“That wasn’t what I wanted for us,” she said. “Him with his wife and kids in Delaware, sending us checks while we were stuck in D.C. with all the press. I wanted you to have a real life. This kind of life.” She swept an arm around at their friends and neighbors, all of them cheering, and Ellie felt her chest swell at the sight of this town that she loved, and that she’d never trade for anything, especially life as a senator’s daughter.
All this time, she’d wondered if things would have been better if she were part of his family, but she understood now that it was the other way around. She wasn’t the one who’d missed out. Maybe she hadn’t grown up with money for summer camp or trips to Europe or a new car every year. But he’d never watched the sunset from the cove near their house. He’d never spent a winter’s morning at Happy Thoughts, warming his socks by the radiator. He’d never eaten at the Lobster Pot or tried the orange sherbet at Sprinkles. He’d never seen her win a soccer game or a spelling bee, and he’d never met Bagel. He’d never had dinner at Chez O’Neill.
“He didn’t abandon us,” Mom said. “He gave us a gift.”
“He let us go,” Ellie said quietly.
Mom nodded. “And we’ve been fine,” she said. “But believe me: he still loves you. I don’t have to be in touch with him to know something like that.”
It was getting harder to see, and the people still looking for places to sit were silhouetted against the streetlamps. A few kids with glow necklaces ran past, laughing, and Ellie squinted to make out the solitary form settling onto the grass not far from their own blanket. Her heart gave a little thump as she recognized him.
It was Graham.
He sat down alone on the grass, folding his legs beneath him and tipping his head back to look up at the sky, and she realized he had a phone pressed to his ear. She hoped he wasn’t talking to his manager or his lawyer or his publicist. Something about his posture, the relaxed expression on his face, made it seem like maybe he wasn’t. He was alone, as usual; he had a way of being in a crowd of people and still somehow apart from them, and tonight was no different.
As each firework exploded and then disappeared, she closed her eyes, preserving the memory in glowing lines on the backs of her eyelids, thinking about the day behind her, the memory of her dad’s hand in hers, the comfort of her mother’s presence, and mostly—mostly—the boy sitting not ten feet away, watching the very same sky.
She thought of the words her father had spoken all those years ago: There will be no miracles here.
He was wrong, she was thinking, the words arriving with a fierceness that surprised her. Even in that diner, there must have been a sense of possibility. You just had to know where to look. Even a dirty window or stale apple pie could be a kind of miracle.
“So what happens now?” Ellie asked. “If it’s all over the news, he has to know we’re here. Do you think he’ll try to find us?”
“Do you want him to?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Maybe someday. Or maybe not. I don’t know.”
“That’s okay,” Mom said. “We’ve got time to figure it out.”
“I’m really sorry,” Ellie said again. This time, she wasn’t exactly sure what she was apologizing for; there were so many things to choose from.
“Hey,” Mom said, reaching over to cup her chin. “It’ll be fine.”
“How?” Ellie asked, her voice very small.
“We’re lucky,” she said. “It seems like everyone’s more interested in the other part of the story. Apparently Graham Larkin’s a lot more fascinating than Paul Whitman.” She shook her head with a smile. “I definitely didn’t see that coming.”
Ellie’s eyes trailed over to Graham’s back again. He’d hung up the phone and his face was now angled toward the sky.
“It’s a good thing,” she said. “It takes away the focus.”
“Not while he’s in town, it doesn’t,” Mom said, leaning back. “But he’ll be gone in a couple of days, and then that will be that.”
Another firework exploded overhead, this one a ring of green and purple, but Ellie didn’t see it. She was too busy watching Graham, and when he turned around, his eyes caught hers immediately. They stayed there like that for a long moment while the sparks rained down overhead. Another explosion colored the night sky, and Ellie felt this one down to her toes, the heat and flame of it, like a candle, like a fever, like a burn.
That will be that, she was thinking, but she didn’t stop looking at Graham.
“Hi,” he mouthed from across the lawn.
“Hi,” she said right back.
By morning, it was as if none of it had happened: the band and the fireworks, the food and the games. As Graham walked to the set beneath an orange sky, the village green looked as it always did, a thumbprint of grass in the center of town, empty and quiet and covered in dew. There were no paper cups left to be batted around by the wind, no singed firecrackers or sparklers strewn on the sidewalks, not even squares of flattened grass where the blankets had been spread out like an enormous patchwork quilt.
Graham took a sip of the coffee he’d gotten in the hotel lobby, careful not to spill it as the sidewalk began to slope down toward the water. Up ahead, he saw Mick crossing the street, looking tired and unshaven and holding a cup of coffee at least twice the size of Graham’s.
“Well, if it isn’t our very own prizefighter,” he said, stopping to wait for Graham, who braced himself for what was to come. But to his surprise, Mick didn’t seem angry. Instead, he was trying not to laugh. “It’s always the quiet ones,” he said, shaking his head. “But from what I’ve read, you got the bad guy and the girl in one punch, huh?”
“I’m really sorry, Mick,” Graham said. “I didn’t mean to screw things up for—”
Mick waved him away as they walked down the hill. “It’s fine,” he said. “I talked to Harry already this morning. The guy’s a magician. He’s made it all disappear.”
Graham stared at him. “How?”
“Like I said,” Mick told him with a shrug, “magic. He turned the whole thing on its head. I guess he didn’t even need the lawyers.”
For the first time in two days, Graham felt the muscles around his jaw unclench, and he let out a long breath, shaking his head in relief. “But all that publicity?” he said. “It can’t be good for—”
“It’s always good for something,” Mick said. “First rule of the business. Besides, it never hurts for the lead to be seen as a bit more of a tough guy.”
Graham glanced down at his hand, which still ached this morning. “I guess,” he said. “But I am sorry. Really.”
Mick groaned. “Two minutes with you, Larkin.”
“Huh?”
“That’s all it took to undo your new image.”
“Sorry,” he said again, and Mick rolled his eyes.
“Look, as long as we get that kind of fire out of you today on set, we’re still in good shape,” he said, giving him a pat on the shoulder before peeling off toward the catering truck.
On the set, a production assistant was waving to Graham, already herding him in the direction of the makeup trailer. There was a sense of urgency to the shoot today, everyone trying to get this portion of the filming wrapped on schedule, and the frenzied atmosphere made it feel like the last day of summer camp. On Monday, they’d all be meeting again in L.A., and there would be two more weeks of production there. But that didn’t make today feel like any less of an ending. And like every ending, it was a strange mix of exuberance and sorrow.
Graham was already seated on a canvas chair, a woman with a powder puff stooped before him—peering at his sunburned nose with a dissatisfied expression—when he noticed Harry crossing the lot. He was on the phone, gesturing with his free hand, and he wore his exhaustion like a heavy coat, his shoulders rounded as he trudged across the set. But when he glanced over and saw Graham, his face broke into a smile. He paused just long enough to give him a thumbs-up, and when Graham started to stand, Harry waved him back down and pointed to his phone. He stood there for another moment, grinning broadly and producing yet another thumbs-up, and then he continued on his way.