the heavens somewhere. They can’t help it, and they burn you in the process. That’s who they are. I know how appealing they must be. But one day you reach for them, and your hands are empty. You need someone with you, Coco, especially now with the baby. But you’ve got me.” He was getting married in a week. And now he would belong to Tamar too. Coco wasn’t sure she liked that.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked him again.
“Yes. I’m okay about it now.”
“Is that enough? Okay?”
“It has to be. It’s where my life is.” Working in his father’s business, marrying a plain, reliable woman who was the kind of woman his parents wanted him to marry. Coco wanted more for him, but Sam didn’t. Maybe Sam was right. Maybe reaching for the flash of brilliance in the sky, she’d have glorious moments he would never know that brought her soul alive, but in the end she’d always come up empty-handed. And Ian was the flash, more than any man she’d ever known.
Chapter 13
Coco was seven months pregnant when Ian disappeared to write, in June. She missed him a lot at first. They had spent so much time together, but then she got used to it. She got busy preparing for the baby. She was nervous about the delivery, without her mother or any female relatives to get her through it.
And in July, as the judge had said, she got her decree absolute in the mail, and she was divorced. The marriage to Nigel was over. It was a painful chapter in her life, and she had nothing to show for it except a house in London and the baby. His parental rights had been terminated along with the marriage, in exchange for the estate in Sussex.
The last weeks of her pregnancy were the hardest. There was a heat wave in London, and she felt like a beached whale. She never heard from Nigel, and didn’t want to. He had no part in the baby’s life now, or her future. She wondered if Ian would check in with her before the baby was born, but he didn’t. He was lost in his own world somewhere. She talked to Sam a lot at the end, and showed him her enormous belly on FaceTime. It looked like she had a beach ball under her dress, and she couldn’t imagine how she was going to push the baby out. It seemed like an impossible feat. She admitted to Sam that she was