Grinning, she faces Jack again.
I’m thinking that my daughter has manipulated him into a corner, when he turns to me in frustration. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
“No,” I reply with a smile. I’m about to say something like,You handled that well,which wouldn’t have been the smartest thing for me to do, when, in a perfectly-timed distraction, my phone rings.
Paul Schuster,says the screen, and something tightens in the pit of my stomach. Where unfinished business is concerned, Paul is right up there. I need to tell my sisters about him. I need to tell Joy.
But not now. Until I come to terms myself with who he is—with whoIam—Paul is off-limits to the others.
I hold up a palm to my daughter, warning her to respect Jack. Then I point to the phone and head away from the group on the sand.
Chapter 27
Slowed by indecision, I stare at the screen as I walk through the sand toward the stairs. I’m certainly calmer than I was at the cemetery, but Paul’s confession remains hard to grasp. Having made tough decisions about my own child, I understand that he did what he thought was right. And then there’s the matter of a co-parent. I had the advantage of making decisions myself; Paul did not. My mother had a say. I could be angry at her, but she is dead. And Dad is dead. And here we are, just Paul and me.
I don’t know what my relationship with him is supposed to be. Don’t know where it is headed. Don’t even know whatnameto use when I think of him.
After a last few seconds of hesitancy, I click in with a simple, “Hey.”
Silence greets me, and for a split second, I wonder if I’m too late. But no, he hasn’t hung up. I can sense him on the line.
Finally, tentatively, he says, “Are you all right?”
Am I all right? Ofcourse,I’m not alright. I have a slew of challenges lying in wait.
But that’s the big picture. The small one—the one involving just Paul and me—has changed in this very instant. It feels more defined now that we’re on the phone, as if the hardest thing was reconnecting after I walked away. The fact that he has called me, rather than the other way around, feels like caring. It feels like a cushion that will make things a little more comfortable as we work out what’s to come.
“I’m fine,” I say with a sigh. Having reached the beach stairs, I lean against the wood rail. Paul is, after all, the answer to a question that has haunted me for so long. Not the answer I expected. Still, an answer. “I just needed a little time.” I gulp in a breath. “About the things I said—”
“I understand your shock,” he interrupts. “I understand your disappointment, even your anger.” His voice gentles. “But I don’t want to lose you, Mallory. I’ve waited a long time to tell you all this.”
I swallow and say, “Yes.” I don’t say,You might have told me sooner,because that is water over the dam. A peacemaker doesn’t rehash the past but tries to move on.
It strikes me that if all of what Paul has said is true with regard to his relationship with both my mother and my father, he may be a peacemaker as well. That doesn’t forgive him the deception, simply softens it.
“You’ll have questions about your mother and me.”
I do. But face-to-face seems better than the phone. “Where are you?”
“Look up.”
There he is, standing on the bluff a short distance from the stairs. His suit jacket is gone, sleeves rolled in a way that suggests he is ready to work on what exists between us. And with that thought, I’m intimidated all over again. Yes, intimidated. I may not have identified it as such at the cemetery, but this man played a major role in creating me, which is an intimidating idea in and of itself. Add thefact that I can’t seem to break the lock of our eyes, and I definitely feel… lesser.
I need moral support. And why not Jack? He has questions for this man, too. If Paul is willing to answer them, if he trusts me enough to trust Jack and give us answers we both need, he will have passed a test of sorts.
“Be right up,” I say, but the instant I break the phone connection with him, I head back across the sand, open Margo’s text, and reply,You all take the house. Joy and I will stay at Jack’s.
The man himself is still talking with the three on the sand, but he is on his haunches now, scrubbing his dog’s chest. When he glances my way, I wave him over. He says something to Joy before leaving, and since Guy is still wrapped around her wrist, I assume he has okayed it. By way of confirmation, she sends me a thumbs-up.
Jack reaches me with his head vaguely cocked. I can’t see his eyes through his sunglasses, but the crease between them is shallow. He is curious is all.
“Paul’s up there on the bluff,” I say with the tiniest hitch of my head behind and up. “Let’s ask him about Elizabeth.”
He glances at Paul, then returns to me with a disbelieving snicker. “Now? Don’t you want to talk about the other?”
“I need time to take it in. This will buy me a little. Please, Jack? He owes me this.” My phone dings. It’s Margo.
That’s a statement,she texts.Where are you?
