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At least she was honest.

It had been a good week. With Dad, the girls had built a massive fort in the living room with all the linens and pillows we owned. With Mom, we’d made lasagna, baked muffins, and watched a half-dozen Disney movies, which I think Mom liked even more than Macy, who was obsessed. I took the girls out on my own to let Mom and Dad recover. Ice skating, pedicures, and burgers and shakes at Aubrey’s in Barkley Falls. I’d even put an ‘on vacation’ post up on my blog and turned off my phone for three whole days in the middle.

During that time, I tried to keep my mind a Will Archer free zone.

I failed, miserably. During the busy moments where I was distracted, thoughts of him would dip in around the edges. Once, during muffin-baking, Emma told this hysterical muffin joke (There are two muffins in an oven. One muffin says to the other muffin, “Man, it’s hot in here!” The other muffin says, “Holy crap, a talking muffin!”). I’d picked up my phone to text it to Will before remembering we didn’t do that anymore.

Both of us were too messed up to make this work, even though I could admit, now, that I wished we weren’t.

“It’s stunning,” I said now, as we passed through the doors.

It really was. We’d seen the photos in the online brochure, but as I suspected, they didn’t really do the place justice.

The Rolling Hills Resort was nestled on a hill in a thickly forested valley in Northern Vermont. The whole valley was blanketed under a thick layer of snow, which meant the golf course was closed (not that it mattered to me) and besides cross-country skiing, the emphasis appeared to be on indoor luxuries like the spa, massages, and various indoor sports, including tennis, under one of those giant domes.

Inside, the space opened into an expansive lobby. A modern chandelier, all metal and glass, the size of a minivan, hung overhead. At the far side of the expansive space, there was a rock wall adjacent to a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the valley. Water trickled down the rock wall, running in a path along the base of the window in a replica of the river below, before disappearing into more rocks on the other side of the room.

This place really had spared no expense. The only shortfall from our already five-star experience, that I could tell, was the hallway on the right side of the lobby was completely boarded off with plywood Outside, there had been scaffolding all along that wing of the building—they were undergoing some kind of major renovation, though I saw no workers or heard no sounds of it.

While we waited to check-in, a couple walked by in expensive-looking matching ski gear, speaking a Scandinavian language. They were heading for a doorway that said ‘SPAS’. As in multiple.

“Reese,” I said, feeling a little ill as I turned back to my sister. “I don’t know if I can afford to add on all these extra activities.” Even though the room was free, I knew we’d easily rack up a bill on food and anything else we decided to do for the two days we were here. Tonight was New Year’s Eve, and I fully expected Reese would want to celebrate. Albeit, looking at her, maybe in the room.

“We’re not actually going todoanything, Mich,” Reese said, shocked. She was still wearing her sunglasses, her coat collar pulled up over her chin. “We’re going to hang out in our room the whole time.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, even as I knew we couldn’t hide the whole time. “Reese, I thought the whole point of coming was sticking your chin out and showing Eli you didn’t care about him? That you can have fun without him at his own hotel? Also, you look like a celebrity,” I said.

“Perfect. That’s exactly the vibe I want to maintain here.” Then her jaw fell open. “Speaking of which! Holy shit!”

I followed her gaze to where a very tall, athletic-looking man in a tracksuit was walking briskly through the lobby. Or would have been, if he wasn’t pulling a toddler along beside him.

“Is he famous?” I asked.

“Mich, seriously? That’s Jude Kelly! He’s a tennis pro! He won the US Open three years in a row.”

“Oh,” I said. I had no idea who he was, but I could admit he looked like he could easily sprint around the whole hotel in about five seconds flat.

Then he looked right at us and lifted his hand up as if in greeting.

“Oh my god is he—”

But when I looked back, the woman behind the counter was giving him a curt nod.

“Not us,” I said.

The woman smiled at the people in front of us. “Jude runs our recreation programs,” she said to them. “We’re lucky to have him.”

There was something about how the woman said that that made me think she wasn’t nearly as impressed with him as Reese.

But I was distracted. There was something familiar about the tennis player. Actually not him, though maybe I’d seen him on TV before or something. It was the boy I thought I’d seen before, with that adorable pointed nose and shaggy hair.

As the tennis guy pulled the boy up to sit on his shoulders, I had the strangest feeling of deja vu. The boy looked so familiar—even the fact that he was with a man.

When I looked back to the desk, the woman was giving a little wave to the toddler, looking decidedly happier to see him than the boy’s father.

Then it clicked. This was Eli’s family’s resort. That little boy was the one Will had been with at the park that day, Eli’s nephew, Jack. The tennis player must be related to him and maybe the woman behind the counter too. I looked at Reese to see if she had made the connection, but she was still agog at the celebrity factor—I don’t even think she’d noticed Jack.

I decided not to tell her. I didn’t need to remind her about anything related to Eli.