lived.” A tear rolled down her thin face. “My heart is full now, Kara. Full.”
She closed her eyes and released my hand as her son, Seamus, walked in the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Sleep flirted with the corners of my consciousness, but would not fully come to me. I finally rose from my bed at four in the morning, then walked over the lawn of our home to the footbridge where Jack had professed his love. I sat, swung my legs below me, and leaned into the railings, into the dark.
Maeve was gone now, had been for a month. Something in me believed Mama had met her and thanked her. Maeve’s family had told me that in her will she’d requested that her ashes be spread over the waves during the Blessing of the Bay this coming August. They’d held a memorial service in Ireland the week she died, yet they were waiting until August to put her to rest in Galway Bay. They explained to me that she’d made this request because her husband was a descendant of the Claddagh kings who had led the blessing every year. But I knew the real reason and held it close to my heart.
I’d filled out the application for photography school. I was still waiting to hear if I’d been accepted. Charlotte had held me like a life jacket through the storm of these past few weeks of canceling the wedding, facing those who disagreed with me. She knew my decision was not about choosing between two men, but about who I was meant to be. She had held my hand, listened to me cry. But she could not take the burden of my own thoughts away from me.
I lay flat on my back, staring up at a moon that would be full in one more night; it billowed above me like a dented pillow. I closed my eyes and slipped into the darkness of my own thoughts. If Maeve’s story was true, was everything else she told me also true?
The lessons she’d taught were priceless, worth more than the engagement ring I’d given up, more than my job’s salary or the wedding dress now wrapped in plastic.
With the sun still below the horizon, I decided I would write down Maeve’s lessons, compile them for those who would never hear her wisdom. I listed them in my mind: directives about my feet leading me to my heart, about how our lives and stories are connected, about how family expectations influence what we believe, and who we love.
My eyes flew open at a sudden realization about two of the lessons I had listened to but not deeply understood until this very moment: first, that I must be careful what I believe because it defines who I am; and second, that I ache for the time when I was most loved.
I jumped to my feet and stared at the sky, where the moon descended below my sight. I twisted around. The sun began to rise in a crescendo, the edges of the clouds taking on color. My heart lifted.
If the ache inside me came from remembering the time I felt most loved, then why did I not feel the ache when I was with Jack?
Light broke from the horizon, consuming the edges of water with fire.
Would I fill my life with the things I had now if I knew he would come back for me? He had come back for me and I stood there—alone at the water’s edge.
The answer rose with the sun: it wasn’t that I couldn’t love enough, I just couldn’t love Peyton enough. It was with Jack that I was the most loved and that I loved the most. If I had loved anyone else, it was only because he reminded me of Jack.
The faith I’d had in Peyton, and in the life we would have together, had everything to do with what I felt I was supposed to do to diminish my yearning for something else. But the belief I had now—that I wanted to go to photography school, and I loved Jack—came with no guarantees, had no promised happy ending. I could no longer fill my life with busyness, with meaningless noise in a meager attempt to soothe my heart with cheap substitutes.
I ran home at the start of that new day, at the start of my own story.
I drove my car with the pure exhilaration of doing the very thing I most desired—running hard after love, after Jack. The Unknown