I was closing the box when Amelia walked into the library. I glanced down at my watch and was shocked to see that it was almost nine a.m.
“What are those?” she asked. Then she looked at the shelf. “They don’t bother me, Park. I swear they don’t. I understand needing to hold on to a memory. Hell, I’m living in mine.”
I smiled and pulled her to me. “I know. But, Amelia, I’m marrying the love of my life today. I just don’t need the journals anymore.” I kissed her gently.
Her eyes filled with tears, and I turned and placed the heavy box on the top shelf of the closet. She put her hands on her belly. “For the babies?”
I nodded.
“No,” she said, gesturing for me to take them down. She walked down the hall into the baby blue room overlooking the sound with the matching cribs in the window, the chaise in the corner, the antique chest with the changing table pad on the side, and a huge bookshelf that was already filled with books—some from our childhoods—for our babies to read.
Amelia pointed to the top empty bamboo shelf. She opened the box I was holding and pulled out a stack of journals. “They should go here,” she said. “I never want to hide Greer away. I never want you or the babies to feel like we can’t talk about her.”
When we were finished unpacking the box, I set it on the floor. I put my hand on a volume on the bookshelf, Greer’s second book, the hardback with her glossy picture—and her name in massive type—on the cover. I pulled it off the shelf and handed it to Amelia. “I don’t know how you did it,” I said.
She froze and said nothing.
It was then that I realized the irony: Amelia’s words had actually convinced me to ask her—a woman who insisted she didn’t want to get married—to marry me. But that seemed like a conversation for another day.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” I whispered.
She didn’t skip a beat. “She was trying to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
Amelia turned and looked out the window. I don’t know if she was deciding whether to tell me. But when she turned back she said, “She didn’t want you to know how far she had deteriorated. She didn’t want to admit to you that she couldn’t do something that used to be second nature.”
That did sound like that girl I loved. “Well, then why didn’t you tell me?”
She looked down toward her feet, obscured by her belly, and then back up at me, her eyes shining. “I was trying to protect you, too.”
I hadn’t been the only one preserving a perfect image of Greer; Amelia had been, too, in a way that was even bigger and must have been more difficult.
I pulled Amelia to me and kissed her. She was strong, that woman. Stronger than I was.
And that was when it all began to make sense. “I have a gift for you,” I said.
“For me?” she said coquettishly.
“It’s from Greer.”
Now she looked confused.
I motioned for her to follow me back to our bedroom, where I pulled the envelope out of the top drawer of my dresser and handed it to her.
As she opened it, her eyes filled with tears, and she put her hand to her mouth. “I loved this bracelet,” she whispered.
She studied it and then laughed. “She had it engraved.”
She handed me the bracelet and I read, “?‘ToNew York Timesbestselling author Amelia Saxton. All my love, GMT.’?”
I undid the clasp and put it on her arm.
“It feels right that I should be wearing this when we make it official.”
“You sure?” I asked.
She nodded.
