Perversely, I was pleased.
That said, when Nina took his arm and insisted on introducing him around, I felt relief.
As soon as he was gone, our huddle shifted. The husband left, two other women arrived, and even from those who hadn’t met Edward directly, there was a flurry ofHe’s awesome,andWould you believe those eyes,andGrace should be here just to see him.
“She has seen him,” I said. “Remember where she works?”
“Will he fire her?”
“No.”
“Then he doesn’t blame her for compromising the Spa network?”
“She didn’t. Her son is the one who’s charged.” Not quite able to use the nameNed,I hitched my head after Edward. “He knows that,” I added and quickly wished I hadn’t. Anyone listening could tell that he and I had talked about Grace, which we would never have done unless we were friends, or so it seemed to me.
The good news? No one noticed. The bad? We seemed to have rounded a corner, and the tone shifted. I wanted to say it was an offshoot of curiosity, and, okay, I was supersensitive to criticism in situations like this. But the innocentWhere is she?became the darkerWhere was she?And once aired, like the flu, it was contagious. This was on people’s minds, just as I’d known it would be. It was human nature to want to explain things, even to blame. The people here might be one step above, but they were human.
I excused myself to talk with friends from the pottery store, then a coven of writers. But I couldn’t escape it. Grace always returned. Where was she while her son was hacking into other people’s computers? Where was she when he was alone in his room? Didn’t she know what he did with his free time? Didn’t she ask?
We were eating by then, at times seated at long tables, at other times standing with plates in our hands. At least I didn’t have to worry aboutLiam. Or maybe I did. He was surrounded not only by people wanting seconds of his roll-ups but by more than one available sweet thing, and he was loving it. No way would he be leaving town after this.
Nor, I feared, would my ex. The new head of the Inn was an important figure in town, and Edward—think Ned, Maggie, think Ned—was a beacon. People sought him out, curious about his vision for the Inn, the town, even the house he had bought. He could have easily stayed off on his own with plenty of company.
But he kept returning to me. Like we were a couple. Like in spite of people wanting to get to know him, he was apart. It was something I felt more than saw—felt, because I kept remembering those damn tears and knowing I had never fully considered the fallout of Lily’s death on him. My own pain had been too great to allow for his. So now, here we were. Call it guilt. Call it atonement. However misguided his move here had been, he had abandoned old friends and didn’t yet have new ones. Like advising him on who should renovate his home, I could help him with this.
Not that it was hard. Not that he couldn’t comfortably converse with these people. Not that I didn’t appreciate the admiring glances sent his way and feel just a little bit of pride that he chose to stand by me.
Nina noticed. When he left to replenish drinks, she said, “He likes you.” Her voice held an edge. She was nervous about the upcoming meeting, but I couldn’t tell if there was more. Edward had suggested jealousy. If so, it was misplaced.
“No,” I assured, “he just knows me from the Inn. I’m a familiar face in a sea of unfamiliar ones.”
But Jessa, too, noticed his attentiveness. She and her husband had joined us right before Edward set off, and she waited only until her husband was distracted talking with the head of Fish and Game, also in our current circle, before leaning close to me. “Is something going on between you and the Inn guy?”
I rolled my eyes, like the question was tiresome. “I work for him. He’s paying me.” In the broadest sense, it was true. Beyond that, I was only avehicle, helping him break into Devon. Given our past, I could never be anything more.
And ofcoursethat saddened me. Hell, I was human, too. I had loved Edward through our marriage and could argue that I agreed to the divorce for that reason. I had become convinced that being apart was the only way we could survive. Divorce was the humane escape.
Still, my heart ached as I watched him pass out soft drinks and a plate of the Inn’s signature chocolate chip cookies, like the host he had been when we entertained at our home. He might not have helped with the cooking, but he had always taken charge of wine, flowers, and—oh God, how could I have forgotten—thegrill.All those cookouts, with or without friends, and manning the grill was his thing. He might not buy, season, or garnish the steak, but he did like his grill tools.
I hadn’t thought about this in years. I hadn’t allowed myself to. But a window had opened, lowering my defenses, so I was overly sensitive when, even with half-eaten cookies in hand, there was one more remark about Grace not seeing, knowing, stopping.
“Does any mother know everything her child is doing?” I replied with more bite than was necessary, because though I was holding a cookie in my own hand, though chocolate chip ones were my all-time favorite, and though this one was nearly as good as those my mother’s bakery sold, my mind was still on cookouts at Edward’s and my house. This time, I recalled being in the kitchen, slicing sweet peppers for him to grill, while upstairs and out of my sight, Lily used colored markers to decorate the walls of her bedroom, the hall, and the stairs leading down.
She was three. This was what three-year-olds did. But a dozen guests were arriving within the hour, so my first response was to panic. That was followed in succession by anger, frustration, and, finally, humor. Lily, even at three, could draw. As self-portraits went, hers was unbelievable. I had actually taken a picture. It was one of the items in my green velvet box. Not that I needed a refresher. The image was so vivid, even these seven years later, that my chest started to seize.
Edward touched my back just lightly enough, just briefly enough tohelp me breathe again. I was vaguely aware of responses, though truly more focused on regaining balance. And I might have done it, if someone hadn’t used the worddistracted.
“Okay,” I said, letting my hand drop, cookie forsaken, “I’m really uncomfortable talking about this. Are any of us perfect? I mean, take any mother with her kids in the car. She looks away from the road to shoot a quick text to her husband to say she’s running late, or to fiddle with Spotify, or to pass a snack back to the kids. One second, and, if another car suddenly comes from the side, there’s an accident.”
“Grace had more than a second,” said one of several men with us then. “It took time for Chris to plan this.”
“Ifhe did it,” I argued, “because we don’t know for sure. Hacking isn’t hard. There are other kids in town who could have done it and made it look like it was Chris. We haven’t seen evidence, and I know that’s for the trial”—I interrupted myself, needing to preclude that particular point—“but even if it was Chris, he’s fifteen, for God’s sake, which in some countries is old enough to be independent and leave home and even have kids, and as for Grace, she’s done good for lots of us, so hasn’t she earned the benefit of the doubt? Andbesides,” I ranted on, “maybe we shouldn’t be talking about her, because I’m not sure any of us is any better, and if you think she’s feeling good about all this, think again. Mothers blame themselves”—I thumped my chest—“like the buck stops here when it comes to responsibility.”
Feeling that large hand on my back again, I sucked in a breath. Only then seeing the startled looks around me and feeling appalled, I lengthened my second breath and managed a sheepish smile. “Sorry. Grace is my friend.” I did believe she hadn’t known what her son was doing, any more than I had known about theSTOPsign hidden in a swarm of red oak leaves. But we both felt responsibility. I always would.
A tall beanpole of a man ambled up, and Edward quickly bent toward me. “Is that who I think it is?” He was a reader, so was clearly excited. Me, I welcomed the diversion. David Isenschmidt could be entertaining, in his gawky way.
The world knew him as Dylan Ivory. After years working with a hugely successful mystery writer, he was now writing on his own. He had just returned from a publicity tour that had included appearances on the biggest of the big talk shows, and, after I introduced Edward, who had read his two latest, they began talking books. Suddenly, though, the author looked at me.
