“Safe flight home, Mary.” Sylvia pulled me into a final hug.
I headed out the front door and found Nathan at my car, lowering my suitcase into the trunk.
“I told Duncan this job was my insurance. I thought you might try to leave without seeing me.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
He raised a brow.
“Not after I said I wouldn’t.”
He shut the trunk and rested his hands on it as if requiring something firm and tangible beneath him. “What’s going on, Mary?”
“I overheard you on the phone last night, Nathan. I didn’t mean to. But when I tried to ask you about it, you lied. You said everything was fine, and maybe for WATT it is, but clearly it’s not for me. You were talking about me.”
“I did not lie.” He ran his hands through his hair. “There are some things about WATT I can’t share. And you wouldn’t want me to. It’d be unprofessional. You want me to mix up work and love to satisfy your curiosity? It would diminish both of us. But you’ve also got to trust me. What are we doing here?” He flapped his hand between us. “What is all this if you don’t trust me?”
“Wha—No.” Love? “I do trust you, but Karen firing me is her decision, not yours. She has made her opinions clear since the day she arrived—in every reprimand, circular instruction, and veiled threat—and you can’t defend me because I’m your girlfriend. I’m not saying you said that or think that . . . But if that’s what you’re trying to do, then WATT is just like you and me, with Isabel sandwiched between us. And I can’t have that. That’s my job, Nathan, my career. I can’t stay there for any other reason than I’ve earned my spot.”
“You and I, and certainly not Isabel, have nothing to do with WATT. Why would you assume I’d champion you for any other reason than you’re good at your job?”
I looked back at the house. “Because all the lines between us are too blurry. I’m only realizing now how blurry. I need distance to see them clearly.”
“To see me clearly?” He stared at me. I could tell he didn’t understand, but I couldn’t explain it any better. Isabel hadn’t understood either—and to have Isabel and Nathan on the same side of this issue, against me, felt even more confusing. As I’d said earlier, it—everything—simply felt “messed up.”
“I’m sorry.” I reached up and kissed his cheek. “Can I call you when I land?”
“No.”
I stepped back. “Okay.”
“I didn’t mean that. I’ll be in the air.” At my expression, he narrowed his eyes. “With you gone, why would I stay?”
“I hadn’t thought that far.”
“Clearly.”
I reached for his hand. He clasped my fingers, but rather than pull me close, he tugged me toward the car door and opened it with his other hand.
I dropped into the seat. “Will you call me when you land? So we can talk?”
“Of course we’ll talk.” He shut the door.
I sank into the soft leather with the realization I’d been wrong—losing a job after five years and losing a boyfriend after five minutes actually hurt a great deal. I twisted to look out the rear window as the car began its roll down the long drive.
Nathan watched me go. I waved to him. He did not reciprocate.
Chapter 26
I’m going to miss this.” I leaned back in one of the Adirondack chairs my dad and I had built from a kit the previous summer. We watched the night sky. Austin, the closest city, was seventy miles away, so there were no city lights to dim the stars. Thousands of them spread before us. “Braithwaite House was like this. There was one clear night and the stars were like a blanket of light.” I trailed one line of stars to the horizon, to the trees, to Dad’s backyard, to my feet propped on a large tree stump. “You could fit our whole town into the land on that estate.”
“That must have been something.” Dad kept his focus on the heavens.
I’d shown up, as I’d said I would, for Saturday night dinner. I brought steaks from Central Market, the makings for a Caesar salad, and potatoes. Dad banked his surprise and let me cook. He did shoo me from the grill when the steaks were done and I showed no signs of pulling them off, and he also gently suggested that the potatoes might be ready after an hour in a 400-degree oven. The Caesar dressing, however, completely homemade, received no helpful input, and had to be redone twice before I was able to add the oil slowly enough to keep the dressing from separating. All in all, it was a good dinner—and my first attempt at real cooking.
I’d told him all about the trip. Isabel, the Muellers, the Lottes. I told him about Gertrude and how it felt like I was looking at Mom or myself and how there was so much I regretted.
“You can’t think like that,” he said. “She understood and knew you loved her. We all grieve in our own ways and, well, your brothers modeled that for you. It was hard on them too.”
I also told him about Isabel’s e-mail. She was staying in Bath. Getrude had arranged an interview via Skype with the Stanleys, and they were delighted that an “Austen expert” might take over Gertrude’s management role. Gertrude was moving forward with plans to move to France and join her niece’s family. And Grant’s grandfather was helping Isabel find a local therapist. She hoped to make Bath her home.
“I’m happy for her. There’s so much healing in that, and in going to England.” Dad gave me a small smile. “Her father will never go back there to live. After moving here, he stopped all work with BP. It’s a good bit of emotional and physical distance she’s set up. And that man—”
“Grant.” I supplied the name. “He’s a keeper, Dad, and she loves him.” I reached for his hand. “He’s everything you’d want for your daughter . . . your other daughter.”
I didn’t tell him about Nathan.
Now that we were outside, the differences between England and Texas struck me anew. “You wouldn’t believe how green it was, Dad. Shades I didn’t know existed. Cool too. The temperature, I mean. Dressing in clothing that went out of style a couple hundred years ago will probably never be called cool. But if Isabel stays, you know you’ll have to go someday. Maybe for her wedding. You’ll love breeches. And those neckcloths? Very you.”
Dad chuckled. “We’ll see.”
“I might get used to a cooler climate. I got to wear sweaters, and a very nice waxed coat, and I loved all the fires.”
“You’ll get plenty of chances in Boston. You can have fires like this starting in September and probably continuing through April.” He added another log to the fire pit.
“I doubt I’ll find an apartment with a fireplace, and certainly not a yard with a fire pit.” I rolled my head on the chair’s high back to face him. “Dad? I have no idea what I’m doing.”