I Ask the Passing Years for an Old Poem

Four years after I ran out on my wedding, I ran into my ex in the children's play area of a mall. He was standing there alone, his eyes locked on the little girl with pigtails beside me. Daisy was holding up a lollipop, asking me to help her unwrap it. My hand froze mid-tear on the wrapper. "Jill Sullivan." He crouched down, looking at Daisy, his eyes rimmed red. "You ran off with the child for four years and never told me?" "You've been hiding in a small city like this, living like this, just so I'd never find out?" He reached out to touch Daisy's face, and I knocked his hand away. "Dustin Stephens." I carried Daisy to my other side. "This is my brother's daughter. My own niece." "My brother and his wife had something to deal with today, so I brought her out to play. It has nothing to do with you." 1 Dustin said nothing. He stayed in that half-crouch, staring at Daisy for a dozen seconds before he slowly stood up. His stare frightened Daisy a little, and she tugged at the hem of my shirt, shrinking back. I picked her up and headed for the exit of the play area. "Jill Sullivan, stop right there." I pushed into the crowd with Daisy in my arms, head down, my steps quickening. His voice came from behind me, pressed low. "Aren't you going to give me an explanation?" I glanced back at him. I regretted that one glance. He was thinner than he'd been four years ago, his cheekbones sharper, his eye sockets deeper, his jawline hard enough to cut. But his eyes hadn't changed. Those beautiful peach-blossom eyes, now completely bloodshot. "There's nothing to explain." I left the words there, held Daisy tight, and ducked into the elevator. In the last second before the doors closed, I saw him reach out a hand, then pull it back. My brother was waiting for me in the basement parking lot. He took Daisy from me, and frowned when he saw how unnaturally pale my face was. "What happened?" "I ran into someone I didn't want to see." "Who?" "Just drive." I got into the passenger seat and pulled my seatbelt tight. Sebastian glanced at me, didn't ask any more, and started the car. As we drove out of the parking lot, I saw Dustin in the rearview mirror, standing at the exit. His car was parked at the curb, but he hadn't gotten in. He just stood there, watching our car drive away. Daisy sat in her car seat in the back, swinging her legs and biting her lollipop. "Auntie, why was that man crying?" I didn't know how to answer. Sebastian answered for me. "That's grown-up business, Daisy. Don't worry about it." Then he rolled the windows all the way up and dropped his voice a notch. "Was that Dustin?" I closed my eyes and leaned back against the seat. "Mm." "How could he be in Cranehaven?" Sebastian was quiet for a few seconds. "What are you going to do?" I rolled down my window and let the night wind pour in. Early autumn in Cranehaven had already turned cool, and the wind in this seaside town always carried damp and salt. "Nothing. It was just a coincidence. There's no way he can find me." I underestimated Dustin. The next morning at six thirty, I got to the shop to open up and found someone already sitting on the steps out front. His suit trousers were wrinkled, the top two buttons of his shirt were undone, and there was a layer of bluish stubble on his chin. He was gripping a cup of coffee gone stone cold, and there was no telling how long he'd been sitting there. He looked up when he heard my footsteps. There were the dark shadows of a sleepless night under his eyes. "I've been looking for you for four years." His voice was dry and cracked. "Do you know that these four years, I combed through every city you might have gone to?" "You changed your phone number, deleted all your social media accounts. Your dad wouldn't tell me, your mom said she didn't know." "I thought something had happened to you." He paused, gripping the coffee cup so hard the paper crumpled out of shape. "You think this is a coincidence? I got word you were in Cranehaven three months ago, and I've flown out every weekend to look for you. Yesterday was the twelfth time." I stood in the shop doorway, a yard away from him. The keys were clenched in my hand, my knuckles white. "You shouldn't have come looking for me." "Why?" "I left on my own. No one forced me." "And because of that you couldn't leave me a single word? On our wedding day, hundreds of people were sitting there, and the bride was gone." He stood up, more than half a head taller than me. "Jill Sullivan, no matter what happened, you owe me a reason."

