***
The owner’s suite was perfect. Rich in Devon charm with its custom wool carpets, blend of natural and painted wood, and rich leather accessories, it was done up in soothing shades of blue and tan, all of it warmly lit by lamps. Sofas and chairs were wool and chenille, a fine mix of plaids, solids, and stripes. The bathroom was marble, with a tub that was likely too deep for my mother to navigate, but there was also a stunningly oversized, glass-enclosed shower with a bench, hold bars, and a floor of embedded stones. And there were flowers—bud vases in the bathrooms, and in the living room and dining area, full arrangements of tulips to match the décor. Everywhere here, the smell was pine, much as Edward’s office had been—pine lotion, pine potpourri, pine candles, pine fragrance sticks.
She walked around at first, both for her hip’s sake and curiosity, and I let her tell me where to put her clothes, books, and medicine. After settling her on the sofa and ordering dinner from room service, I left herwith Liam. Now that the ice was broken, he seemed delighted to talk about what he’d been doing since leaving Connecticut.
Since I had no car here, Edward drove me home. I needed to pack enough for a few overnights, but, even more, I needed my pets. Bringing them here would have been upsetting for them, and besides, they were only part of the picture. I needed my hilly road, my house, my old life, because this one seemed to be growing more complex by the minute. Once we left the Inn, everything I had denied earlier rushed back.
The car was dark, the night even darker. A light drizzle was falling again, and between the darkness, the rain, and the confines of the Jeep, my worries had nowhere to go but back into the gathering swirl in my head. When Edward reached out a hand, I pulled it into my lap and held on tightly.
“Having second thoughts?” he asked.
I glanced his way. Spikes of hair, straight nose, neat beard—his profile was vague in the murk, but what I couldn’t physically see, my mind filled in. He was stability. I clung to that as I did to his hand and gave a mildly hysterical laugh. “About which part—bringing her here, meeting with Zwick, or consorting with you?”
“All of the above,” he said.
“All of the above,” I confirmed and let slip the noise in my head. “What if Mom hates it here? What if she finds she can’t stand seeing me after all? What if Grace is into something serious—I mean,reallyserious—like something that overshadows anything Chris might have done, so her life is at risk?”
“Do you think that?” he cut in.
“I don’t know, but what if something ticks off Shanahan, and he makes an issue of it, and my past comes out? What if Ben Zwick alreadyknowsmy past? And this meeting? What if Grace refuses to see him or storms out when she hears what he says and then hates me for setting her up? What if you’re pulled into it and the Inn suffers and your group votes you out? What ifmy probation is revoked?”
He was silent for so long that I wondered if he was having secondthoughts himself. But he didn’t pull his hand back. His fingers stayed around mine, tight as ever. We were turning onto Pepin Hill when he said, “I love you.”
“That is not the issue.”
“Do you love me?”
Though the forest cocooned us enough for the Jeep’s headlights to reflect off wet fronds, I couldn’t see his eyes, but I felt his presence keenly, just as I had this whole long day. If he hadn’t been with me, what I thought to be challenging would have been ten times more so. This was what he and I had.
“I’vealwaysloved you,” I admitted, “butthat is not the issue.”
“It is.”
I knew he was thinking that if we loved each other, we would get through whatever came our way. Only, we hadn’t after Lily died. We had failed spectacularly.
“The difference,” he finally said when he turned to me after parking at the house, “is that back then we got trampled by the outside world. We lost sight of what we wanted.”
“We wanted Lily,” I reminded him, feeling a visceral ache in my gut.
“We wanted each other first,” Edward countered. “Lily came from us, but if there hadn’t been a ‘we,’ she wouldn’t have existed at all.”
I killed her,I thought but knew not to say. Edward didn’t like that wording, and maybe he was right. Technically, I had been responsible for her death. But I hadn’t planned the accident. Had I seen it coming, I would have slammed on the brakes.
There was some consolation in finally accepting that. Still, a weight remained. “She was our child,” I said. “She didn’t ask to be born. We decided that.Wetook the responsibility.”
He brought my hand to his mouth, kissed it, and held it there. The whiskers above his lip chafed, then soothed. His breath was warm, his voice sad. “Some kids are born with medical conditions and die within hours. Some grow big enough to be riding their bikes on the sidewalk when a car jumps the curb. There’s no sense to any of these things—ormaybe there is. Maybe Lily wasn’t destined to live beyond five. Maybe she was a lesson we had to learn.”
That sounded merciless. Affronted, I asked, “What kind of lesson?”
“Humility. Vulnerability. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. My mother said that all through chemo.”
“Actually, chemo killed her.”
“Actually, cancer killed her, but maybe I didn’t take my part of the lesson to heart. As hard as my mother’s death was, Lily’s was ten times worse, ahundredtimes worse. I never expected to have to live through something like that. But I did. And it didn’t kill me. I’m here. And I have choices. I want to be better, Maggie. So yes. I’m trying to be stronger.”
The strength of his belief resonated in his voice, which seemed suddenly deeper and, in that, soothing. I couldn’t disagree with him, at least not entirely. Strength had been my major goal for the last five years—well, for four really, after that first year during which I’d been a hot mess. But weighing life lessons against cruelty was a toughie.
“When you talk about destiny, are you talking about God?” I asked.
