There was a knock on the door, and Corinne looked over, expecting that her mother had returned. But someone else walked in instead.
Will, who had on chef’s whites and a Boston Red Sox baseball cap, walked carefully into the room and sat on a wooden chair near the window. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said, keeping his eyes on the ground. “I just wanted to catch you before . . . you know.” Then he looked at her. “Can you at least explain?”
For a brief moment, Corinne felt as guilty as she had all those years ago when she’d left Will without telling him anything. But then it rushed back to her: he was a liar too. They’d both hidden something.
“I know you know,” she croaked. And then, in a stronger voice: “I know you know about the baby.”
The color rose in his cheeks. “Oh,” he said in a gravelly voice.
“I went to see her. For the first time. I wanted to see her before I told you about it. And her mom told me that you’d already been there. That you knew.” A lump grew in her throat. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you say you saw her?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He shook his head. “I was so confused that summer. You . . . vanished. And then you sent your cousin, who I didn’t even really know . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I thought what we had meant more than that.”
“It did,” Corinne croaked, humbled. “I shouldn’t have just taken off.”
She heard a creak on the stairs, shot up, and glanced into the hallway. Her mother was nowhere to be seen. She returned to her bedroom and looked at Will. “So when did Poppy tell you?”
Will squinted. “Poppy? I actually thought you sent the letter at first—it wasn’t signed. But it explained everything, and had Michaela’s name and address. I don’t think I truly believed it until I went down there and saw for sure.” He paused. “She looks just like us, Corinne.”
Why would Poppy have left the letter anonymous? Corinne looked down. “You scared them, apparently. So much that Michaela’s mom basically kicked me out before I could even see her.”
Will frowned. “Is that what she told you? I didn’t scare anybody. I just . . .” He trailed off, sighing. “I was so amazed at the idea of a daughter. And I mean, you saw her, right? She’s perfect.”
“I know,” Corinne said faintly, Michaela’s face clear in her mind.
“But I didn’t do anything to scare them. I don’t know what she’s talking about.” He winced. “Jesus, Corinne. If you’d handled this like a normal person, we might be able to see her. She might be ours.”
Tears rolled down Corinne’s cheeks, probably making rivers in her makeup. “What was I supposed to do? I had no choice.”
Will stared at her crazily. “Maybe I’m not Dixon Shackelford, and maybe that’s who you were waiting for, but you still could have done the right thing. You kept a daughter from me. A grandchild from your whole family. You lied to them as much as to me. Are you really that afraid of them?”
“I don’t know what I’m afraid of!” Corinne blurted, her voice echoing hollowly through the room. “Of making a mistake, I guess! Of everyone . . . judging me. Do you have any idea what that feels like? Do you have any idea how hard it is to uphold this image for your entire family?”
Will blinked at her. “Why do you have to do it alone?”
“I don’t know!” Corinne blurted, feeling unhinged. She covered her face with her hands. “That’s what I’ve been realizing. I thought all of us, my cousins and I, I thought we all were trying to be perfect and good and . . . examples. But it turns out I was the only one. Or else I’m the only one who beats myself up so badly when I screw up.” She looked up at Will through watery eyes. “It’s just that striving for perfection is who I am,” she admitted. “It’s all I know. I don’t know who I would be if I wasn’t.”
The confession sounded silly in the light of day. Corinne shut her eyes and listened to the string quartet warming up in the garden. She pictured Dixon and his groomsmen, tanned, big-toothed boarding-school boys like himself, horsing around in the boys’ wing.
She looked up at Will, suddenly exhausted. “I wish I could take it back. I should have listened to Poppy—she didn’t want me to go and hide. She wanted me to face things.”
Will sighed. “I wish you had too. And believe me, since I found out, there have been days where I’ve woken up hating you—which is pretty complicated, since I keep waking up loving you too.”
Love. There it was, hanging in the air. A huge weight pressed against Corinne’s chest. “Everyone’s already here. They’re expecting me.”
He moved closer to her. “So what? I’ll sneak you out the back if I have to. Corinne, I love you and I want to be with you—no matter the consequences.”
Corinne’s eyes filled with tears. Even after everything she’d done—the horrible secret she’d kept, the awful lies she’d told—he still wanted to be with her. He’s so good, she thought. I don’t deserve him.
She turned away from him. “I think it’s too late.”