Closure.
Is such a thing possible? When anger and loss have been your companions for so long that you can’t imagine waking up without them burning in your chest? When the face that has haunted you for so many years is suddenly before you, threatening to reopen wounds you believed scarred over? Ashlyn seems to think so. A belief I can’t help feeling comes from personal experience, though she never said so. She claims it’s a matter of deciding. And so I’ve decided. But before closure, there must first be a reckoning.
Mine.
And yet I’m not quite ready to shoulder all the blame.
Beside me, Hemi broods behind the wheel, his expression carefully shuttered as he navigates rush-hour traffic. I feel his eyes stray to my side of the car now and then and sense that he might be about to say something, but when I turn to look at him, he looks away.
“Are we not going to talk about any of it?” I ask when I can no longer bear the quiet. “What she said and what it means?”
He keeps his eyes fixed on the road, his hands wrapped tight around the wheel. “What is there to talk about?”
His response stuns me. “Perhaps we could start with the fact that we’ve both had it wrong all these years, and that I was telling the truth last night when I told you the letter you showed me was meant for Teddy and not you. I think I deserve at least that.”
He says nothing for a time, pretending to be interested in something in the rearview mirror. I wait, watching him. I used to know his face so well, every plane and shadow, but the years have hardened him, making him unreadable.
“And then what?” he says finally. “After forty-three years, we’re both sorry. Then what?”
The bitterness in his voice cuts me to the quick. “Then . . . we forgive, Hemi. We stop all the blaming and who hurt who first. It won’t change what we’ve lost. Nothing can change that. But it might pave the way for some kind of closure. For both of us finally being able to let it go.”
I hold my breath, waiting for him to respond, to give some sign that he’s heard me at all, but he remains mute, unreachable. I turn my face to the window, staring at the highway blurring past. Forgiveness. Closure. Such pretty words. But they felt false as I uttered them. Because I know there’s more to come. Much more. And much worse. Perhaps the unforgivable. And yet I must say it. Confession, they say, is good for the soul. But not here, with horns blaring and cars whizzing past. I need to be on my own ground when I tell him.
“Hemi,” I say abruptly, before I lose my nerve. “I need you to come back to the house with me. When we get back to the hotel, to my car, I need you to follow me home.”
He looks at me finally, his face slightly softened. “Are you not feeling well?”
“I’m fine. But there’s something we need to discuss.”
“We’ve been in the car almost three hours and we’re still an hour from Boston. Is there some reason we can’t discuss whatever it is now?”
“There is,” I reply evenly. “There’s something I need to show you.”
“At your house?”
“Yes.”
His expression is suddenly wary. “What?”
“Not here.” I turn my face to the window again. “Not yet.”
My hands are hot and sticky as I pull up into my driveway. Hemi parks behind me and gets out. I wrestle with my suitcase and the hatbox full of my mother’s things from the trunk. The rest will have to wait. And then suddenly Hemi is there, relieving me of the suitcase and box. I murmur an awkward thank-you and head up the drive, leaving him to follow.
In the foyer, I barely look at him as I peel off my coat. He sets down the suitcase and hatbox, then peers over my shoulder into the parlor.
“There’s no one here,” I tell him and hold out my hand for his coat. “We’re alone.”
He takes a step back, shaking his head. “I’m fine.”
In the parlor, he runs his eyes over the artwork, the furniture, the piano with its collection of framed faces. I hold my breath, waiting for him to see it, but he doesn’t.
“Very nice,” he says drily. “Not quite what I expected, but nice.”
He wanders to the windows. The drapes are open, offering a glimpse of the pebble-strewn beach. The sun is going down and the water is a deep shade of pewter. I leave him to admire the view and go to the kitchen for ice. When I return, he’s still at the window, but his coat is off and draped over the arm of the sofa. I pour us both several fingers of gin, then reach for the tonic. He turns when he hears me break the seal on the bottle.
“Your own beach too. I should have known.”
There’s a whiff of reproach in the words, reminding me of those early days, how he used to set my teeth on edge with his criticism of my privileged childhood and posh lifestyle. I’m briefly tempted to remind him of his Back Bay townhouse but decide to let it pass. “It’s shared, actually. But the other family is hardly ever here, so I have it to myself most of the time.”
His eyes hold mine for an uncomfortable moment. “We used to talk about living by the sea.”
We talked about a lot of things, I want to say. But I can’t say it. I can’t even think it. Or I won’t be able to get through what I need to say. I put his drink into his hand. “I know you usually take it with lime, but I’m afraid you’ll have to do without. I wasn’t expecting company.”
He shrugs. “I’ve learned to do without a lot of things.”
“Hemi . . .”
“What should we drink to?”
I look at the floor, at my glass, anywhere but at him. “To your success,” I say dully. “How many books now?”
“Twenty-one at last count.”
“And most of them bestsellers. Congratulations.”
He bunches his shoulders, uncomfortable with my praise. The quiet yawns as we stand staring at each other across the distance of forty-three years. “You’re in all of them,” he says finally.
The remark catches me off guard. His voice has gone deep and raspy, plucking at nerves I haven’t acknowledged in a very long time. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you were every protagonist I ever wrote. No matter what I called them, they were all Belle. All you.”
“Hemi . . .”
“Have you read any of them?”
“No.”
“It started with Regretting Belle. It was the first good thing I ever wrote. Maybe the best thing I’ll ever write.” He takes a pull from his drink, grimacing as it goes down. “Whatever happened to it? Do you know?”
“I have it,” I say quietly. “I have them both.”
This seems to surprise him. And perhaps to please him. “You kept them?”
“No. Dickey did. After he died, his son found them in his study.”
“I’m not sure I knew he had a son.”
“Ethan,” I supply. “Until a week ago, I’d never laid eyes on him, but he looks just like Dickey.”
“Am I to assume he read them?”
“Yes,” I say, dropping my eyes. “He recognized Rose Hollow and figured out the rest.”
“That must have been interesting. Having your love life read by a stranger.”