“About what?”
She shakes her head, struggling to bite back her tears. “That Grandpa was probably mad that I’d bring up Dad to him.”
“He wasn’t mad.”
“Then why did he get off the phone so quickly?”
She looks away from me, the tears spilling out, no matter how she is trying to stop them.
All of it is catching up to her at once: her sadness that she is without Nicholas now, her incredible sadness that he isn’t here to hold her close to him and tell her that it’s okay between them. That, with their kind of love, it’s forever okay.
“Bailey,” I say. “Nicholas was never, not for a moment of his life, anything but totally in love with you. Don’t spend a second worrying about that.”
“I just don’t know why I had to bring him up.”
“Because your father is who you always want to bring up. Me too.” I shrug. “That’s love.”
“But why aren’tyoumad?”
I look at her, confused. “At Nicholas?”
“At Dad,” she says. “I mean, I know we’ve talked about all of this. But how does it not catch up to you? Like, here we are again, and you just don’t seem mad that he…”
“Put us in this position?”
She nods.
I hold her eyes. Those beautiful eyes, bright with tears.
I want to tell her that getting mad isn’t going to get me anywhere that I want to be, but that’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is closer to this: Being mad at someone is almost a luxury. It means they are there to hear it. What I am, still, is figuring out if that’s a luxury we’re going to have. What we are both doing now is figuring out if that is something we get to hope for.
I reach over, wipe away her tears.
“The thing is…” I say. “I know your father. And I’m guessingthat being hard on him is a waste of time, considering how hard he is probably still being on himself.”
“So… you’re not mad?”
I think of Owen, in front of me twenty-four hours before. What was living there underneath my happiness at seeing him last night? What was living beneath my confusion as to what he was doing there? Was it anger?
No. It was more like something else. Something like hope that there would be a time where he’d be safely in front of me—and that would get to be the work between us again. What it means to forgive.
“No,” I said. “Not mad. Not just yet.”
The Middle of the Night Tells a Different Story
After Bailey falls asleep, I crawl out of bed and walk out to the terrace off the bedroom. I close the glass door quietly, careful not to wake her.
Across the way, I see the main house. All the lights are now off. Everyone in there is asleep for the night. The landscape of this estate—this gorgeous, endless acreage—silent except for the trees and the soft nighttime breeze. The mountain air fresh and unburdened.
I lean against the railing, the chill rising on my arms. I push up against that air, let it steady me, trying to help it pull down the tired. I’m so very tired at the same time that I know sleep isn’t in the cards for me, not tonight. Not with everything moving through my mind about what is coming next.
I brace myself as I pull out my phone, click on CNN’s latest news. I scan their home page for more updates about Nicholas Bell’s passing. I’m waiting for a journalist to make the connection to Owen: for the doorman at Nicholas’s building to report that Owen was there last night, or for one of their crime experts to come forward and drudge up the history between Owen and Nicholas, the history that sent Nicholas to jail—when Owen turned state’s evidence.
But there’s nothing about Owen. I have to search to even find anything about Nicholas. Other events are taking over the headlines and breaking news chyrons, taking over the social media gawking.There’s a plane crash in Reno; a celebrity divorce; a beloved rock band announcing a new US tour schedule.
Nicholas, just like that, already (and quite literally) yesterday’s news. The twenty-four-hour news cycle seemingly done with him entirely. The incendiary headlines are done with him before they even pulled Owen into it.
I feel a moment of relief, but before I can even breathe into it, I feel something else. I feel it in the quiet.
