Playlist
James TW — “Butterflies”
Holly Humberstone — “Livewire”
Holly Humberstone — “Please Don’t Leave Just Yet”
Natalie Taylor — “Wrecked”
Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors — “Live Forever”
Judah & The Lion — “Only To Be With You” (Unplugged)
Matt Maeson — “Put It on Me”
Matt Maeson — “Tribulation”
Matt Maeson — “Hallucinogenics”
John Legend — “Wild”
Josie Dunne — “Good Boys”
James Bay — “Wild Love”
ZAYN — “It’s You”
HRVY — “Me Because of You”
The Driver Era — “Natural”
For Jenn, if only Fisher were Scottish … this would be perfection.
Chapter One
The day I met the naked fisherman, I was a wholesome eighteen-year-old girl, fresh out of high school with lots of opinions and zero big ideas. The perfect target. I had only heard about men like him through sermons and Bible studies on temptation.
However, as I spent the morning packing, I was unaware of his existence. I should have embraced the final few hours of my innocence instead of fretting over the thought of seeing my mom for the first time in over five years. It made me want to throw up my scrambled eggs and at least one piece of buttered toast. Six months earlier, she’d been released from a women’s correctional facility in Nebraska. Apparently, she had a few too many marijuana plants growing in the storage room of her hair salon. My dad said he knew nothing about it, and the judge believed him.
My grandma snatched everything I tossed into my suitcase and refolded it. “You’re an adult now, Therese. You don’t have to live with her … or us. You don’t have to live with anyone. Are you sure you don’t want to get an apartment with some friends? There are mission trips that can take you all around the world.”
Three years earlier, my dad’s heart had stopped working. A congenital defect he didn’t know he had. No high blood pressure. No high cholesterol. Not a single sign before he just … keeled over while sitting at his drawing board. We’d had pasta that night. I still couldn’t look at pasta without tearing up.
He was a brilliant architect. My grandparents (his parents) got custody of me since my mom was in prison and her parents lived in a dinky but expensive apartment in Boston. They were Catholic liberals with a special detest for my father’s parents—conservatives who took advantage of my mom’s incarceration and my dad’s death by enrolling me in a private Christian academy in Houston, Texas.
“She’s my mom. I haven’t seen her in five years. And it’s only temporary until I decide what I want to do with my life.” I gave my grandma a reassuring smile, but her frown told me she wasn’t feeling the least bit reassured.
“You didn’t invite her to your graduation. Why are you so curious now?”
Coughing before laughing, I shook my head. “Pa talked me out of inviting her, just like Dad would have done. And she’s my mom, not a zoo animal I’m ‘curious’ about. If she’s not what I remember, if she feels like a complete stranger and I feel no connection to her, then I’ll come home.”
“Therese, I worry that by not going to college right away, you’ll never go. And your father would have wanted you to get a degree.”
I tossed a pair of sandals and flip-flops on top of the clothes she’d just refolded. “Statistically, people who take a gap year do better when they do go to college.” A true statistic I played on repeat.
Lack of direction wasn’t fun. At my graduation party, everyone asked where I was going to school … what I planned on doing. I cringed and threw out my brilliant Gap Year Plan. It felt like code for “smart kid who happened to be an underachiever with little to no direction.” Nobody actually said that to me, but I saw it on their faces. Then they listed all of the things I could do, as if I simply needed a good idea.
Grandma pressed her hands to my cheeks for a second before stroking my hair down my shoulders. My straight, dark brown hair and blue eyes were all my mom, but my grandma always said I looked like my dad. He had blond hair and hazel eyes. The only things I got from him were my full lips and obsession with crossword puzzles.
“I also worry your mom won’t be the best influence.” Grandma frowned as she continued to stroke my hair. There it was—her real fear.
“If she’s on drugs or if she has taken up smoking three packs a day, I’ll come home. Besides, I’ve already found a church to attend, and I’m sure I’ll find good Christian friends who will keep me from falling under my mom’s spell.” I winked at Grandma. I was only half serious. There wasn’t a rule book for reuniting with your mother after years of separation due to incarceration. Would she expect me to call her “Mom?” Would it feel natural to call her that? It felt natural at thirteen, the day I last saw her and cried fat tears while they removed her from the courtroom in handcuffs. Her tears matched mine as she mouthed, “I love you.”