I also did fear that when the next crisis arose, whether having to do with my mother, with Grace, or with something completely different, we might botch it again.
That raised the stakes.
23
As Edward and I talked it through, I realized that getting Grace to the meeting with Ben Zwick might be the easy part. Her last appointment on Sunday was a fifty-minute massage that ended shortly before four. In advance, Edward would leave a handwritten note at the Spa asking her to drop by his office when it was done. “Drop by” was casual, and something handwritten was less of a threat. Even then, our plan assumed that I would be talking with her beforehand, because Grace would likely assume he was planning to fire her. I could assure her he was not. I could even tell her that he had invited me to his office at four, too, which wasn’t the whole truth, but would work.
So no, I wasn’t worried about getting her there. Keeping her there once she saw Ben Zwick might be something else. She could be impulsive. And headstrong?Totally.I would have worried more—might have agonized that she would see my part in this as a betrayal—might have done something rash, like beg her to tell me about her past then and there, or makemy case beforehand that she should hear Zwick out, or even enlist Jay to help—if I hadn’t been preoccupied with Margaret.
Back at the Inn Friday night, I didn’t sleep well, and not because of texting with Edward, though that went on for a while. After cementing a plan for Grace, we talked about ourselves—where each of us was physically and what we were doing, where each of uswantedto be and to do. Our tears had been cleansing. I felt closer to him than ever. I wanted him in my bed right now, and yes, I wanted sex.
But my mother was in the very next room—mymother,with whom my reconciliation was fragile and new. Lying awake in the dark, where things were always ten times worse, every possible glitch crossed my mind. For starters, I realized that Grace wasn’t the only one who would be working this weekend; I had to work, too, and while Ronan Dineen might be willing to sub again, he wouldn’t do it both days. And what about next week? I couldn’t leave Margaret alone for hours on end. I could be with her between appointments, but how would she feel about my running in and out? Or about waking up in a strange place and realizing that she didn’t know anything about it, or even about me? And how would she feel physically? There was the chance that when she woke up in the morning, her hip might be worse because of the drive, that we would have to rush to see the doctor Joe Hellinger had contacted, or that she would spike a fever and we would end up in the ER, all because I had insisted she leave her own home.
So I huddled between the soft white sheets that covered the pillow-top on the gorgeous big bed in my pine-scented room, and listened for sounds from hers. At one point, I crept across the hall and cracked open the door, needing to hear her breathe so that I would know she was actually there.
Naturally, in the dark where thoughts loomed, I thought of mothers and daughters—specifically, whether a mother was still a mother if her child died, which was my version of what Margaret had asked in Connecticut.
For the first time, I had an answer, because despite having been a hair’s breadth from Lily’s ashes, she felt more alive to me than ever. She waswith me as I stood at Mom’s door, pressed to my hip with her arms around my waist, just like she used to do. She was five, would always be five, and while that fact should have crushed me, it no longer did. The time I’d spent with Edward tonight had changed me. I accepted that she was gone—acceptance being different from simple admission. I found a peace in her presence now that I hadn’t felt since her death. She was in my thoughts. No one could take her away ever again.
Secure in that knowledge, I finally fell into a dead sleep and awoke with a jolt as daylight ghosted through the drapes. But how to confuse my home bedroom with a room at the Inn? My watch said seven, which was later than I’d planned. Bolting up, I went for my mother.
She was already in the living room. Wearing an Inn robe and slippers, she had a hint of natural color on her cheeks. If the trip had set her back, it didn’t show. She was typing on her laptop, but stopped, hands suspended, when she saw me.
She didn’t smile. But neither did I. Being here together, after all this time and all that had come between us, was awkward. We were feeling our way along.
“How’d you sleep?” I asked.
She put her hands in her lap. “Very well, thank you. It’s a beautiful bed.” Her gaze circled. “A beautiful suite. Too generous of Edward.” Before I could argue, her eyes were on me, speaking in advance of the words. “You look more like you now.”
I’m sure I did to her. “You’re the first person here to see me like this.” Well, except for Liam now, but he didn’t count.
“I like it.”
I snorted. “No one else would. One look at my scar, and they’d run in the other direction.”
“They would, or you would?” my mother asked. And hadn’t she hitthatnail on the head? I was going back and forth, totally unsure, when she said, “It’s faded.”
“I see it every morning. I need to. Sometimes life here is too comfortable, y’know?”
My mother didn’t answer at first. Her eyes, such a fragile green, grew puzzled. “Is that wrong?” she finally asked. “To find happiness?”
Two soul-searching questions at seven in the morning was too much. Honesty was super when you knew what to say, which just then I did not. Thanks to Edward—and yes, to my mother—I had come a long way in the guilt department, but that didn’t mean I was completely free.
“First, how does your hip feel?”
“Sore, but not enough to take a pill.”
She had been typing with both hands. I eyed the left one, which lay still now.
She turned the cast over and back. “It’s fine.” As if to demonstrate, she reached for the nearby teacup and held it with the fingers of both hands.
“Oh, good. You got tea.” I was relieved to see the top of the walker behind the sofa. I didn’t care if she hid it, as long as she used it when she was alone.
“And I took a shower,” she said with some defiance. “They told me to wait until the stitches came out, but it’s been over a week, and I felt disgusting.”
I had to smile. “You weren’t.”
“Well, I feel better now.” Her face gentled some. It struck me that she, too, may have had her moments in the dark last night, imagining all sorts of negatives about coming here. “The flowers are beautiful,” she remarked and, lingering on the nearest tulips, said, “I thought you’d be up before me. You always were.”
