And she said, “I know. But the company will go under if we don’t get help, and then where will the two of you be? We’ll have to sell Golden Doors and maybe even the New York house. And you’ll be poor and he’ll resent you and all our employees will be out of a job and the Barbanels will be done. So I’m asking you not to marry him.”
And the thing is, Ned—she’s the closest thing I have to a mother.
The page ended. I looked up at Edward. “That’s it?”
“Another page or two, but this is the important part. My mother asked her not to marry me. So Ruth decided not to.”
“She must have loved your mom a lot,” I said slowly.
He nodded. “I never understood. Or maybe I did, intellectually, but I never would have chosen my parents’ wishes over my own. I wouldn’t have put the family first the way she did.”
What would I do? If my mom asked me not to marry someone I loved? I wanted to say I would stick to my gut, but—mymom. If she asked me, she would have a reason. And my mom had put her everything into raising me. I owed her everything.
I cleared my throat. “So my grandmother gave you the necklace—but why didn’t you give it back?”
He stirred his tea. “Because I was foolish, and stubborn, and hopeful. I didn’t believe she’d leave the necklace behind. I thought if I had it, she’dhaveto come talk to me. I’d be able to make her change her mind.”
“But she didn’t?”
“No.”
Oh.“Then—then what? You decided to go along with her plan and marry Helen?”
He nodded, not looking at me.
Poor Helen.“Why didn’t you send the necklace back to my grandmother, then?”
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I like to think I might have, if she’d ever asked again. But she didn’t. I guess... I thought if I still had the necklace, she might someday be forced to talk to me.”
But she never had. Why not? Had she just decided to cut her losses? Had she been too angry? Had she already been swept away by my grandpa?
Too late to find out the answer.
“And you gave it to your wife,” I said. “Why?”
He met my eyes, his own sad and calm. “I don’t know.”
What an unsatisfactory answer. But then again, maybe I could answer my question myself—anger, revenge, nothing pretty to own up to. I’d thought people grew up once they became adults, but maybe no one ever really grew up. Maybe people were always capable of being petty and cruel, even people with all the power in the world.
But maybe they were also capable of changing.
“I’m sorry,” Edward Barbanel said. “I came by to tell you, to apologize. I was wrong to keep the necklace; wrong to give it to Helen. Itwas unkind to both women. I’m glad you have it back now, even if I didn’t make it easy.” He hesitated. “I hope you won’t take it out too hard on Noah. He tries to do the right thing. More than I ever did. But he’s young, and young people make mistakes. What matters is how they handle them afterwards.”
After Edward Barbanel left, I stared up at the slowly moving ceiling fan. O’ma had chosen her mother over Edward. He hadn’t chosen money over love; she had chosen being a daughter over being a lover.
Why were there so many choices in life? Why couldn’t things be easy, one simple current carrying us along to our destination? But there were so many branches, so many opportunities to mess up or upset people.
Noah had chosen his family over me, and even though his choice had made me feel like he didn’t trust me, I understood why he’d done it, why he hadn’t known what to protect, his family or our trust.
Should I apologize for pushing him away? Should he apologize for keeping a secret? Should we both apologize for everything? If we both stood by our stances—mine being a relationship needed honesty, his being he’d been right to protect his family’s privacy—did it make us incompatible?
I had no idea. All I knew was I missed him like a phantom limb. I wanted to text him desperately.
But what good would getting back in touch do? He had lied to me. He’d said I was overreacting, though it had been my grandmother’s necklace and he’d known and this would never work, so why bother trying? How could I trust him again? How did you let go of something so painful? Even if you wanted to, how did you actually do it?
And he was gone to college, and of course a relationship between us wouldn’t work in the long run. Wasn’t this better, this clean break? So what if wedidwork out our differences—what if we gave us a second go? Then what? Then we were in a long-distance relationship and time and space would break our hearts all over again.
No. There were too many arguments against trying to get back together. It was smarter not to. Maybe this was why O’ma had avoided seeing Edward again: Because she knew if she saw him, it would be too hard not to be drawn back together. And then it would be even harder to separate, which she knew would happen in the end.
