Page 66 of Here We Go Again

Rosemary looks at Logan. She looks and looks and looks. There’s nothing unfeeling in that expression now.

“I needed to leave the city for my mental health, and I convinced Remy to move even though he wanted to stay. We found a small cottage in Maine that I could afford with the money I’d saved from teaching, and we lived there, in a safe little bubble, for five years. They were beautiful years, close to the sea and mountains and trees. I got a job teaching English at the local high school, and living in Maine, Remy could afford to paint full-time. I wanted to believe we could be happy like that forever. Drinking coffee on our front porch while we watched the sunrise, wine at sunset. But…”

Joe sighs again. Rosemary looks.

“But Remy never wanted to leave the city, where we could beclose to the art scene and the queer community, and I could tell I was holding him back. He wanted a life of adventure, and I wanted a life that was safe. I kept trying to end things, but we’d been together for fifteen years, and Remy couldn’t let go. So, one day, I packed up all my things and I moved as far away from Bar Harbor as I could, without telling him. I left a note and just… disappeared.”

“That’s how you ended up in Vista Summit?” Rosemary asks in a hushed tone. Tears drip down her chin, and under the table, Odie puts his head on her lap. She starts to shove the dog away, but there’s something comforting about the weight of him, the feeling of his silky fur beneath her fingers.

Logan violently pushes aside her own tears with the back of her hand. “Wait, did you say you used to dodrag?”

Rosemary fixes all her attention on Joe. “And that’s your one regret? Leaving him?”

Joe stares out at the parking lot of the Pueblo Indian Kitchen. “I regret thewayI left.”

Rosemary uses Odysseus’s ears like a stim toy, stoking back and forth to soothe herself from the secondhand heartache.

“I was so convinced that I was going to lose Remy eventually that I hurt him before he could hurt me.”

Now they’re both looking at Logan. She squints, like the sun is in her eyes, and shoves her sunglasses onto her face.

Joe keeps staring at Logan anyway. “I took away his agency and made the decision for him. And I regret that very much.”

“Have you told him that?” Rosemary asks.

“I haven’t spoken to him since I left. It’s been thirty years.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Logan screams. Several other patrons turn to glare. “Pick up the damn phone and call the man! Tell him you’re sorry, and you still love him!”

“I-I’m not… still in love with him.”

“Oscar fucking Wilde, then what was that entire Nora Ephron bullshit you just spewed at us?”

Joe stares down at his half-empty bowl. “I wouldn’t even know how to find Remy after all this time….”

“Because the internet doesn’t exist?”

Rosemary already has her phone open. “Remy St. Patin…” She ticks her nails against the screen. “… owner of the Heather on the Hill gallery, 1224 Government Street. Ocean Springs, Mississippi.”

Logan picks up her napkin just so she can throw it down on the table theatrically. “That’s it! Next stop: Mississippi!”

“Absolutely not.”

“Absolutelyyes!” Logan jumps up from the table. “Rosemary, grab the dog and the leftovers. We’re going to find Remy St. Patin.”

“Logan!” Joe pleads.

“Joseph!” Logan pleads back.

“Joe,” Rosemary says. “You brought us to Santa Fe. You dragged us around art galleries. You wanted to find him.”

Joe meets her eyes, and she sees a new level of vulnerability there. He’s so…human, this man she’s immortalized. He loves and he fucks up and he regrets. He makes mistakes and makes amends. “This is your death trip. Do you really want to have regrets when it’s over?”

He considers this, his head tilted toward the warm sun. “I really did look fantastic in that painting, didn’t I?” Joe wonders in visible awe at himself.

Rosemary holds his gaze. “You were the prettiest man I’ve ever seen.”

Joe’s lip quivers a bit in response before he squares his shoulders. “No regrets,” Joe grumbles under his breath. Rosemary contemplates whether she’ll be able to sayno regretsat the end and mean it. “Okay. Let’s go to Mississippi.”