“Yet you want to change it with your development,” she pointed out, unable to stop herself but trying to keep the accusation from her voice.
“I thought I was helping,” he said simply. “Bringing jobs, progress. But maybe I was still just trying to prove something.” He looked directly at her. “Beverly, if I’d known you never got that letter…”
She waited, her heart beating faster.
“What would you have done if you had received it?” he asked instead.
She looked down at her barely touched cake. “I would have written back,” she admitted. “I was hurt and angry when you didn’t show up, but if I’d known why… yes, I would have written.”
“And I would have come back for you,” he said softly. “Eventually. When I had something to offer.”
The finality of might-have-beens settled over them, and the decades of separate lives that might have been shared.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Cliff admitted. “But I’m glad you came to find me today. Glad we finally know the truth.”
“I am too.”
“Can I ask you something?” Cliff looked directly into her eyes.
“Of course.”
“How do you feel about me now?”
She paused, considering her words. “I’m… I’m really not sure. I’ve had years of, um, disliking you strongly.”
“I’m sure you did. I’m sorry you didn’t at least get my letter.”
“That’s not your fault.”
“No, but I should have come to find you before I left. Not just left the letter.” He frowned. “I was just so… hurt by my father’s words.”
“There are many things I wish had gone differently, but we can’t change the past.”
“No, we can’t.” He reached over and took her hand. “Do you think we can go back to being friends? I’ve missed you.”
She looked down at their hands, entangled again after all these years. “Yes, I think we can be friends. That’s a good place to start.”
Chapter 20
Maxine came behind the counter where Beverly was rolling silverware into napkin rolls. She playfully bumped Beverly’s shoulder. “Just saw Cliff leave. Looks like it’s becoming a daily habit for him to come in for breakfast. He’s been in every single day this week.”
“Oh, has he? I hadn’t noticed.” She tried to look innocent. Or believable. But her friend was having none of it.
Maxine rolled her eyes. “And he comes at the end of the breakfast rush so you’ll have time to sit and have a cup of coffee with him.”
“Okay, yes, he does.”
She watched Maxine’s knowing smile with a mixture of amusement and mild embarrassment. She couldn’t deny it anymore—she and Cliff had fallen into a comfortable routine over the past week. Every morning after the breakfast rush, he’d come in, they’d share coffee, and talk about everything from town gossip to their shared memories.
“And because I know you’ll find out anyway, we had dinner at Sharky’s last night. But we’re just friends.”
Maxine had begun to warm up to Cliff now, ever since Beverly told her all about what had happened the night Cliff left and the letter she’d never received. That conversation had been emotional—Maxine listening with wide eyes as she explained about Theodore’s interference and how Eleanor had found the letter.
“I’m just glad you two are talking,” Maxine said, grabbing a stack of napkins to help. “The way you used to glare at him when he walked in here, I thought the coffee might curdle.”
She laughed. “I wasn’t that bad.”
