“Jack, we can’t talk about this now. Not here.” She glanced over his shoulder, anxious about customers coming in and finding them in the middle of a domestic.
“Why not? When can we talk about it, then, Olivia?” The crack in his voice was unexpected. Was it emotion? Was Jack Oliver showing his feelings? “Where, then, if not here and now? At the top of the aisle? On our honeymoon? When exactly were you planning to tell me I can never be a father? Where did you think it was going to be convenient for me to find out my wife is infertile?”
His words hit Olivia like a punch in the stomach. Yes, there was emotion in his voice, but it was all for himself. There was no compassion for her. No concern. No offer to help her cope with this devastating news. It was the reaction she’d been dreading, only worse, because it was happening here, in the one place she had always felt safe and sheltered and protected; the place he had belittled and insulted. She could almost feel the books shrink back on their shelves, unwilling spectators to the drama unfolding before them.
Olivia glanced at the photograph of Frances and the fairies on the desk, drawing strength from the memory it stirred of her mother, and her Nana and great-grandma Ellen. Strong, determined women.
She took a deep breath, stood up, and walked around the desk. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Jack. I only found out a few weeks before Pappy died. I’m still trying to come to terms with it myself. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“But it changes everything, Olivia.” He waved the letter frantically in the space between them. “Everything.”
“Does it?”
“Of course! It changes you. It changes our future. You don’t just put something like this in a drawer and forget about it.”
The anger built inside her. “Forget about it? Are you serious? Do you really think I could ever forget something like that? I’ve thought about it every day. Every. Single. Day. This might affect our future, Jack, but it’s my body. The truth of that letter will be with me forever. I’ll never be able to forget it.”
“I don’t know what to say to you, Olivia. First you disappear to Ireland and ignore everything to do with the wedding, and now this? If you’re prepared to keep this a secret, how can I trust you?” He threw his hands in the air in exasperation and walked toward the door. When he turned, Olivia saw resentment in his eyes. “Clearly you’re not the person I thought you were.”
Did he mean because she had kept the letter a secret, or because she couldn’t have children? The fact that she wasn’t sure what he meant told her everything she needed to know.
A breeze rattled the letterbox. A rush of air. A reminder. “You don’t need anybody’s permission to live the life you desire, Olivia. You need only the permission of your heart.”
Her heart beat a steady, determined rhythm. “Or maybe I’m just not the perfect cutout wife you want me to be? How very inconvenient of me to end up infertile.” Jack studied her for a moment, clearly surprised by her resolve. She felt nothing as she stared back at him.
“I’m going back on a flight at seven,” he said. “I’ve booked you a seat, and I’ve made an appointment with a fertility expert next week.”
Olivia’s mind was reeling. “You’ve done what?”
“I know people, Olivia. We can get a second opinion and get you fixed.”
It was so typical of Jack. So absolutely typical of him to believe he could fix things with his influence and contacts.
Olivia was furious. “I don’t need your people, Jack. I have my own, and I’ve already had a second opinion. And a third. It is what it is. Nothing will change it. ‘Get me fixed’? This isn’t a business deal you can throw more money at and salvage at the eleventh hour. This is real life, Jack, with real people and real feelings.” She opened the door. “I’m not sure what you thought you would gain by coming here and arranging my life, but I think you should go.”
Jack glanced at her hand on the door handle. Whether he noticed the absence of her engagement ring or not, he didn’t say anything.
“The flight departs at seven.” He placed a boarding pass on a shelf beside Olivia. “If you’re not there, I’ll assume you’ve decided there are better things for you here. It’s your decision, Olivia.”
Yes. Yes, it was.
She closed the door behind him, leaning back against it to take a moment to catch her breath and to steady the trembling in her hands. Whatever questions she’d had, Jack had just answered them all for her.
It was only when she heard the scrape of a chair upstairs that she remembered Ross. He must have heard everything. The look on his face as he walked downstairs made Olivia feel small and foolish.
“Ross, I’m so sorry. I . . .”
He waved her apology away. “I’m putting the kettle on. Do you want one?”
“Please.”
“I think we might both need two sugars.”
She smiled a weak smile. “Will you let me explain?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “You can if you want, but I think Jack-Ass there just did all the explaining for you.”
SHE DID WHAT she always did when she needed to think. She climbed.
It was a warm afternoon, the breeze unusually calm even at the top of Howth Head, just enough to ruffle the gorse slightly, and yet in Olivia’s heart, a tempest raged.
If things were right between her and Jack, she would have told him about her appointments, let alone the letter. He would have been the first person to confide in, not the last. He’d accused her of hiding the truth from him, but there were far greater truths she’d hidden from herself: That this marriage could never work, that things would never get better, that she would never be happy simply being content.
She thought about something Ross had said when she’d told him everything over a pot of sweet tea. “You have to be passionate about the things you put in your life: the music you listen to, the food you eat, the friends you hang out with, even the bloody towels you hang in the guest bathroom. It’s about choice, Olivia. It is always about choice.”
And her choice came down to this: Did she want to follow convention and settle for the security of a marriage that might work if she made herself believe it could, or did she want to explore a new life in Ireland, with nothing but herself and an old bookshop for company?
Did she want to follow a well-worn trail, or did she want to become a mapmaker?
JACK’S FACE LIT up when he saw her walk into the check-in area.
“I knew you’d see sense.” He hugged her and patted her on the back as if she was a client. “You’ve done the right thing, Olivia. We’ll get you sorted out and everything will be fine.”
As her cheek pressed against the lapel of his blazer, she closed her eyes. She had never felt more certain about anything as she pulled back from him and gave him her boarding pass.
“I’m not coming with you, Jack.”
“What? Of course you are. Don’t be silly.”