“She’s hanging in there. Julian came to visit and he’s handling the news of her pregnancy fairly well. I just don’t want her to feel alone in dealing with all this.”
“She’s not alone. She has us.” Us? Of course—parents. Always they would be parents together. “Blythe, I found the shoe box you asked me to unearth from the back of your closet.”
She looked down at her nails, edged with soil. Her heart beat fast.
“Did you send it?”
“No.”
“No?” No as in “not yet”? Or no as in “I looked inside and I’m not facilitating your walk down memory lane with your former lover”?
“I brought it to you in person. I felt we have some loose ends to wrap up. I have some paperwork. We can kill two birds with one stone here.”
In person? Loose ends to wrap up? Kill two birds…what on earth was Kip talking about?
“I’m confused,” she said. “Where are you?”
“I’m here—in Provincetown.”
He’d rented a basement studio apartment; it was the only thing he could find that week at the last minute. The entire town was booked up. It was a few blocks away, just off Franklin. “Can you come meet me now?”
By the time she reached the address, she was sweating. He opened the door and they greeted each other awkwardly, without touching.
She looked around. It was a cute place, with a dark wooden sleigh bed, crisp white walls decorated with framed autographed photos of Broadway stars, and an anachronistic stereo and a rack of CDs. The room wrapped around a small kitchen, where they sat at a wooden table.
“This is cute,” she said, looking at the place. It was difficult to face him, knowing that he knew the truth about Marin. In some ways, this was the first fully honest moment between them in the past thirty years.
It was excruciating.
“How long are you in town for?” she asked.
“I had to book it for a few days—their minimum. But I’m leaving in the morning. I figured I could see Marin for dinner tonight.”
“Right,” she said. She looked him in the eyes, those intelligent, commanding blue eyes that she’d fallen for so many years ago, so many years filled with secrets and lies. “I don’t understand,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “You knew about Marin, so why didn’t you say anything? In all this time…”
“Maybe I should have,” he said. “But I was hurt. Angry. Talking to you about it would have, in some ways, been letting you off the hook. I’m not saying I thought this consciously, but in some sense, not admitting that I knew the truth gave me a secret of my own. It leveled the playing field. That’s petty, I know. That’s the lowest point of my reasoning. I also didn’t say anything because I wanted to protect Marin. I didn’t want her to know. I never wanted to have to confront the issue of whether or not to tell her the truth. As far as I was concerned, she was my daughter.”
Blythe fought back tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I never was. If it had been up to me, we probably never would have had a child. I was too selfish. And it would have been the biggest mistake of my life. You saved me from that.”
“Do you mean that?” she said.
“Yes.”
He stood up, the chair startling her with a scraping sound against the floor. Kip walked to the bedroom area and when he returned, he had the shoe box in hand.
She closed her eyes. She had asked for it, but now that it was in front of her, she didn’t want to confront the evidence of her betrayal.
“I know I shouldn’t have looked inside, but I couldn’t help myself.”
“Kip…”
“I read how lonely you were. How miserable you were. And it was my fault.”
The journal. She had been so focused on Nick’s letter, she had forgotten about the journal!
Blythe felt hopeful. Not that she wanted him to blame himself—the affair had been her mistake, her transgression against the marriage. But if he was willing to take some of the blame for his own shortcomings, if he could see the big picture, then there was room for reconciliation. Maybe that was why he had come in person. Yes, that had to be it!
She took his hand. “There is no excuse for what I did. And I wish you’d told me you knew all this time. But please know that as wrong as it was for me to have the affair, it really did force me to either accept you as you were or end the marriage. And I knew I wanted to be with you. I made the decision to end it before I found out I was pregnant.”
“I know,” he said, smiling wistfully. “I read your journal, remember.”
She looked at him, trying to read his expression. Decades of litigating had made him inscrutable. And she had learned from him not to always speak—that there was truth at the end of silence.
Kip spoke slowly, with deliberation. “Blythe, I thought I had put it behind me. Years ago. I figured you had a one-night stand or something equally as insignificant. That’s what I told myself. I made it a nonissue because I didn’t want it to affect my love for Marin. And it never did. But seeing the drawing…that letter. It made it real. Makes him real.”
She closed her eyes. “Kip, I’m so sorry.”
Finally, he said, “We both made mistakes. I hope we can move on from them.”
Her heart soared. It was going to be all right. All of this happened for a reason, leading to that very moment. The marriage was not finished. It was at a point of renewal.
“Yes—yes. Of course we can.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” Kip said, smiling at her. “We need to be on good terms. For our own sake, but especially for Marin.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Rachel never thought she’d miss the days of her unrequited, lusting-from-afar feelings for Luke Duncan. Now, compared to her current hell, they seemed quaint and relatively joyful.
He’d called the house twice, but she refused to talk to him. Here was a guy who spent all summer blowing her off because she was too young for him and therefore couldn’t possibly have her shit together, and then he decides he wants her, sleeps with her, and his ex-girlfriend shows up the next morning? If she even was an ex. Would someone really just show up randomly like that? Did he expect Rachel to believe that? Clearly, he was the one who didn’t have his shit together.
“Have you seen my mother?” Marin walked into the kitchen wearing a decidedly unbeachy, distinctly non-Provincetown outfit of jeans, shoes rather than flip-flops or sneakers, and a button-down shirt.
“No, haven’t seen her.”
“So annoying. She was supposed to go with me to my doctor’s appointment this morning. If I wait any longer, I’m going to be late.”
“I’ll go with you,” Rachel said. She could use the distraction. Besides, they hadn’t talked much since Marin freaked out about the proposed dinner party at the house. It would be good for them to maybe reconnect.
“No, that’s okay. Thanks. I just…”