I opened the shop door, went inside, and closed it behind me. Through the glass, he didn't move. I turned on the light over the work counter and started kneading dough and prepping ingredients. My hands moved the way they always did, but I cut the butter at the wrong angle three times. He stood outside the door for an hour. At eight o'clock, the first customers came in, and only then did he turn and leave. On the table he left behind that cup of coffee, now gone completely cold, and a business card. A single line was written on the back of the card— "I'm staying at that rental on Begonia Street. Whenever you're willing to talk, I'll be there." I dropped the card into the trash. I still remember every detail of that night four years ago. The evening before my wedding, on the top floor of the hotel, I came back to my room after my final dress fitting and found someone standing at the door. Dustin's mother. She wore a dark red dress, her hair combed without a strand out of place, a folder in her hand. I said, "Mrs. Stephens." She looked at me and gave a little smile. I replayed that smile many times afterward before I finally understood what was in it. "Jill, there are some things I really shouldn't be saying at a time like this." "But if I don't say them, my conscience won't let me rest." She handed me the folder. "Take a look at this." I opened it. Inside was a stack of printed screenshots of chat logs, each page marked with a date. The sender's profile picture and username were both Dustin's. "Man, are you really going to marry her?" "My mom keeps pushing me, so I might as well just get it over with." "Don't you not even like her?" "Does it matter whether I like her? She's easy to keep happy. We can get by well enough." There was another part. "I'll be honest with you—I don't feel anything for her, but she's completely devoted to me. Marrying her is the least trouble." By the time I reached the last page, my hands had gone cold. Watching my reaction, Dustin's mother sighed. "These are his chats with his cousin. He thought he'd deleted them all after he changed his phone, but his cousin still had them." "Jill, you're a good girl. You deserve a man who truly loves you." "I can't stand by and watch you marry into this family in the dark." She took a few more photos out of her bag. They were photos of Dustin and a woman. Shopping malls, restaurants, movie theaters—all sorts of everyday scenes. The woman leaning on his shoulder, his hand at her waist. The dates were marked in the corners of the photos. The most recent one was two weeks before our wedding. "This girl is his ex-girlfriend from college. It never ended. He promised me he'd stop contacting her, but you can see for yourself." I said nothing. I put the papers back into the folder, my fingers completely numb. Dustin's mother stood up and patted my shoulder as she left. "If you want to leave, I won't stop you. I've set aside some money for you, enough to get you settled. Don't hate me—I truly do care about you." After she left, I sat on the carpet in my room the whole night. At four in the morning, I sent my brother a message: Come pick me up. Before dawn, I walked out the back door of the hotel carrying a single suitcase. The wedding dress was still hanging on the rack in the room. That was the last time I saw anything connected to Dustin.

After I got to Cranehaven, I turned off my phone, snapped my SIM card in half, and flushed it down the toilet. My brother had an old house here, one he'd bought years ago as an investment, and it had sat empty for a long time. He helped me fix it up, and he also found a small storefront on an out-of-the-way alley and leased it. I'd been learning to bake since I was sixteen. It was the only skill I had. On the opening day of Sweet Remnants Bakery, my brother was the only one who came to show support. He bought six lattes and drank them all. These past four years, I've gotten by—not great, not terrible. The shop went from empty to slowly building a steady base of regulars. On weekends I helped my brother look after Daisy. Once in a while I'd take a walk along the shore. Not happy, exactly, but quiet. So quiet that I'd almost forgotten the name Dustin Stephens. Until yesterday. He found me. For the next three days, he showed up at the shop door at seven o'clock sharp every morning. He didn't come in, didn't knock, just sat on the stone bench across the way. Sometimes he brought a cup of coffee, sometimes nothing at all. My customers started talking. "Jill, who's that man out there? He's so good-looking." "Your rival? Oh, wait—someone chasing you?" "He camps out here for you every day. That's plenty of sincerity, don't you think?" I didn't answer. The oven timer went off, and I went to get the cake. On the afternoon of the third day, it rained. The autumn rain in Cranehaven was thick and fast, slanting down and slapping against my face. He had no umbrella. He sat on the stone bench, his shirt soaked through and clinging to him, water dripping from his hair, but he didn't move. I carried out a cup of hot cocoa. I set it down in front of him, turned, and walked away. He said something behind me. "Jill, I never wronged you. Whatever you think I did, I didn't." My steps stopped for a second. Just a second. I pushed the door open and went back inside. On the fourth day, he changed tactics. When I opened up in the morning, there was a bunch of white lisianthus on the table, with a note tucked beside it. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I did to make you leave. But whatever it was, I apologize." I put the flowers in an empty vase in the shop. I folded the note and put it in a drawer. It wasn't that I'd gone soft. It was just that throwing it away would be a waste. On the fifth day, my brother came into the shop to buy bread. He saw Dustin sitting outside the window and sucked in a breath. "He's still here?" "Mm." "Why exactly did you run? Did it never once occur to you to talk it out with him?" I kept wiping the counter without looking up. "Talk about what? That your mom showed me your chat history with someone else, that you never loved me?" "What if all of that was real, Sebastian?" My brother opened his mouth, then said nothing more. On the fifth night, after closing up, I went to the mouth of the alley to take out the trash. His car was parked at the alley entrance, but he wasn't inside. The door was unlocked, and on the passenger seat was a neatly folded coat and a worn-out notebook. I hadn't meant to look. But the wind blew the notebook open, and I caught a glimpse of one page. There was a photo of me pasted on it. It was taken back when we'd first gotten together, on the school field—I was wearing my varsity team hoodie, laughing without a care in the world. Next to the photo was a line of writing: "Day 1387." "New lead in Cranehaven: a bakery in the old town, pending confirmation." I turned to the next page. "Day 1402. Confirmed it's her. Jill, I found you." The date was three months ago. My hands started to shake. I flipped forward. I flipped back. The whole notebook, from the first page to the last, was nothing but dates, locations, and records of the search for me. Four years. He really had searched for four years. As I closed the notebook and set it back where it had been, I heard the sound of high heels on the bluestone paving behind me. One step at a time, crisp and slow. I turned around. The streetlight at the alley entrance shone down, and a woman stood there. A dark red coat, her hair pinned up without a strand out of place, exquisite makeup hiding the lines at the corners of her eyes. I recognized her.

