Harvey began walking toward the piazza. “Come on, Marc. Let’s stop wasting time with these two. We’ve got a lot of work to do before tomorrow.”
It was clear that Marc wasn’t happy to let Jack have the last word, but after several false starts, he followed Harvey into the house.
Jack stared after them, not moving, and he continued to hold my hand, his grip tight. We stood that way in silence for a long moment before he finally spoke. “In all of the years I’ve been sober, I have never wanted a drink more than I want one right now.”
He looked at me and I was reminded of Marc’s eyes, of how the light in them had disappeared. But Jack’s weren’t menacing, just empty. Crew members continued to rush past us. I tugged on Jack’s hand and led him into the blissfully empty side garden, where Nevin Vanderhorst’s swing dangled from the ancient oak tree. It was where I’d spotted Louisa on my first visit to the house, when I’d been hoping to get the listing so I could sell it. Instead, Nevin Vanderhorst had died and left me his property. For the first time in a long while, I wondered if I would have been better off never crossing the threshold at all.
I led Jack to a bench, where he sat and immediately put his head in his hands. His voice was muffled when he spoke. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“This isn’t your fault, Jack. Sure, we should have both been better informed, but with everything that happened in December, and then Marc offering you a way to clear your name and save face by offering you a percentage of earnings—for the story you created, no less—we both wanted to believe that our luck had finally changed.”
“But I knew better than to trust him. I knew better. And I still allowed him to get the better of me.”
“We knew better,” I corrected him. “We’ll fix it. We always figure things out, don’t we? If we put our heads together.”
He looked at me, his eyes in shadow. “This has nothing to do with you, Mellie.”
I jerked back. “What?”
He stood and began to pace. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that . . . with us being separated, I’m forcing myself to think of us not as a team. To see how that fits.”
I stood, rubbing my arms for warmth as a chilly breeze rustled through the Spanish moss above us and spun the old swing. “And?”
Jack stared at me for a long moment, then gently took my face in his hands, my whole body warming from that single touch. “I’ve been failing miserably.”
I didn’t close my eyes this time, wanting to see Jack’s face as he leaned toward me. The air hummed around us like an exposed wire as we stared at each other in the garden, near the spot where we’d said our wedding vows. Despite the world screaming around us and the walls of our lives apparently crumbling along the periphery, there was still us. I knew it. But as I waited for Jack to close the distance, I wasn’t sure that Jack did.
He dropped his hands. Took a step back. “That would be a mistake. Because it won’t solve anything.”
The old Melanie, always poking at the surface of the thin veneer of the new Melanie I was trying to be, would have argued that he was wrong. That we’d already survived so much because we’d done it together. But the annoying new Melanie clamped her hand over the old Mellie’s mouth, understanding—finally—that Jack had to reach his own conclusion without any coercion. His conviction was one of the things I loved about him. And the reason why we’d gotten married. He simply never gave up.
Although there were times—like this—when I wanted to throw myself at him and erase all doubts that we were meant to be together and deal with the consequences later. I pushed aside the memory of the twins’ conception, which had been exactly that.
Jack rubbed his hands through his hair. “I’ll figure this out, although I have a feeling there’s not a damned thing I can do.”
I flinched at his use of “I’ll” instead of “we’ll.” I pushed the hurt aside, determined to think about it later. “Don’t say that,” I said. “You have a knack for solving puzzles.”
A corner of his mouth lifted for a brief moment. “Which makes it even more inconceivable that I could be duped so easily. If I could—” He stopped suddenly, looked at me.
“If you could what?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.” He glanced back at the house, still lit up like a national monument. “I can’t bear to go in there right now and see their gloating faces. I’m going to drive around for a bit—give myself some time to think. I’ll be back in time to tuck the twins in and to shout at Nola to turn down her music.”
“I’ll let them know.”
He nodded and waved while I stood without moving, watching him. He paused and turned. “That was number three,” he said, then resumed following the path. I stared after him until the garden gate slammed shut.
An overpowering scent of roses enveloped me, wrapping me in thoughts of summer although it was still February. A gentle creaking sound murmured behind me, and I held my breath, waiting. I wasn’t afraid. I remembered the sound from the first time I’d visited 55 Tradd Street, which seemed now like a thousand years ago.
I turned to see the swing moving back and forth, too high and steady to be from the wind. It reminded me of the last time I’d seen Louisa’s spirit. It had been right after I’d done what Nevin Vanderhorst had asked: I’d solved the mystery of his mother’s disappearance and cleared her name. She’d been standing beneath this tree and pushing her young son, both long gone. And although I’d smelled her roses often in the intervening years, I hadn’t seen her again. I didn’t expect to now.
But there was something different tonight. I always sensed her around the children during times of turmoil. Yet I was in the garden alone, the scent of her signature flower pressing down on me like a mother’s hands. I squinted into the back corner of the garden, trying to see in the dim light cast by the house.