We would sit beside one another at the piano, learning new songs together. Perfecting them.
She couldn’t love my father enough not to cheat on him, but her heart loved music so much that she could play a piece by Mozart in her sleep.
“You’d both love Tate,” I murmur, sighing deeply as I bend to straighten a wilting flower that’s been planted. But it’s not wilting, it’s broken. The stem has severed and comes away between my fingers.
“Sinclair said you never come here.”
I turn at the familiar voice, meeting Uncle Mal’s saddened gaze as it lifts from the broken stem in my hand.
“As far as she’s aware, I don’t.” I look back at the delicatewhite rose, running my nail up one of its thorns. One prick and I’d bleed. Just like Tate did that day in my office.
The day I freaked out thinking she was in physical danger.
But physical pain isn’t the only one a person can endure. And sometimes it’s the wounds we don’t see that are the ones that never heal.
And it’s exactly the type of wounds I fear I’m exposing Tate to more with each passing day.
“I’d prefer if Sinclair continues to think that way,” I say, standing and turning to my uncle. “I promised her when they died that I’d hold things together for us... And now we know about…” I swallow. Something another model said to Sinclair caused her to want her necklace tested. The necklace I made for her. The one that I thought had my brother inside it. The one that turned out to have ashes in it that didn’t belong to him.
“Now we know her necklace isn’t… I don’t want her having any more reasons to think about that day.” I grimace.
He nods in understanding, walking to my side and stooping to place a single flower on each of their graves, before gathering up two almost identical ones that can’t be more than a few days old.
“Grief isn’t a weakness, Sullivan,” he says with a deep sigh as he stands and looks at both headstones in turn. “It’s a sign of how much they were loved.”
I press my lips together, every inch of my windpipe burning, all the way from my stomach to my throat as we stand in silence for a few minutes, both prisoners to our own thoughts.
“I’ve met someone,” I say, the words piercing my lips like daggers as I allow them out into the world.
Uncle Mal doesn’t look surprised. He looks sad. Remorseful.Pitying.
“I see.” He inhales slowly, before letting it out.
“Tate…” I wince as I say her name, here of all places, in front of their graves. “She doesn’t know what happened. She can’t ever know.”
The look of grief that pulls at his face, drawing it down and deepening every crease and shadow, matches how I feel inside.
“I’m lying to her.”
He doesn’t say anything. Just jerks his chin in acknowledgment.
What is there to say?
Tate doesn’t know the truth about my family.
We’re The Beauforts.
No one knows the real us.
“I’m sorry, Sull,” Uncle Mal says, patting me on the shoulder.
I press my lips together, not trusting myself to speak.
“I’ll see you before I leave, okay?”
Mal’s stayed in New York longer than usual, knowing Neil was here. But after some careful surveillance, Neil’s no longer deemed a threat. Denver and the team have uncovered his plans to move to Chicago to be near his brother. He’ll be gone in a matter of days, where they’ll still have eyes on him. But they doubt he’ll be back. And Mal’s needed in Botswana again.
I clear my throat and nod. “Okay.”