Dustin's mother. She looked at me, the corner of her mouth curving into an arc. "Miss Sullivan, it's been four years." As Beverly walked in, I took half a step back. It wasn't that I was afraid of her. I'll admit it—this woman made something in my chest tighten. "What are you doing here?" "Dustin flies to Cranehaven every weekend. Does he think I don't know?" She glanced around the alley, her gaze sweeping over the little bakery behind me, and the corner of her mouth curved. "You opened a shop. That's nice." That tone reminded me of four years ago. When she sat in that hotel room and handed me the envelope of documents, she'd used the same tone—"That's nice." Gentle, dignified, looking down from on high. "Mrs. Stephens, say whatever it is you want to say." She pulled an envelope out of her bag and set it on the hood of Dustin's car. "There's a card inside. The PIN is your birthday. Three million dollars." "Jill, you're a smart girl. The fact that you could leave so cleanly four years ago proves you're clear-headed." "Now leave one more time. This time go further. Move to another city, so he can't find you." I looked at the envelope and didn't move. "He's the sole heir of the Stephens family. You know in your heart what kind of person he should marry." "If you stay here, you'll hold him back—and hold yourself back too." I pushed the envelope back. "No need." "No need for the money, or no need to leave?" "Neither. I have no intention of having anything to do with him. You've wasted the trip." Beverly looked into my eyes for three seconds, then smiled. "That's for the best." She put the envelope away and turned to go, then stopped. "By the way, those things I showed you four years ago—you never mentioned them to him, did you?" I didn't answer. She nodded. "That's for the best. Some things, if they're dug up again, won't look good for anyone." The sound of her high heels gradually faded. The alley went quiet again. I stood where I was, staring at that notebook in Dustin's car, my palms cold with sweat. Day 1,387. He'd been searching for me for 1,387 days. If he was the kind of man Beverly described—someone who didn't love me, who only married me for convenience—why would he search for four years? Once the thought surfaced, I couldn't push it back down. The next morning, Dustin appeared across from the shop as usual. I hesitated the entire morning. At noon, once the last customer had gone, I carried out two lattes and walked out the door. I set one in front of him and held the other in my own hands. He froze for a second. "Can we talk for a minute?" He practically sprang up off the stone bench. I sat down, half an arm's length away. "I'm going to ask you something. Answer me honestly." "Go ahead." "The night before our wedding, four years ago—what were you doing?" He frowned and thought about it. "I had dinner with a few friends. At the restaurant downstairs in the hotel. Got back to my room a little after ten, called you, and you didn't pick up." "The next morning I went to your room looking for you, and you were gone. The wedding dress was still there. You weren't." "I called you forty-seven times. Your phone was off the whole time." His voice was very flat as he said all this. But I noticed that the knuckles of the hand gripping the coffee cup had gone white. "When you were at dinner, what did you say to your cousin?" "What?" "About me." He frowned, clearly searching his memory. "My cousin? I hadn't been in touch with him for almost two years. I didn't invite him to that dinner at all." Something in me lurched. "He was studying abroad back then. How could he have been there?" His expression changed as he looked at me. "Why are you suddenly asking this? Did someone tell you something?" He grabbed my wrist. "Jill, did you run away from the wedding because someone told you something?" "You tell me first." I pulled my hand back. "Do you know a woman—someone you dated in college? Short hair, a mole on her right ear." The confusion on his face turned to shock. "Who are you talking about?" "Your ex-girlfriend. Someone showed me a photo of the two of you together, dated two weeks before our wedding." He stood up. "I never had a girlfriend in college." "What are you talking about?" "The only person I dated in all four years of college was you."